Middle Schoolers Are an Easy Punchline

Tweens need to hear they are lovable AND likable

My tween and I have a new weekend ritual: listening to the NPR game show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” on WBUR.

It’s newsy, a little nerdy, and it appeals to my kid’s increasingly sophisticated sense of humor. Leveling up the shows we can enjoy together is an awesome perk of having a middle schooler. 

This week, a call-in guest introduced herself as a “middle school teacher on maternity leave.” I knew what was coming. The host joked that he was “amazed” that someone could spend “so much time around children of that particular age and then end up wanting one for themselves.” He added, “You’ve got about 12 good years before they go bad.”

Middle schoolers are such an easy punchline.

I spent over a decade teaching this age group. Middle school teachers are often described as saints or masochists, so I developed a pithy response for the deli clerks, doctors, and distant relatives who offered me their sympathies:  “Well, it’s an easier age to teach than it is to be.”

If the conversation went deeper, I’d offer my theory that most of us bring our own outsized emotional memories of middle school to the conversation. The strangers who offered me pity didn’t dislike actual, current middle schoolers; they disliked our own memories of those years. As one sales clerk told me: “Middle schoolers scare me because those were the worst years of my life.”

I hear this same trepidation from parents of elementary-age students. We joke about what’s coming with an element of impending doom. Sometimes –  okay, often – our kids overhear this.

I could talk for hours about the stunning social, emotional, and cognitive changes that take place in these years, about the brain’s second growth spurt, about how it’s their job to let go of childhood, and about how hard that transition can be for them and for us.

But really I just want to say this to parents:

Kids this age need to know they are loveable. But they also need to know they are likable. I was a successful middle school teacher for pretty much one reason —I really enjoyed these students, and they could tell.

So when we are dealing with our tweens’ shifting personas, brilliant-and-brazen insights, new fascinations, and emotional tumult, we can whisper to ourselves, “Remember, it’s an easier age to parent than it is to be.”  And then we can find ways to say (or text or let them overhear us tell someone else) some variation of:

I really like hanging out with you. 

You have amazing ideas. 

I loved you when you were little, and I love you even more now. 

You are such good company.

I love the person you are becoming. 

I’m so lucky to be your parent. 

They may roll their eyes. They may slam a door. They may hug us or tease us or ignore us or challenge us or engage us. But as an educator, I’ve heard your kids talk about you: they really want you to like them, even when their behavior says otherwise.

After hearing the “Wait, Wait” joke, my kid responded in mock indignation, “How rude!”

“And unfair,” I said. “I mean, look at you. I’ve never had more fun being your mom.”

And then my brilliant tween, speaking for this misunderstood demographic, said: “Why thank you! I am pretty amazing.”

Cheers,

Deborah

Deborah Farmer Kris * www.parenthood365.com * twitter.com/dfkris

P.S. If you liked this, you might also enjoy my interviews with two people who also adore this age group — and know how to support middle schoolers: Katie Hurley and Phyllis Fagell

• Listen and Connect: How Parents Can Support Teens’ Mental Health

• How Parents Can Help Middle Schoolers Build Confidence and Character