Researching and writing this blog post brought to the surface many of my latent heebie jeebies surrounding my own experience in middle school.
I first thought of the topic a SUPER long time ago, then let it sit in the back of my brain for months. I finally sat at my desk with a huge sigh and started my research and outline. That work became an untouched resident of my Drafts folder for another month.
Some Context
Middle school was not… the BEST experience for me (I elaborate on that a bit in this old post). In fact, I may or may not be working through issues from middle school with my therapist right now. It was also not a great time for my husband. Whenever either of us have a reason to talk about middle school, we both have a visceral shudder response, and can’t resist saying something about how freaking AWFUL it was.
Our son is a couple years away from going to middle school himself, and it’s become clear to me that we need to stop trash talking the whole experience. I don’t want him to spend the next two years dreading it because his parents couldn’t manage their stupid emotional responses.
I also think that, if he has a positive attitude — AND a strong toolkit of social and emotional skills — going into it, that will increase his chances of having a good time.
This article in The Atlantic spells out some of the major issues with middle school, why adults have an automatic shudder response to it, and how we could make it better with a couple of small changes — from a systemic lens.
My focus here, however, is to provide some guidance for helping our tweens through this awkward transition on a personal level.
Researchers and regular folks all agree — the middle school transition can be rocky. Helping kids build a strong foundation of social and emotional skills in the years leading up to that transition is key.
So, what difficulties do middle schoolers face?
How can we prepare them for this weird time when they’re still in elementary school, or support them through it when they’re actually there?
It’s never too late to work on these skills with kids — even if your kiddo is smack in the middle of middle school turmoil, you can still guide them through the experience and prepare them for what’s to come next.
Let’s look at some of the social and emotional obstacles and how to prepare kids for them and/or help them through them.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Have you thought about it?
How does your body feel? What’s going on in your mind? How’s your productivity?
I’ve been thinking about these things a lot lately, and paying attention to my own (not great) habits. After noticing my tendency to just not do anything worthwhile when I’m overwhelmed, I started wondering why. Then I started wondering how to fix it and move on.
The biggest problem here is that I’m pretty overwhelmed right now, which — true to form — is making me totally unproductive.
I have had to force myself to sit down each day and tackle the things that are making me feel like I’m under water. Including writing this blog post.
When you’re trying to build a business for yourself that is reliant on writing and showcasing yourself as an expert in a particular field through your writing, it’s pretty important to keep… writing.
But building a business is overwhelming (and frustrating as heck, but that’s a different topic altogether). Learning how to use social media to market myself has been a lot. Researching and cold-emailing prospective clients is waaaaay out of my comfort zone.
As usual, I decided to use my current struggles to frame a blog post that I hope will help other people while simultaneously helping myself. Bonus!
The days leading up to winter break 2020 were some of the most difficult, in terms of my mental health, that I’d experienced in a very long time.
I’m generally fairly vulnerable in my blog writing, but in order to do this issue justice, I’m going to have to really make myself uncomfortable here. I’m tense and sweaty even thinking about it! But I imagine that there are other people out there who have been or are on the verge of being in the same situation. So… here we go.
I’ll be the first to admit it — I’m terrible at keeping in touch. Like, pretty awful. I’ll like all the Facebook and Instagram posts, and most of the time I’ll respond to texts. But initiating real, meaningful contact with people is a pretty big weak area for me. I tell myself I’ll reach out when XYZ, but then XYZ comes and goes and for whatever reason, I’m still silent.
This is not good and I know it. It’s not good for my relationships and it’s not good for my mental health. This has only become more pronounced as the pandemic has isolated us all more than ever. So, I am vowing to make 2021 my year of connection.
How does this relate to you, or to the general theme of social and emotional learning (SEL)?
Perseverance and SEL
Perseverance is a huge topic in the world of SEL, and in 2020 we had to persevere more than ever! As we dip our collective toes into the waters of 2021, I think we can all agree that the conditions that caused perseverance to be so critical last year are still swirling around in there, though perhaps a touch diluted.
Once we dive in — and we will have to dive in, no matter how reluctant we are — we’ll have to keep our heads above water, our arms moving, and our legs kicking. This requires a lot of self-awareness, one of the five SEL competencies as defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). We have to understand ourselves well enough to know what will motivate us to keep moving when treading water gets tough. Are you motivated by financial stability, the wellbeing of our family, helping to create a better future for others, or a lovely vacation on the horizon?
What keeps you going?
Once you’ve figured out what keeps you motivated to stay afloat even when you’re exhausted and facing so many obstacles, remember that you don’t have to do it alone — nor should you. This is where another SEL competency comes in: relationship skills. Social connection is vital to perseverance. As one of my personal heroes, Brené Brown, says, “Connection is why we’re here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.” You need people, and — this may be obvious, but juuuuust in case you need a reminder — people need you, too!
Research on Perseverance and Social Connection
According to the CDC, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to elevation of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. The CDC stopped short of asserting a direct correlation between the pandemic and these elevated mental health issues. However, we might draw the conclusion that the social isolation caused by the pandemic has contributed to them. It’s so easy to get sucked into our day-to-day routines — feeding ourselves (and our kids or pets, if we have them), keeping ourselves and our homes clean, working, and maaaaybe exercising — that we forget to reach out to our support networks. Or maybe we’re too mentally exhausted at the end of the day to expend more energy on socializing. I’m looking at you, fellow introverts!
In the 2012 article “Building your resilience,” the APA placed building social connections first in its list of resilience-building strategies. When we are struggling to get by due to mental, physical, or any other type of strain, it can be easy to retreat from others as we attempt to right our ship alone. Yup, I’m totally mixing metaphors here, with the treading water and the righting ships, but you get me!
While our ability to persevere is ultimately our own responsibility, it is completely okay and actually better if we include friends and family in our journey. Even if we don’t explicitly need help from them, their presence in our lives will be helpful. Just having someone to talk with and feel connected to can help us so much.
Since we’ve been in this pandemic for a while, now there is some research specifically related to it. A study based in Austria during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown found interesting correlations between the size of participants’ social networks and their levels of worry, anxiety, and fatigue. The authors state, “Our findings highlight the important role that social connections play in promoting resilience by buffering against negative physical and mental health outcomes, particularly in times of adversity in times of adversity.”
Staying Connected During a Global Pandemic
As we continue to stay home and avoid crowds, nourishing those oh-so-vital connections with others becomes difficult. Before the pandemic, it seemed that my family and I were always with our people. We spent the weekends bouncing between our parents’ houses, the soccer field, and various birthday parties. Now, we feel like we’ve had heavy socialization if we manage to arrange a socially distant hike with local friends.
While in-person interaction is limited during this time, we don’t need to be socially isolated. There are plenty of ways to stay connected. We just have to get a little more creative and commit to spending a bit more time in front of a screen than we would otherwise. I know, I know… I get Zoom fatigue too! We must fight through the pain and the eye strain to keep up those connections, friends! Here are some great ideas for us all, from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. There are some things there I haven’t thought of before, and I’ll be putting a couple of them into practice this year, for sure.
So, who’s with me? Want to join me in working harder to stay connected this year? Let’s all band together to help each other tread that water and right those ships! We can and will persevere through this pandemic and beyond — especially if we do it together.
This is an old post, but I think the premise is still important so I want to resurface it! I’ve also added a bit of research to the mix.Full disclosure, as the years have worn on, my ability to be playful has waned — I’m hoping diving back into this topic will bring it back. 🙂
Hi! Long time no see! I had to take a break from the ol’ blog for a while for various reasons. For one, I was working full-time on a project, so I decided to put all my energy into that. I figured, work for money > work for free. When that was over, I had a baby. I figured, work for family > work for me. Rhyming unintentional, but pretty fantastic.
Meet the new baby!
But now, the baby and I have found a sort of rhythm, I’m not so terribly sleep deprived, and I am back to not getting paid… Which honestly kind of sucks, but at least it gives me time to do this again.
So we just celebrated various holidays—in my family, we do Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a light version of Hanukkah… and you know, a parents’ version of New Year’s Eve, which consists of saying, “Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve,” going to bed at 9:00, and waking up in the morning saying, “Hey, Happy New Year.”
A Gift That Improved My Marriage
My focus on this post is going to be our recent Christmas gift exchange, and how it affected my marriage, helping me be kinder to my husband.
A long time ago, I wrote about the best advice my mom ever gave me about marriage. You can read about that later, but I’ll tell you briefly, the jist of it is that we have to appreciate each other.
Well, after this past Christmas, I have a piece of advice of my own. And honestly, I have heard it before. But it is so valuable and so easily lost when we are involved in just making it through each day as parents to young children.
