My son the target. Parenting questions.

Ian F wrote: Spending pretty much every class with the same 30 kids for 3 straight years is a special kind of torture for an introvert with a funny accent (GA kid a year removed living in PA).

been there... done that.. did it for eight years as we did not have "middle school" it was K through 8 then HS.

Middle school sucked.

I got picked on / beaten up a lot.

Fortunately, it's hardened me into the well-rounded shiny happy person that you guys get to deal with now.

That, and the fact that most of the douchebags I dealt with are still douchebags but now they pump my gas and bag my groceries and still live with their parents.

He'll get over it. In retrospect, the time spent in school was a drop in the bucket and the crappiness of it didn't last long enough to really stay with me.

In reply to mazdeuce:

I'm concerned about something you said in your first post...

You said the teachers were "eager for the year to end" and one was looking for a job.

This is a REALLY bad sign.

These are professional educators, whose JOB is handling middle schoolers. Something is wrong.

I have some ideas, but take them with a grain of salt because my kids aren't there yet. I was there, however. I was very similar to your son, though I was excellent at not getting in fights. Let me think more.

Middle school stinks. Everyone knows this. It's tough on your son just like it's tough on the kids he's annoying and the teachers and all of us. We're homeschooling, which will make that age tougher and easier in hundreds of ways.

Let me get some thoughts together.

He sounds a lot like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Larry Elliston and lots of other Billionaires, so there may be good news ahead. My only advice is to seek professional help. Things like this do not work themselves out or just go away. Having the right tools to deal with it is important.

Man, your kid sounds a lot like me. Getting punched in the gut enough times eventually got through to my head.

I sat next to a stranger on a tour bus in Hawaii on my freshman year. When the bus stopped at our destination the poor guy RAN off.

Anyhoo this is what helped (helps) me:

Back in the day I had hobbies that I could focus 100% of my attention on. Fishing was probably the biggest. I would spend HOURS in class inventorying my tackle box by memory during history class (7th grade) and when my parents bought me my first deer rifle that October my brain went nuts.

In 8th grade I got a 3-wheeler and then that was all I could think about. I also started wrestling. Great thing for an energy/brain drain there. Wrestling's not just throwing sweaty men around, it's very technical and my brain could go absolutely BONKERS thinking about moves and counters.

9th grade was a small engines class at highschool. The intricacies of internal combustion was like the "big bang" for my brain. All of a sudden a huge universe exploded and I had a galaxy to explore (a figurative galaxy, not the Ford model). Plus my 3-wheeler, provided an outlet.

In the summer I mowed lawns and saved enough for my first motorcycle. It was a 1971 Hodaka Ace 100 that "needed work". That was plenty to keep me more than occupied and out of trouble.

And the rest is history.

I still have a couple relapses where my energy level is through the roof. The last time I got punched in the gut was in 2005 or 2006. I deserved it. I don't know what made me do it, but all of a sudden I decided that "shoulder checking" was the proper friendly outlet for my excessive energy. The guy had the patients for about 4 before he let me have it. Why I thought that was a good idea? dunno. But I was living in an apartment and couldnt work on my truck, so that probably had something to do with it.

TLDR: An involved hobby that I was passionate about helped(s) me by providing a good outlet for all that energy

Listen...here's the thing. Parenting isn't like cars, where you can say "You need to use a 12mm socket" or "Miata is the answer" and be undeniably right. I'm not implying anyone here is saying their answer is the only one. My point is that there are umpteen variables to every situation. Your son may have personality traits similar to any of our kids, or any of us. But the kids he's having issues with, the school, his home life, etc...are all unique variables. You've got to trust your instincts and do what you feel is best for the situation. I know that sounds like a cop out answer, but it's true. What works for one of us my be disastrous in his situation. You know your son, know the school, probably have some familiarity with the kids he's fighting with. You also know what you've tried, and what's worked and hasn't. What alternatives are left?

For my personal opinion, which may not mean a hill of beans...You can only control your son, you can't completely control the kids around him, the school or the other environmental factors. Teach him to cope and respond properly to the environment. He has the ultimate control. If he walks away from the dimwits he's getting into fights with, none of this is an issue. I have two boys (and a girl), and that's what I focus on. Control how you handle your environment. I very much tell my boys to defend themselves, and their sister, if attacked. But unless that happens, don't react to shiny happy people. Personally, I don't believe in counseling, especially at that age. I'm a huge believer in sports, but not for the reason of them being a place to burn excess energy. My boys play several sports. My oldest goes from football to wrestling to lacrosse, so he plays 11 months out of the year (and he's not athletically gifted). But I don't enroll them because of an energy thing. Primarily it's because they like it. But just as important it's life lessons. They learn the value of hard work, being a good team mate and friend, winning and losing, dedication, commitment and respect.

Best of luck.

So we've got an annoying kid who doesn't know when to stop annoying people.

There are a few points to make here. They may not all apply.

We (parents) want our kids to be free to express themselves and be themselves and be happy little unique snowflakes. We see the best and encourage to no end. Sometimes, that's no good. Sometimes kids have to be told "Hey, that's annoying, quit it", the long version is "I get what you're trying to do, but it isn't working and it's just annoying. You're not breaking any rules and you're not in trouble but you really ought to stop doing that".

Funny is annoying. Seriously. My Dad annoys the crap out of people. He's pretty funny about it, and he's creative enough to get out of real trouble, and big enough to not worry about it. I tried to emulate that in middle school and ended up annoying everyone. Like a lot. I remember things I would try to say or do (too often), walking away laughing, when in reality I was just being an ass. This stopped, or at least slowed down, for those who still find me annoying, when I was a co-op in college. You can't piss off the entire (uninionized, middle aged) workforce too many times before people start to become really angry with you. I have this issue with Tunakid #2, but he's nowhere near the age of your kid, so I can't comment directly. We curb the jokes that just get ridiculous after five or six ("Why did the chicken cross the street? Because he needed some bread!") and tell him to look around and see who was smiling when he's slapping his brothers with a stuffed animal, or whatever it is he's finding to be hilarious at the moment.

Hobbies are really good. My Mom sucked at engaging us. When she recognized that I needed hobbies at that age, she bought me comic books (lame, and about ten years too young for that era) along with two or three other topics which were so terrible that I can't even remember. Not that it's relevant to you, but she knew I liked cars and trucks and engines and everything like that but wouldn't have any of it because Dad liked that stuff too.

Anyway, hobbies are great. R/C cars are where it's at for kids like me at that age. You can race them competitively and learn a lot about sportsmanship too. Not having met your son, I can't say for sure if that's where he is.

The reality is that middle school is pretty terrible. Kids are bored, taught to a test that they don't care about, so their only challenge is how to pass a crappy test by memorizing crap that doesn't matter. Hormones are raging, but there's nothing to do about them. Everyone is immature and awkward, trying to find out who they are. It's going to be your job to challenge him and help him figure out what kind of adult he's going to be. Think big. Challenge him in real ways, not just handing him a copy of "War and Peace" and dare him to read it.

This should be easy for you. You have so many interesting things to play with, and as a stay at home Dad, you can plan fun and challenging stuff and it will be fun.

You mentioned sports... What about Karate?

My boys do it, and the emphasis on the mental component and strategizing is excellent.

Sounds like an opportunity for life learning. If I've learned one thing in my short-ish life it's that life can suck but it's in the suck that growth happens.

It's too bad that it sounds like the teachers aren't super helpful. It's a tough job for sure and nobody is perfect but kids are important and I hate it when I fail to put them first.

I'll chime in just to say that, as a teacher, I can teach kids knowledge and I try to share some general wisdom about life in there too but the important stuff - life lessons, the ability to make good choices and all that stuff - I think that's up to parents.

In middle school life is certainly difficult. Their brains are developing at a point where they're just beginning to be able to understand abstract thoughts and more difficult general concepts. That includes stuff like the nuances of social interaction as well as classroom stuff. Obviously that development happens at a different rate in every kid. Some are there some aren't yet. So yeah middle school, the transition period, isn't an easy time.

Also, good on you, mazdeuce for taking the time to look at this from a good perspective and be concerned about your kid. Sounds like you're a good parent.

BlueInGreen44 wrote: Also, good on you, mazdeuce for taking the time to look at this from a good perspective and be concerned about your kid. Sounds like you're a good parent.

Heck yeah he is

My daughter had similar problems on a much smaller scale, I think it's a phase all kids go through. In her case, she was really into anime and it was pretty much all she talked about. Then a kid in one of her classes kept bugging her about her chosen hobby till she finally blew up in class, ran out crying. She had hinted that things weren't going well before, so honestly this came as no surprise to me and it was something she had to handle on her own. The best thing was that the blowup incident gave me an opportunity to sit down and talk to her about it; during that conversation she came to the conclusion (on her own) that maybe not everyone was interested in the same things she was and that she needed to be more choosy about who she shared this kind of thing with. That's a hard and sad lesson to learn.

It didn't help that she is very smart, grasps concepts quickly and at the time was impatient with those who didn't 'get' things fast. (I did the same thing at her age, the result was a lot like the scenes in 'Idiocracy' where the average guy was called 'faggy' because of the way he talked.) It was hard to have to tell her there's a certain type of person who will do their best to denigrate others because they perceive themselves as inferior and that to get along socially one has to accept these people as they are and to sometimes even hide one's own light in order to get along. And that these people will continue to do this as adults.

We discussed the 'pecking party' that has been known to happen among chickens; somehow one bird in a flock shows a spot of blood or other sign of possible weakness, the rest of the flock piles on and pecks this one bird to death. As if that weren't bad enough, as the blood gets spattered on other chickens the pecking party extends to include them. The kids in middle school are mindless and will pile on to the odd man out in much the same way.

Keep in mind also that the other kids are developing their 'social skills' at the same time. A parent can do their best to prepare them, but there is just no way to truly do that. The kids are all learning from each other, so to speak, and adults intervening just makes the whole mishmash more confusing for them. It's a dangerous minefield to negotiate.

Oh yeah, this led to the opportunity to discuss one other thing: in general, most people can count their number of 'true' friends on the fingers of one hand. And the first one will generally come during this tumultuous period. I'm talking the kind of friendship where each can count on the other no matter what, not this Facebook crap that's supposed to be the wave of the future.

I'm really appreciating this thread. Lots of good info here from all involved. No magic bullets though.

Interesting that nearly everyone here disliked middle school and learned how to cope somewhere along the way. I wonder if this is indicative of GRM as a small group of self professed "quirky" people or if society at large all struggled with middle school and learning social mores along the way.

I imagine it's probably a combination of the two, KyAllroad- we've all got at least one particular quirk (the GRM mindset) that does tie us together, but I'd also observe that pretty much everyone struggled through middle school whether they were letting on about it or not. It really is the big 'transitional' phase when most kids are going through puberty, all at different times, so you have a wildly varying mix of kids across the spectrum of development all trying to coexist.

Middle School/Junior High were certainly not much fun for me, especially with having to go to three different ones due to the Army moving my family around. The last few years of that definitely sucked, but at the same time I did learn a LOT of important lessons about both myself and people/society as a whole that would help me become the person I am now. Unfortunately my younger brother seems to have missed out on that same education, because despite being in his mid-20's he still largely behaves the way that I did in early Middle School.

Not being contrarian, but I actually remember enjoying middle school more than high school. Then again, some of my high school memories are hazy for some bizarre reason...

So, I didn't read in detail all of the good thoughts already posted, so this may be duplicative.

That said, I will offer one piece of advise. Look at yourself, and then the rest of your family. As humans, we learn empathy and the ability to pick up on social cues from those around us. Do you and your family read him well? Do you all show empathy toward his thoughts and feelings on a regular basis? His classmates and teachers have probably already exhausted what ever empathy they may have had for him by now.

Ever notice that in a debate or argument someone often starts repeating themselves? It's annoying right? But they usually are doing that because they don't feel like their point is being heard, not because they are annoying or socially unaware as a person.

Giving him more feedback as to his actions is one thing (and it sounds like he finds a way to get plenty), but giving attention to his thoughts and feelings is slightly different.

Also, by no means is this post meant to say that you don't do this already. Just to offer the advise of thinking about whether you could do more.

I'm not sure if there is A LOT a parent can do to help a kid through this phase in life. Middle School and High school was awesome for me. I got in a lot of fights, but it was because I said whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted because I never cared what people thought of me. But, because I had a great group of friends (still my best friends today), all the bad things about middle school didn't really matter as much. My mother did her best as a single mom and I really have nothing to complain about from her. But, my friends are what helped me through those times. I think it's important to be able to have a group of people that you trust to fall back on. They let you be you and love you for you. They also, tell you about yourself. And I don't care what anyone says, the most important opinion to a teenager is the opinion of your friends.

KyAllroad wrote: I'm really appreciating this thread. Lots of good info here from all involved. No magic bullets though. Interesting that nearly everyone here disliked middle school and learned how to cope somewhere along the way. I wonder if this is indicative of GRM as a small group of self professed "quirky" people or if society at large all struggled with middle school and learning social mores along the way.

Glad you brought that up. My 1 year older brother is the 'social' type of the family, he wanted desperately to be accepted by everyone so he struggled in middle school like I did but in a different way; he went with the crowd to be liked. This caused friction at home as well as at school. We ran in completely separate circles, his circle eventually became the high school potheads. Even though I tried it, I wasn't really 'into' it (more interested in racing motocross) and at the time that was cause for ostracization. I came to the realization that following the crowd was going to screw up what I loved so I developed a thicker skin that's served me well as I've gotten older.

Sadly, the desire to be liked has followed my brother and has sabotaged his long range plans. It nearly kills me sometimes when I think of how good a person he really is and how he's allowed others to take advantage of his good nature.

Not sure if anyone here has brought it up, I just skimmed through the posts.

Make sure he knows that it's perfectly ok for people to -not- like him too.

You can't please everyone and if some people don't like you, that's life and they're probably not worth worrying about anyway.

If EVERYONE thinks you're an shiny happy person, then YOU probably have a problem.

Took me a long time to figure out that it didn't matter whether everyone liked me or not. My friends and family like me and those are the people who matter.

Best thing I ever did was learn to say "no" to people who wanted something from me, the ones who stuck around are my friends.

Thanks everyone. Lots to think about. He's going to rallycross with me next weekend. Just the two of us. Camping out. I think I'll have him read this on the ride over and see what he thinks. Sometimes advice means more when it comes from someone other than your dad.

Klayfish wrote: Not being contrarian, but I actually remember enjoying middle school more than high school. Then again, some of my high school memories are hazy for some bizarre reason...

I'm with you. Basically two bright spots for me in high school. I hated it with a passion.

Middle school was fine.

College though. That was where the good times were.

I was your kid. My dad, more than anyone else, tried to reinforce that I should only speak when I had something good to say, and to think about what I was going to say. As a kid, I think hearing this from my father really hurt. I wanted him to listen and he always thought what I had to say was worthless. I often heard the phrase from both my parents; "we think you talk to hear your own voice" and "please SHUT. UP." As I got older and our hobbies meshed more, he started really truely caring about my life and what I had to say.

I am a talker, and even still I walk away from conversations thinking to myself "wow, I really talked way too much back there."

This ^

I helped a guy in our motorcycle club pick up a couple ninjas from a guy.

200 km round trip and he talked the whole way.

I got home and told my wife "I just spent a whole day with myself!"

I had the problem of not knowing when to shut up when nobody cared about what I cared about. Luckily I also liked to read. A lot. Hard to annoy anyone when you're just sitting there reading. Somewhere along the way I read a quote by Mark Twain that really hit home.

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

It's something I try to remember when I find myself rambling on.

Sounds like a typical middle schooler to me. Talk to him and try to get him to figure out why he is getting into the fights. Then ask him what he can do to change that situation. It may come down to avoiding the kids he is fighting with. But try to get him to figure out the solution.

BTW: I taught middle school for 25 years.