Middle School and Girls…
Having a tween daughter leaving the 5th grade and heading into middle school can be incredibly nerve wracking. Not only have the days of one single classroom teacher and recess come to an end, so have many other things your daughter was doing differently in Elementary School than she will now be embarking on in Middle School.
The moment that the fun and excitement of having a locker for the first time comes to a halt as she reaches the painful realization that 4 minutes to go from one class to the next and get ALL THE WAY to her locker is impossible, might be one of the first clues that middle school is not all that fabulous after all. You may want to have yourself a nice bedroom closet scream, cry or both about spending 2 hours on back to school night teaching her how to dial in a locker combination and setting it up for her with all those cute little decorations and shelving units that cost $300. I have sent 2 daughters through Middle School and still haven’t decided if the Administration actually understands the time delima or if they are just trying to survive Middle School too… Needless to say its a right of passage I suppose. To those of you out there just about to embark on this stage of life, I know what your thinking “what is this person talking about, lockers, combinations, recess… sounds like way to much going on, it cannot really be that bad”.
Having had now 2 daughters go through Middle School gives me a different perspective on the beginning of it vs. the end of it. While at first she stays your sweet little princess, a change will occur. You will look back and attempt to navigate when and how this change happened. You may even look through your camera roll and have flashbacks of her cute little cheeks, braces and pigtails. She probably looked tiny walking into the building on the first day of 6th grade , and oh so different walking in on the first day of 8th grade, now she’s a foot taller and quite a bit more matured. She will go from needing your help in the mornings doing her hair and picking out outfits and making her a lunch to picking out her own outfits and doing her own hair (adding in makeup) and telling you how everything you did was wrong.
Now I will say that while most girls fall into this category, its not a one size fits all situation. Some girls start their periods really early while still in Elementary School, some girls don’t start their periods until further on into High School. This will play an important role on their overall emotional rollercoaster. One day they are perfectly fine, want to cuddle up and watch movies with you, the next day they are crying about everything, one wrong word from you and the explosions go off. The best advice here is YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Everyone raising a daughter questions their own sanity at some point during Middle School. Even if your girlfriends don’t talk about it, its happening to them too. Normalizing the transition from childhood to teenagehood has a positive impact on the future relationship you will have with your daughter.
I am quite sure there are many parents out there asking how do you build a positive relationship with your emotional, hormonal, changing, irrational and dysregulated middle school daughter? That is where we come in ! Coaching parents facing all kinds of difficult parenting scenarios is our expertise. It all starts with you!
