Quick Discussion Guide:
Questions and suggestions for discussing this topic with your child.

Related Resources:

On the Web:

What Makes a Successful Middle School?
by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform
www.mgforum.org
Crafted and endorsed by national education leaders, this vision of what the middle school experience could and should be helps parents advocate for quality schools. A companion school assessment tool in PDF is also available:
http://www.schoolstowatch.org/criteria/AssessmentChart.pdf

Books

The Roller-Coaster Years: Raising Your Child Through the Maddening Yet Magical Middle School Years
by Charlene C. Giannetti and Margaret Sagarese
Supported and advised by the National Middle School Association, this is a lively guide to mastering the ups and downs of early adolescence.

Enjoy Your Middle Schooler
by Wayne Rice
A guide to the physical, social, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual changes that middle schoolers go through, with tips on how parents can deal with these changes.

Middle School and the Age of Adjustment: A Guide for Parents
by Eileen Bernstein
Advice and practical suggestions that parents can use to help their children deal with common problems that can occur in middle school, written by a school guidance counselor.

Not Much Just Chillin’
by Linda Perlstein
This book chronicles a group of suburban middle schoolers, following five representative kids through the school year as they study, flirt, argue, rollerskate, instant-message and explain what they think and feel, and offers a trail map to the baffling no-man’s-land between child and teen, the time when children don’t want to grow up, and so badly do.

Please also see Books for Kids.