Middle School | Annie Fox's Blog

From the “Say it isn’t so” files

January 8, 2011

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Forgive me if I’m not my usual perky self. It hasn’t been a great news day for those of us hopeful about the inherent goodness of humankind.

Let me explain. This morning I read about the arrest of six kids in Carson City, Nevada. What had these 12 and 13 year olds girls done? Apparently one dreamed up a Facebook event called “Attack a Teacher Day” and invited 100 students to join. The other five got busted for responding to online threats against specific teachers in two middle schools. According to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune the six girls were “booked Wednesday at juvenile hall on a misdemeanor charge of communicating threats.” Thankfully a parent saw the “invite” and deleted it. No one was physically harmed.

Thinking about it, there’s so much wrong here I didn’t know where to begin. So I posted to my anti-bullying forum Cruel’s Not Cool! to start a discussion. I posed some questions: What might have been going on in the mind of a kid who thought that “attacking” teachers was a terrific idea? Why might the participants have decided to get on the bandwagon? What role does Facebook or any social media site have in monitoring illegal content like threats to someone’s life? In what ways might the charges against the tweens be totally appropriate or totally absurd? What’s the role of parents in raising kids of good character and teaching their tech savvy darlings to be responsible digital citizens?

But before any responses were posted, I read about an actual attack this afternoon. A politically motivated assassination attempt on the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). The Congresswoman took a bullet through the brain and she’s currently in critical but stable condition. So far at least 6 people are dead. Among them, an aide for the Congresswoman, a 9-year-old and U.S. District Judge John Roll.

Kids openly tease, harass, persecute and physically attack peers whom they “don’t like.” If school bullying and disrespecting teachers is ‘no big deal’ (and many students say “nothing happens” when bullying is reported), it may not take much reasoning to conclude that it’s also OK to gun down someone we disagree with. Not that anyone capable of this behavior has much in the way of reasoning powers, but you don’t need that to buy a gun.

Filed under: Parenting,Technology — Tags: Attack a teacher day, FaceBook, Gabrielle Giffords, JUdge John Roll, Middle School, Nevada middle school, social media, threats, Tucson, Tweens — Annie @ 7:56 pm

Comments (8)

Friendship’s a two-way street

September 16, 2010

Most parents feel proud to see their kid being a good friend. But kids aren’t born knowing about respect, cooperation and empathy. They learn from us. And we teach our kids a whole lot about friendship by the way we help them and let them help us. Because of a parent’s consistent love and support little kids often say “My mom/dad is my best friend!”

That's what friends are for.

But as they grow, their friendships get more complex and our lessons need to be more pointed. We’ve got to help them connect the dots and understand that friendship is a two-way street.

If your son or daughter is being bullied or in any way getting the short end of the friendship stick, you can help. Since (s)he’s desperately trying to figure out what friendship is about, it’s a perfect time for a calm, respectful sit-down discussion. You might say something like this:

Sweetheart, in a real friendship (the only kind worth having) both people need to treat each other with respect. If a friend is sometimes nice and sometimes not, then respect yourself enough to stand up and speak the truth.

It isn’t always easy to tell the truth, even to a best friend. But if you stay silent things are probably going to get worse. Also, if you keep your mouth shut when you’re hurting, you let your friend believe that you’re OK with what’s going on. You and I both know you aren’t OK with being laughed at or teased or ignored, so why let anyone think that you are?!

In case you’re wondering if speaking up guarantees that you and your friend won’t ever have any more problems, the answer is no. In fact, if you tell your friend that you’ve had it with being disrespected, (s)he may get angry. (S)he may accuse you of trying to wreck the friendship. (S)he may turn others against you. (S)he may do all of that and more!

Because I’m always honest with you, I’m letting you know there are risks in telling the truth. But real friends can take the truth because they should know you’d never intentionally hurt them. And the truth often strengthens a real friendship, so there’s that.

Sweetie, I love you… which is why I want you to understand, now while you’re in middle school and for the rest of your life, that you’ve got to be your own best friend. That means letting people know where you stand and never giving anyone permission to be mean to you or others.

Filed under: Cruel's Not Cool,Parenting,Teens — Tags: bullying, Friendship, friendship issues, Middle School, Parenting, Teaching friendship skills — Annie @ 3:29 pm

Comments (4)

Podcast: The Gift of Confidence

March 8, 2010

"Parents' Guide to the Middle School Years" by Joe Bruzzese

In honor of the upcoming 1st anniversary of the launch of our podcast series Family Confidential we remastered the first two podcasts to improve the sound quality. We’ve learned a lot in the past year about how to produce great podcasts. We must be doing something right because we’ve had close to 18,000 downloads of these puppies.

So… for your listening enjoyment, here’s Podcast #01: The Gift of Confidence (redux)

**********

We all want our kids to succeed and grow up up to be confident, resilient, thoughtful young adults who can competently manage their own lives. But sometimes what we say we want is at odds with our parenting choices. Boy is it ever! Especially when it comes to doing what’s really necessary to help our children develop independence. Like when we say: “Your homework is your responsibility” and then spend the entire afternoon and evening nagging: “Do you have a lot of homework?” “How much do you have?” “I thought you were working on your homework!” “Did you finish your homework?” “Let me check your homework.” Auugggh! Not only will all this micro-managing create loads of tension, it’s also doing nothing to encourage self-confidence in your child.

In this episode of Family Confidential, The Gift of Confidence, I talk with Joe Bruzzese M.A., author of “A Parents’ Guide to the Middle School Years”. Joe’s book and his ongoing work as a parent coach offer practical advice for building confidence in your child.

Listen here (QuickTime required):

[QUICKTIME http://www.anniefox.com/podcast/FC001.m4a 300 300 false true]

If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to this podcast in the iTunes Store.

Or, you can download an MP3 version here.

Subscribe to Family Confidential and tune in each time!

*What’s a podcast? “A podcast is a series of digital media files, usually either digital audio or video, that is made available for download via web syndication.” — Wikipedia… So, in this case, there’s an audio file for you to listen to (in addition to reading the above).

Filed under: Bookshelf,Parenting,Parenting Books,Podcast — Tags: A Parent's Guide to the Middle School Years, Jose Bruzzese, Middle School, middle school homework help, Podcast, Tweens — Annie @ 12:16 pm

Comments (1)

Peer Approval Addiction support group meets here

October 19, 2009

It's hard not to worry when everyone's watching

I jumped right in. If I couldn’t immediately let these 7th grade girls know a) I get middle school friendship issues, b) they could trust me to listen with compassion and respect, and c) this was a safe place to talk about stuff that really mattered, it was going to be a long and pointless hour.

My PowerPoint began with this email:

Hey Terra,

When me and my friend are alone we have a lot of fun. But when she’s with her other friends, she doesn’t talk to me at all. What do I do?

–Invisible Friend

“Who can relate to this situation?” I asked, raising my own hand high.

The girls shot each other furtive glances, but otherwise, didn’t move.

I advanced to the next slide.

Hey Terra,

My friends don’t want to be my friend anymore. They pick on me. They whisper and then look at me and laugh. When I try to make new friends they seem to steal them away from me by telling lies. My mom wants to talk to the other parents but I don’t want her to because it will make it worse! How do I deal with them?

–Lonely and Confused

“Does this one ring any bells for you? It sure does for me.” I said. My hand felt lonely and confused up there.

Again I advanced:

Hey Terra,

When I’m with these 5 girls at school I don’t behave. And even though I don’t want to, I feel like I have to act cool. I don’t wanna be with them but I have no other choice because if I leave them to be with nicer girls they’ll just call me names like “You’re a user.” And if I do leave I don’t know how to tell them. I’m really very confused.

–Lost

“How about this one, girls? C’mon. Be honest. Who’s been there?”

For the third time the girls scoped each other out, their nonverbal communication crackled with emotion, yet when my hand went up only one girl joined me. Before I could acknowledge her courage, she retreated. Probably hoping against hope that she hadn’t just ruined her entire life.

“You guys ever hear of Peer Approval Addiction?” I asked. “Nope? Well, let me explain it. You know the word addiction, right? As in drug addiction.”

They all nodded. A key element of the Good Girl Code is to impress adults with your maturity and intelligence whenever possible.

“An addiction is an out-of-control behavior that a person continues engaging in despite negative consequences to their mental or physical health, or their relationships. Why would someone do that? Not because they want to, but because they feel like they have no other choice. Just like the girl in the last email.

“Peer Approval Addiction is doing whatever it takes to fit in and be accepted by your friends and even by people you’re not close to but who you believe have power over you. That’s what’s going on right here, girls. That’s why you’re not raising your hands.

“I just want to let you know that you’re not fooling anyone. I know there have been times when you’ve felt just like ‘Invisible Friend’ and like ‘Lost and Confused.’ We all have. At least once in your life, you’ve also probably felt like you wanted to get out of a friendship because you weren’t comfortable with the way your friend was acting. At least once or maybe twice, you’ve been hurt when a friend turned against you and you didn’t have a clue why or what to do about it.

“Look, I know it can be a scary to publicly admit that you’ve been dissed, ditched or dumped by a so-called friend. I know that you’re thinking ‘If I raise my hand here and no one else does, someone’s going to tease me.’

“You’re not the only one who feels this way. All of us, teens and adults, at least once in our lives, have held ourselves back from telling the truth or doing what we knew was right because we were worried what other’s would think. So all of us are a little peer approval addicted. I know I sure am. How about you?”

I raised my hand and so did every single one of them.

We were making progress and we still had a full 54 minutes to go.

Filed under: Parenting,Teens — Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Friendship, Middle School, middle school friendship issues, peer approval addiction — Annie @ 12:53 pm

Comments (6)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »