Episode 34: What Middle Schoolers Need to Thrive with Counselor Phyllis Fagell

I learned today that I still have a lot of internal tendencies from middle school. 😮

Middle school can be a foreign land and a tumultuous time, and figuring out how to parent middle schoolers is hard on parents. We want our kids to be happy, resilient, and thriving, not wilting, crying, and worrying.

As a mom of a 12-year-old myself, I was hanging on every word of my guest today, school counselor and journalist Phyllis Fagell. Her practical strategies blew my mind, and I feel like I learned a textbook’s worth of information in 40 minutes!

As we head back to school, stresses are always high, and our kids need us to help them stay balanced and continue growing and developing. Middle school is particularly tough, but it turns out it’s very navigable with the right perspective.

Whether you have a tween in middle school now or a child who will someday be there, these parenting tools are incredible, insightful, and some will take some time to practice. Start early by parenting your tween when they’re about 5!

You’ll learn:

• Why middle schoolers are SO different from other age groups
• The many crises of pre-adolescence and WHY they all pile up at once
• The shocking difference between girls’ and boys’ confidence and interaction with the world in middle school
• Simple stories parents can tell to improve mental well-being for their kids
• The bane of the “imaginary audience,” particularly for girls (this was one I realized I never really grew out of)
• A game you can play to help reframe tween drama (and tone down its deleterious effects)
• How to gradually release responsibility to your pre-teen (and the disastrous impact if you ever take it back!)
• The 2 best ways to start every conversation with a tween (or teen)
• Why learning to cook can help kids try new things at school too
• Why it’s nearly impossible to teach a middle schooler to “be yourself” (this one kind of breaks my heart)
• One practical way to help your kids choose the right friends (this is seriously gold because we all know how powerful friends are in how our kids turn out!!)
• A resilience coping tool that I used the very day I recorded this interview so I wouldn’t forget how to do it…

I hope I don’t say this too much, but this is truly one of the best interviews we’ve had here on the Healthy Parenting Connector, with so much practical info as well as academic background knowledge on the inner workings of a pre-adolescent. Incredible!

Can’t see the video? Watch tips for parenting middle schoolers here on YouTube!

No time for the video? Here are the notes!

These time stamps align with the video and not the audio podcast, but they should be pretty close!

Parenting Middle Schoolers

• 0:16: Today we’re talking about how we can make our kids’ middle school experience less dramatic and traumatic. 
• 0:55: Many of us as adults have inflated negative memories of our experience in middle school. Things feel so intense at the time,  but if you look back from an adult perspective you may find that it wasn’t as bad as you remember. 
• 1:24: This comes into play when we’re interacting with our middle schoolers. We need to think from their perspective to validate their feelings before jumping straight to solutions. 

• 2:15:Phyllis Fagell is a school counselor and also an author and speaker. She has 3 kids ranging from college to middle school. 
• 3:04: Phyllis shares her motivation for focusing on middle school in her career. She discovered that everyone maligned pre-teens, but no one was creating resources to help them navigate their unique stage in life. 

Unique Challenges Middle Schoolers Face

• 4:42: What makes middle schoolers different? What are the unique crises they experience? It’s really a perfect storm of physical, emotional, mental, social, and even academic changes happening in a short time.
• 6:15: Do boys and girls experience the bumps of adolescence differently? Girls are quick to internalize mistakes and experience a greater drop in confidence. Boys feel an increased pressure to fit a masculine ideal and due to social media, boys are struggling with body image more than past generations.
• 8:21: Parents can help diminish the drop in confidence for both boys and girls. Phyllis gives us some great ideas and practical tips.

• 9:55: Phyllis explains the concept of the “imaginary audience,” how it affects middle schoolers, and how to combat it. 
• 12:54: Be very mindful of how you talk about others around your middle schooler. Don’t discuss other’s idiosyncrasies or talk about what makes others different from you without showing that everyone is worthy of respect and that our quirks are what make us unique and special.

Navigating Middle School Drama

• 13:51: We talk about helping kids reframe and survive middle school drama. Middle schoolers have a hard time not getting involved in drama surrounding them. 
• 15:27: To help kids think more flexibly when they’re hurt by a friend’s actions Phyllis has them play the “maybe game.” It’s such a helpful exercise to teach your tweens! Write this down, parents!

• 17:00: Kids get a lot more responsibility as they go through middle school. I talk about having a gradual release of responsibility from parent to child over the course of 18 years. Middle school is a critical point in this process. 
• 18:29: The ability to plan for the future doesn’t kick in until age 15. Many parents think their middle schoolers are lazy, but they don’t have the skill set to see how their effort today will help their future goals. 

• 20:44: I’ve had people tell me I’m a mean mom for making my kids cook dinner, Kids Cook Real Food^™ members have emailed that their husbands think they’re lazy for making their kids pack lunches. It’s important to know that kids, especially middle schoolers, need a sense of agency and competency that they can gain from doing these meaningful tasks. 
• 22:09: If a kid learns how to do something new in the kitchen, that ability to try difficult things transfers to other areas of their life. Beneficial risk is hugely important for raising confident kids.

It’s a risk for a middle schooler to try something that could make them feel incompetent. -Phyllis Fagell

• 24:35: With middle schoolers, it’s effective to begin with non-judgemental phrases like “I’m wondering…” or “I’m just curious…” 

Building Social Skills in Middle School

• 25:28: Middle schoolers tend to follow the crowd and need to build the ability to make their own decisions. They’re constantly trying to impress others and tend to not like themselves, which makes it impossible for them to be themselves and embrace it. 

Helping middle schoolers feel good about themselves helps them socially. -Phyllis Fagell

• 26:32: Phyllis shares an example from the kindergarteners at her school that illustrates how middle schoolers lack the ability to foresee the consequences of their choice of friends. 
• 28:31: You can use a theory called inoculation theory with elementary and middle school-aged children to help build strong decision-making skills. Phyllis explains how it works. 
• 30:43: Middle schoolers overestimate social risk. Phyllis shares an example to illustrate how this plays out. 

Parenting Tips for Middle Schoolers

• 32:24: Parenting middle schoolers means asking lots of questions. Kids will shut down if they think you’re reactive or dramatic. If your body language doesn’t match your words, they will catch that immediately. 

Your words, tone, body language, and facial expression all have to be in agreement for middle schoolers to buy into it. -Phyllis Fagell

• 33:39: It’s important to share your own past mistakes and stories with your kids. We sometimes think we’re protecting them, but really it helps them to know we’ve been through it too. 
• 35:33: There has been a big increase in anxiety during the pandemic. We go through some coping strategies to share with your middle schoolers. Some of them might help you out too!

• 39:14: Many parents are pretty good at playing “clean up” and calming kids down, but using this predictive problem-solving technique helps teach kids to self-regulate on the front end. 
• 39:58: Phyllis shares a message of hope for those of you struggling to understand your middle schoolers. She shares a touching story that will encourage you.

Resources We Mention for Parenting Middle Schoolers

• Get Phyllis’ books: Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers
• How beneficial risk is necessary for raising confident kids
• How to build authentic confidence in kids
• Follow Phyllis on X, Facebook, and Instagram
• Phyllis’ website
• My second interview with Phyllis

Phyllis L. Fagell, LCPC is the school counselor at Sheridan School in Washington, DC, a therapist who works with kids and families in private practice, and an author and journalist. She’s the author of “Middle School Matters” and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post. She also freelances for publications including Psychology Today, Working Mother, U.S. News & World Report, and Your Teen, and her ideas have been shared in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Edutopia, Mindshift, and NPR. She lives in Bethesda, MD with her husband and three children.