For Families: Talking with your Middle Schooler

Conversations with Your Middle School Student

Thinking about middle school isn’t an experience that many people look forward to. For some, it might even be very difficult. However, if you are able to do so, tapping into your own experiences can help you support your child as a young teen and middle schooler. Family conversations are good opportunities to validate and support the feelings, thoughts, and challenges that your middle school student may be experiencing. The following tips might help open a conversation with your child.

Have you spoken to your student about your own middle school experience? It can be helpful for your student to hear what middle school was like for you, even if they don’t act like they appreciate your stories in the moment.
What do you know about your student’s classroom experience? What can you learn about it?
Ask more open-ended questions that begin with “what” or “how” instead of close-ended questions that require only a “yes” or “no” answer.
The more you have conversations with your child, the more likely you will be to notice any subtle signs that they are struggling with peers, classwork or something else.
Find opportunities to talk every day with your teen, and conversations don’t have to be formal or long. Experienced parents of teenagers say that the car can be a great place for connecting.
Middle school students are socially focused. It’s normal for young teens to be more focused on each other than on the adults in their lives. Having empathetic conversations with your teen keeps your relationship strong during this time. Ask about their friends at school.
Even though middle schoolers may not act like it, they do value their parents and other caregivers in their lives.

General Conversation Starter Questions:

- How do you like where you are sitting in the classroom? Who do you sit by?
- What are some things that you like best about your classes?
- What are some things that you don’t like so much about your classes?
- What do your friends say about your classes?
- What do you do between classes?

Deep Dive on This Subject

Strategies for Parents & Teens: Back to School Parents of Middle & High Schoolers

Decision making and the adolescent brain

TEDxYouth: Insight into the Teenage Brain

Tips from a middle school administrator

Conversations with Your Middle School Student

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