Nothing signifies a child being on the way to being "grown up" like moving to Middle School. But the transition brings questions and anxieties for kids and adults alike.
As a middle school counselor, I have worked with hundreds of kids making the transition from 5th graders to middle schoolers. Used to being large and in charge, they arrive at our school as wide-eyed babies, eager to join the grown up world they imagine exists within our walls. They arrive with equal parts excitement and fear, because they have heard horror stories, mostly from older siblings or neighborhood kids, about what lies ahead. The stories always sound the same: they tell them the teachers are all mean, they tell them they will get five hours of homework a night, they tell them they will get shoved into lockers by older kids. Whatever the source of the stories, they serve their purpose: the kids start getting nervous about middle school as soon as the flowers start to bloom in spring of their fifth grade year.
In ten years, I've found that the worries of most kids boil down to a few common themes: Acclimating to the environment (getting lost, opening lockers, handlng the workload) and acclimating to new people (getting along with teachers and bullying). If you know a pre-teen about to embark on this great life adventure, you might want to check out Top Stresses for Middle Schoolers. I've addressed these common concerns, and also included some ideas for how to talk to teens reassuringly about them. Hopefully, by getting some of these fears out into the open, kids can look forward to September with excitement rather than trepidation.
