Photo: Getty
It’s not a mystery that middle school is one of the toughest times of a kid’s life as they start transitioning from childhood to their teenage years — and as it turns out, it might be the hardest phase of parenthood, too.
One of the study’s co-authors, ASU psychology professor and mother of twoSuniya Luthar, Ph.D., toldCNNafter the study was published in early 2016 that she “was a little taken aback” at the findings, quipping, “apparently preadolescence is the new adolescence or junior high school or middle school is the new high school.”
The research showed thatmoms with kids in middle schoolreported more extreme levels of stress and loneliness in their lives, according to CNN, paired with the least amount of fulfillment and satisfaction.“If ever there were truth to the saying, ‘It takes a village,’ it’s now,” Luthar said. “It’s not it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a preteen.”
Mom and daughter.Getty
Depressed mom.Getty
Speaking with CNN, co-author ofMiddle School: The Inside StoryCynthia Tobias explained that part of the reason for the emotional shift in moms around the middle-school years is because the attitude change in their children can seem to happen “almost overnight.”
“You hear a lot of times, [parents will] say, ‘It’s like I woke up with an alien this morning. Yesterday I had a child who loved to snuggle. Today I have a kid who can’t even stand to be around me,’ ” said Tobias, a mother of twin boys who are now 24 years old.
“When the parents try to treat them as if they’re still 8 or 9 years old, there’s pushback,” added co-author Sue Acuña, an eighth-grade teacher. “That catches the parents off guard and then sometimes they panic, ‘Oh no. This iswhat I’ve always feared in adolescence,’ and they come down harder instead of softer.”
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To get through the middle-school years and earn trust, both Acuña and Tobias emphasized the importance of letting the child know they aren’t alone and that, as a parent, you aren’t going to stop tryingto communicate and will support themno matter what, even when they make mistakes.
“The successful kids, they’ll tell their parents, ‘Yes, I messed up here. This is what I’m going to do to work on it’ and their parents are very supportive,” Acuña told CNN. “Theanxious kids are the ones whowhen they say to their parents, ‘Well, here’s a test I didn’t do well on,’ the parents go off on them.”
“The parents are upset and critical and [say], ‘Well you are going to be grounded for that,’ ” she continued. “These are the kids who are afraid to take risks because they don’t feel that their parents will support them.”
“The parents have this tendency to just [say], ‘Fine. You don’t want to talk. Just don’t talk,’ and walk away,” Tobias added. “But the kids themselves, they told us over and over, ‘We do want tokeep a relationship with our parents. There’s so much going on we just can’t do it. We hope that they don’t walk away.’ “
source: people.com
