Joe Bruzzese (3 page)

The parents I speak to rarely express delight in talking with their children about sex, yet they are willing to put their own discomfort aside when considering the potential alternative—teenage pregnancy. Beginning a discussion about the consequences of becoming sexually active can be difficult, bordering on impossible, for the reluctant parent. Ease into the conversation by planning for some alone time with your child. A trip to the park, movie theater, or other public venue gives you an opportunity to share some meaningful time together. Refrain from having
the
conversation while driving in a car. The lack of face-to-face contact may be easier for you, but your child won't get to see your reaction to her questions, comments, and concerns, any of which might cause you to suddenly veer off course, causing a massive pile-up. Save yourself from potential injury; find a quiet place where you can give the conversation your complete attention.

It's hard enough starting a conversation about everyday issues; talking about a topic that's implicitly uncomfortable ups the ante. But your discomfort is an indicator of just how important this topic is. So be honest and jump in with both feet. Even an opener like “I want to talk about relationships” or “Is there anything you want to ask me about sex?” doesn't really get to the heart of what you really want to talk about. Opt instead for a straightforward statement that shares both your intent and concern; something like, “I know kids your age are having sex, and I want to make sure you have answers to questions you might be wondering about.”
Yes, it's blunt and initially shocking for your child to hear you say the word sex, but it brings the elephant in the room from a dark corner to center stage, where you can begin to have a conversation about a topic that every child wonders about at some point on the road to adolescence. Whether or not your child has thought of or is currently engaging in sexual behavior, he or she will have questions. Without a parent's guidance, kids will often seek answers from other trusted adults. In the absence of their qualified advice, your child will turn to her peer group. Heading down a path in the dark while being led by a person who's blindfolded doesn't sound like a safe way to travel. Turn on the light for your child, so she can see the path ahead and feel confident about the choices she will make in the coming years.

Here are some suggestions for opening up the lines of communication. Kids anticipate the inevitable blast of parent questions at the end of a school day or over dinner. Choose instead to wait and listen. Instead of dominating each attempt at conversation with your own questions, try to say less and let your child do more of the talking. For example, let silence fill the space during car rides home from school (or, if your child takes the bus or carpool, during the initial after-school moments when the two of you meet up at home) instead of immediately asking questions. You may have a couple of quiet rides or moments, but eventually your child will likely share a comment about the day. As the words begin to flow, wait until you have the opportunity to add a comment or ask a question that will prompt further conversation. A lot of kids actually like to talk if given the opportunity. What they don't appreciate are a rapid-fire barrage of questions and the continued probing of what they perceive to be nosy parents. In time, your less-is-more approach will be rewarded by a more talkative teen.

A child's one-word responses to your questions can bring a conversation to a halt at the outset. Try asking questions that begin
with “How” rather than “Why” or “What.” Such questions hand ownership of the conversation to your child. When you ask “How did you do that?” or “How did you find out about that?” you set the stage for your child to take control of the conversation. Remember, your purpose is to keep the conversation moving. Asking questions with yes-or-no answers will bring most discussions to a halt; questions that begin with “How” can keep an adolescent talking for hours. “How did you do so well on your test?” or “How did it feel when you heard the news?” are two examples of questions that acknowledge a child's ability and emotions, and acknowledgment stimulates conversation. By contrast, questions beginning with “Why” put kids on the defensive. “Why did you do that?” or “Why didn't you try it the way we talked about earlier?” require the child to justify his actions. The adolescent mind perceives a “Why?” question as an accusation of wrongdoing. The natural reaction to this accusation can turn a lighthearted conversation into a series of short negative exchanges. Staying focused on your child's enthusiasm and interests can keep “why” questions from creeping in and smothering your together time.

Beyond the everyday conversations you should strive to achieve with your child, you may also have opportunities to gain valuable information about his day through casual observation. And when it comes to observation, rule number one is to keep your distance. Observing is different from hovering: although observing casually from a distance will provide you with information about your child's social circle, hovering over your child by following him
onto and around the school campus will almost certainly embarrass both your child and you.

Look for and plan times when your presence will not be noticed by your child. The minutes following the morning drop-off or immediately preceding the afternoon pick-up can be wonderful observation times: when kids come together at school, their focus shifts to each other, which leaves you with a few moments to observe from the safe distance of your car, getting a glimpse of your child's body language and overall demeanor while interacting with his friends as he walks into school or toward the car. Sports practices and games can be another venue for similarly unobtrusive information gathering. On the flip side, showing up at school or at an event unexpectedly in an attempt to gain a front seat to your child's social proceedings can end badly. You may even do this unwittingly when you suddenly find yourself cast into a crowd of your child's peers at a party pickup or after-school event. The less-than-subtle look on your child's face will be a clear indicator that you don't belong—and the cold shoulder that follows will reinforce this. When these inevitable moments occur, try a simple apology to your child. A statement like “I will try to stay farther away next time” may not gain you immediate verbal acceptance or forgiveness, but your child will know you're aware of how important the social part of his life has become.

A middle schooler's social life doesn't end at the conclusion of the school day. The prolific use of cell phones and text messaging can keep kids connected late into the evening hours. To bring more conversation back into your relationship, try identifying times and places where your child is not allowed to use the cell phone. Make your home a no-cell zone; this doesn't mean no phone calls, rather, all social calls must happen on the landline phone. This doesn't make it OK to listen in on your child's phone calls, but it does give you the chance to keep an ear tuned to the first few minutes of the conversation—just long enough to find out who's calling and why. If you're genuinely concerned about what you hear, after she has hung up, try simply saying, “Let me
know if there's anything you want to talk about.” This may be enough to get your child to open up about the call.

Practice these tips by planning for short exchanges or casual observations throughout the week. Look for moments when you might share a few minutes of conversation over dinner or in the after-school hours before bedtime. If the weekdays seem crammed, look ahead to the weekend for a time when you might take a short drive or share lunch while taking on a few errands. It may seem hard to carve out time in a busy schedule, but the extra effort can earn you the invaluable reward of a deeper, more open relationship with your child, in which she is more likely to take your good advice on ways she can succeed in middle school—including how to make new friends.

Though most new middle schoolers will naturally tend to look for familiar faces from elementary school, the hundreds of new kids on a middle school campus represent a great opportunity to add new friends to the mix. Give your child a leg up by reassuring her that you remember how challenging it can be to meet new friends in middle school—and offer the following three tips to make it easier:

Meeting new friends doesn't mean old friends are forgotten. Maintaining friendships from the elementary school years helps children smooth out their transition into middle school. The sense of familiarity created by seeing well-known faces around campus and in the classroom can soothe the anxiety of being surrounded by new faces. Staying connected with old friends often opens us to meeting new people who may become part of our social circle.

Most of us have difficulty remembering where we first met the people who are now among our circle of close friends. Spouses aside, we generally can trace the first conversation of a budding friendship only to a range of time (say, sometime during the middle
school years) rather than a specific moment (say, November 1, 1989, at the mall, while sharing a root beer float). Our difficulty in recalling the beginning of friendships is due in part to the many impromptu conversations we have with new arrivals (friends of friends) to our current circle of friends. We meet these friends of friends through a series of continued interactions that eventually lead to identifying common interests. Middle school offers a bevy of similar opportunities for expanding a child's social circle. Encourage your child to maintain old friendships; they hold the possibility of meeting new friends.

The process of meeting new friends isn't always a happy one. As kids sort through their new mix of schoolmates, power struggles may arise. As new social circles form, dominant personalities emerge, and many children experience for the first time the phenomena of bullies and cliques. You can help minimize the unpleasantness of schoolyard ruffians and queen bees seeking social status by equipping your child with a set of proactive skills.

Unpleasant as they may be, cliques are an inevitable part of the middle school social environment. Cliques are a lot like the middle school social groups described earlier, with one important difference: they often refuse to accept new kids into the group, even those who share similar interests. These members-only social groups comes to the forefront in middle school as children become interested in more socially oriented activities. During elementary school children are encouraged to stay active on the playground before school and during break periods. On a middle school campus, the larger student population and lack of space discourage this level of physical activity. Changing the social dynamics of student interactions would require an overhaul of the supervision system and a new look at where students could spend their break periods. Currently, students mill around common areas on campus, which
are patrolled by school administrators and faculty. At many middle schools the ratio of students to administrators or faculty heavily favors students, leaving opportunity for potentially dangerous behavior. For now, it's safe to say that the school setting for adolescents is fairly uniform and predictable, which unfortunately means that cliques are here to stay.

Why do kids continually attempt to fit in with groups that want to exclude them? Usually, they see the status and security that comes with group membership as worth the potential rejection or abuse. To the new middle schooler, the prospect of walking the halls alone and being seen as a loser seems far worse than any possible abuse from being on the fringes of a popular group.