Back-to-school Transitions
Dr. A,
What can I do as a parent to help my daughter make a smooth transition from elementary school into middle school?
First, the beginning of each new year in education is an important transition for every child since it involves adjustment to increasingly higher academic expectations, adapting to new styles of teaching, and changes within overall learning environments. Coupled with the cognitive and personal development unique to each child, there is no one formula which guarantees a smooth transition and sustained school success for all students. Even in families with two or more children living in the same home and from the same gene pool, each child will transition "differently" along the same grade level progressions.
Generally, most educators with pre-K through 12th grade experience will often agree that the most difficult grade level transitions for most children are third, sixth, and ninth grades. When students begin the third grade, they leave the K-2 warm and fuzzy thematic curriculum where learning really is based on creativity, fun, and play. The third grade is when students first encounter demarcated subject areas requiring higher order and more abstract thinking skills. Some will experience first semester C's and D's even if they had all S's (satisfactory) in the K-2 grades.
Since you asked about middle school transition at the sixth grade level, my opinion is that this may be the most difficult of all adjustments for both parents and students. Developmentally, children are biologically transitioning into young adults which involves hormonal mood swings, irritability (they don't even like themselves on some days), and an edge on their overall attitude. Parents often wonder at their fairly compliant, wanting-to-please child of nine or 10 who has now morphed into a kid who wants to make an issue of every directive and insists on a leave-me-alone privacy policy (except for food, water, shelter, and money). They become desirous of a life of complete freedom without cumbersome rules or responsible accountability. Welcome to the world of adolescence!
The best way to ensure a smooth transition to any grade level is to have had a home structure (boundaries and parameters of behavior) which functions on a predictable routine, accepted parental authority, and reasonable and fair expectations for chores and other responsibilities. There also needs to be a consistently applied range of age-appropriate consequences for disobedience, disrespect, and disruptive or obnoxious behaviors. Your collaborative and unified leadership styles as parents must have been compassionate, understanding, and consistent over the years since the birth of each child. Parenting through personal example is crucial as children learn more from what you do than what you say. Homes which have parents who care enough to discipline, develop children with a strong sense of inner security, courage, perseverance, compassion, self-respect, and confidence while also developing each child's unique identity. Most students in the middle grades are understandably testing the limits of adult authority as well as validating the trust of adult authenticity.
In this regard, be friendly but not their friend because they have plenty of those. Sometimes, you simply have to become a gorilla because children have to understand that you are in charge while also being willing to listen to their debates after directives are obeyed. You should always love your children unconditionally and treat them with respect (even when they don't deserve it) because you are the adult with the maturity of self-control. Always trust them until proven wrong by their actions while simultaneously keeping the reins of supervision tight and the lines of communication open. Though you'll always love them, you don't have to always like them. It is crucial that you be the example of what you want your children to become. With this kind of parenting, your children will have developed positive character traits, the ability to think for themselves, and the practice of using good judgment based on family and religious values. They will become who they are meant to be instead of following negative groups of students who appear to be cool.
