Middle School-shh it's a secret!
- anchoredtherapyser
- Jul 26, 2022
- 2 min read
Do you have fond memories of your middle school years? If so, count yourself lucky! For many of us, we found those years unsettling at best and down right miserable at worst. I recall desperately wanting to be viewed and treated like a grown-up and desperately trying to fit it, yet not having a clue how to make those things happen. It sometimes seemed that everyone else was told the secret, except for me. No wonder these years are filled with big emotional swings and challenges!
Well, today's Talking Tip Tuesday is for all of my middle school students out there. Get ready for it.... I am about to spill the beans...or for your generation, spill the tea.
Here is the secret. You are ALL faking it! Yep, every last one of you.
There isn't one middle school student that hasn't felt isolated, confused, unpopular, or out of place at one time or another. And that is because learning to find your place in society is hard! You are still learning who You are and what You like, yet wanting to connect with others and feel accepted for your individuality. It is a tough balance!
So, now that you know the secret, want to know what to do about it? It's okay to keep pretending. We all do it, but as adults we call it imitating or "shadowing". It is one way we learn to do certain skills. We watch someone else that is really good at what we want to do, and then we try to imitate what they did. Think about any sport that you play. Now think about your favorite player. I bet at some point, you watched that player, noticed something that he/she did differently than other players and then you practiced it and tried to do it too.
Learning appropriate social skills can happen this way too. What skill would you like to improve? Maybe you just started middle school and want to make new friends, but you aren't really a "social butterfly". That is okay. Sit back and observe. Watch how your peers make connections with each other; observe a popular television character making new friends; think about how your favorite adult acts around someone new and then try it out for yourself. Getting involved in activities that interest you will give you an automatic connection with other kids your age that have similar interests.
According to Good Therapy, The Importance of Social Skills: Raising a Socially Intelligent Child, "Social skills are one of the most important skills children and adolescents develop, as they often serve as predictors of future success."
If your middle school child is really struggling with social skills, know that therapy can teach them specific skills to help them improve their social competencies.
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