Raising Your Middle School Child With The Assistance of Mentoring
Raising Your Middle School Child With The Assistance of Mentoring
[The following transcript was recorded during a meeting held by Mr. Antonacci with parents of Grades 5-7 students on March 18th, 2025 at 8:15 a.m.]
The Aim
I have two goals in this meeting. First, I want to give you three tips to think about as your child enters into middle school or continues middle school. And the second is that I want to share how the mentoring program here at Saint Patrick's ties into that. And then we have some discussion questions because you are the experts of your child. We have experience with children here at the school and we’ve seen many, many middle schoolers go through these years, but you are the experts of your child and we want to hear from you about what works best with your children.
Every year, the head of school at one of the top prep schools in Boston starts his opening address when students and families come into the school with this quote: “Who you are becoming is more important to us than even what you are accomplishing.” Again, he says to all the parents and students who are gathered there, “Who you are becoming is more important to us than even what you are accomplishing.” And deep down, I think we would all like to agree with that - that we care more about our children being disciplined, our children being studious, being team players, having compassion, rather than simply getting a grade or getting a high score on a test. We know that the score follows from the person that they are. But when the child is young, like in elementary school, it's easy to get them to focus on the grade itself, and it can be good at times to get them to focus on it - “Hey, let's have a goal of you getting a 90 on this test” or “Let's try to get a perfect score on your vocab test.” But as the child grows into middle school, we have to wean them away from that and get them to latch onto the deeper things of who they are really becoming, like the importance of discipline and perseverance.
The Challenge - “Like White Noise”
In the middle school years, though, it's really tough because we as parents and educators want to share these deeper things with them, but there's one problem - that our voice can become like white noise sometimes to them. They've heard our voice, they've heard the things that we have to say, they've heard some of our wisdom and they start to tune us out. And they may want to pull away in the middle of that, and that's just typical middle school behavior. And after all, the transition into middle school is not easy if you think about it. If I were to poll you all and ask “What is a year that you would want to relive in your childhood?”, my guess is you would probably not say middle school, right? Middle school is a tough time. Their bodies are changing, they’re growing more in this time than almost any other part of their childhood, they're experiencing adult-sized emotions, they start making big decisions about practicing their faith during these years. They start questioning societal norms and thinking about what worldview they have in these years. So this is really, really important for these students to to think about these deeper things, but we can often become like white noise when we're talking to them. In addition, here at St. Patrick's in fifth grade, you have the same teacher, they have their teaching style, you're used to that teaching style, you don't rotate for classes as much, but in middle school things change. You have many teachers, you're rotating throughout the day, you're splitting up for different subjects. So it's totally different and there's a lot going on. But within all of this, there's a great opportunity for us as parents and educators, and that lies in the way that we approach raising a middle school child.
So here's the three tips. We're going to break them down and they all go together too. The first is to recognize the importance of your child developing his or her will. So we'll talk about that. The second is to keep your child close during the middle school years, and the third is that you need to have great hope in your child.
Tip #1
So number one, recognize the importance of your child developing his or her will. We're talking about the faculties of the human person, so we have our intellect that helps us reason through things. It's knowledge that we have. We have our emotions and senses. It's how we feel things. But we also have our will. That’s the part of us that makes decisions, takes responsibility and says yes or no to things. And we know that all genuine and lasting growth comes from within. If we think about it, your child has to want to grow, whether we're talking about academics or virtue. And honestly, your child has to care more about their growth than you do, which is really tough when you think about that. Your child has to care more about his success than you care about his or her success.
And today it's not a surprise that there's a lot of anxiety and worry on our end from parents and educators when it comes to raising children. We want our children to do well and sometimes that anxiety can lead to a tendency of controlling your child to make sure he or she succeeds at “it” - whatever “it” is. It can be getting perfect grades in middle school, it can be getting into the high school that he or she wants to get into. It could be getting a scholarship at college or an athletic feat to achieve. So whatever it is, we have a tendency to want to control that. And at first, this can happen in small ways, like telling your child, “You have a quiz tomorrow, you need to study right now.” But it could also happen in big ways. I think about my dad growing up and, you know, he had a great heart when he was doing this, and I'm sure some of you might find yourself in this situation sometimes, but he would offer to do my homework for me. Even one time when he offered he said, “Nick, you’ve got enough going on - you’ve got a golf tournament this weekend, focus on golf, I'll get the project done.” And my mom said something like, “Vince, you're not doing that. Nick needs to learn how to plan out his studies well.” We laugh, but I share that because I think it represents that although we have good hearts, we know that controlling them in small ways and big ways is not helping them. And the child then begins to associate their will with what we tell them to do or not to do. So again, when we try to make decisions for them and tell them what to do, they begin to associate their will with mom or dad reminding them that something is coming up. And because of that, their will is not strengthened. It's like a muscle - if we don't use the muscle, it gets weak and sometimes it shrinks if we really don't use it. The same thing happens with our will - if the child is not using his or her will to make these decisions (small decisions in terms of studying for quizzes or big decisions, like how to plan for a project) then their will is not going to grow. And in middle school, you need the will to grow for long-term success. So when we give them the room for making decisions that will impact their success, it creates the space to care more about their success.
You might be thinking at this point, well, isn't it good for me to care about their school work? And yes, it is good for you to care about their school work. Strengthening the will of your child doesn't mean not caring about your child's work. It's about changing the way you go about these conversations. And the key is to help them see that they need to take action. It's really dependent on your child and their situation, but here's a couple of examples. So instead of saying something like, “You need to do homework right now, you have soccer practice later,” you could change that to, “You have soccer later tonight. What do you need to do right now?” Putting it in their court. So just a simple rephrasing helps them think about “If I don't do something, then something's not going to happen. So what do I need to do?” In a similar way, instead of saying, “I think you should study tonight, not play video games,” you could change that to, “When did you say that social studies test is? What do you plan to do to prepare for that?” And see what they think. If your child has a pretty strong will and he or she can already plan well, then if you can push him or her further in this. But if your child is used to more of you telling him or her what to do and laying out when these things should be done, then they can start in small ways first. Just start small if you need to, but the development of their will does need to happen.
Tip #2
In middle school, the thought from the child is often “more independence.” “Let me do my own thing.” It might feel like a pushing away. And, yes, the will of your child is crucial to develop at this age, but don't confuse it with being distant from your child. It's important to remember they still need your support and guidance, which leads us into tip number two: keep your child close. If I were to ask your child what are the times that they can count on to talk to mom or to talk to dad, would they be able to give an answer to that? When would that time be? Would it be the dinner table? Would it be before bedtime? It's going to be a little bit different for each kid. Would it be car rides on the way home? But give this some thought: what is the way that you're keeping your child close each day?
And one small exercise you can do with this is just take a look at your calendar. I think it can be eye-opening to look at the items on your calendar that are individual and compare that to the items in the calendar that are family-related. And just take a look and see where there might be some imbalances and see if you can stretch yourself to have some more family things - a walk after dinner or a hike on the weekend. Some ways I've seen families do this really well is one night of the week they put electronics away after dinner and it's a reading time as a family. And for the younger kids, they'll come up and read with mom or dad, for the older kids, they'll bring their own book. But it's 100% electronics away. I've also heard of families coming to the dinner table prepared with one intentional question, because I know dinner table talk can get routine after a while. And so it can be helpful to keep it fresh with one intentional question: “Who inspired you this week?” “What's a topic in school you want to learn more about?” And as parents and educators, we know vulnerability breeds vulnerability. So the more that we share and we're honest with them and and we can share our own lives and we want to talk to them, the more they're going to be willing to return that behavior.
And you might be thinking, especially those of you who have sons, “Okay, how can I get my child to talk?” I think we have to think about this in a different way. Let's put it back on ourselves - what's the kind of environment that we can create to allow them to open up? For some children, a car ride on the way home after school, you might ask them how their day was and they'll say, “Good.” And that's it. for other children, they might open up a lot, but some might get hungry after school and they might want to snack, so pay attention to the human needs of them too. I know that for myself when I was growing up in middle school and high school, I didn't talk much at the dinner table, but when I was doing dishes with my mom or dad, I would talk. There was something that I could do with my hands and that would get me distracted from the actual conversation. Some of you might find that fruitful with your sons or with your daughters. Maybe it's walking and talking, not just looking at each other and talking. And even if they don't always open up, for them to know that you are still the one that's asking and wanting to get to know them and and understand their challenges in their joy as of these middle school years will make them feel supported during these really tough years.
Tip #3
The third tip builds on the second: you need to have great hope in your child, even in tough moments. So we're talking about your child knowing that you have an unshakable confidence in them, no matter what. We all want to coach our children the best that we can. The most effective coaching, as we talked about in tip number one, is not telling them what to do. It's not giving them orders or giving them specific pieces of advice all the time, but the most effective coaching is actually giving them a sense of who they are. And you have to ask yourself, “Where do they get their confidence from?” Are they getting it from social media? Are they getting it from the Internet? Or on the other hand, are they getting it from your family and from the conversations that you have with them?
One important distinction I want to make with this is hope is not the same as “You can do anything you want…You're going to get a 100 on this test…” I greet the students as they walk into the building each morning and I'm not going up to them saying, “You're going to do perfect today. You should take my job, you're better than me”, right? That's not how we give our students hope. Instead, you can have both sincerity and hope at the same time because hope is deeply rooted in reality. It's about the person you know that they are. It's bringing me back to just a couple days ago - beautiful, beautiful day outside, and I was pushing my nine month old on the swing and it was one of the most pure moments I've had with him. And if we can just put ourselves back into that stage when we were pushing our child in the swing like that, and it just reminds us of who they are. We know that this goes deeper than just a human level. It's at a spiritual level. They were created good. We know that. Obviously we live in a fallen world, but they were created good, and we have to remind ourselves of that.
If our children ask themselves, “Does mom or dad believe in me? There’s a few different answers that we can get. The first one, and I don't think any of us in the room would get this, but it would be “No, they don’t believe in me,” and thank God that none of our children would say that. The second one is, “Yes, mom and dad do believe in me when I do what they ask of me.” So it's a conditional response. And that needs to improve because by our actions and our words, we need to remind them that we have unshakable confidence in them even when they fail - especially when they fail, especially when they fall short. This is what gives them a sense of who they are, and that gives fuel to their will - that ability for them to make these decisions. When they know that mom and dad support them, no matter what, even when you let them go for the test without helping them study for the first time and they might get a bad grade, but letting them know that you're still there for them and that you're you're working with them and you're supporting them while they're growing in the development of the will is a really, really important thing for them at this age.
How does mentoring tie into this?
At Saint Patrick's, we have the honor of partnering with you in this process of raising your middle school child. We know it's really hard. And one major way we do this is through the mentoring program that we started at the beginning of this year. It specifically helps with each of those three tips. So I'm going to go through the tips very briefly and explain how mentoring ties in. So mentoring - for the fifth grade parents who might not have heard too much about this yet - involves each middle school student being paired with a staff mentor, meeting once per month with the student. They talk about their growth and academics, their faith life, goals in virtue, and it's meant to support you as parents.
And so when we think about tip number one, the importance of developing the will, the mentor here at the school is really just the coach of the will. Just about every mentoring conversation I have, when students are telling me their challenges that they're experiencing in school at home in friendships, et cetera, I put it back on them. I say, “Okay, let's talk about this. What do you think you could do? Let's create a goal. Let’s have you write down a small goal. I'll check back in with you in a month from now.” And yes, I'm helping them with these goal setting processes, but the idea is that the mentor is the coach of the will.
Tip number two, when we talk about keeping our children close, this one is huge with the mentoring program. The mentor helps keep your child close to you in a very real way by what we can call The Great Confirmation. So The Great Confirmation is this - reminding the students that you parents are actually very wise. You know what you're doing. That's what we do. The mentor is confirming the advice and the authority of the parents. Just an example of this last week is when I was mentoring a student and he mentioned a challenge he was having in one of his friendships. And I asked him, “So what would your dad say about this? What advice would your dad give you?” And he told me this beautiful advice that he thought his dad would give him. I said, “Do you believe that?” He said, “Yeah, I think my dad's a very wise person.” And so we as mentors take these small opportunities to remind them that they should trust their parents. They can trust their parents. Their parents actually know what they're talking about. And the ideal mentoring scenario is this: we're telling your son or your daughter exactly what you're telling them, but they might receive it a little bit differently because it's coming from someone that's not you. They might be a little bit more open to receiving something that's coming from someone that's a little bit removed from their family. So that's the ideal mentoring scenario. We're giving them the same types of advice that we hope you would give them also, and we're strengthening the bond that you have with your child. So mentoring only works as well as the mentors and the parents can partner together. If mentoring was without the parents, we should scrap the whole program. In a beautiful way, the parents can say to their child, “Hey, why don't you talk to Mr. Bianco about that?” or “Why don't you talk to Mr. Antonacci or Mrs. Schmidheiser about that? See what they think.” And on the flip side, the mentor can say, “You know, I got to chat with your parents the other day and they're really great and wise. You should ask them about this challenge that you're having.” So it goes both ways. It's complementary.
Tip number three: have great hope. Mentoring helps with this because mentoring is not for a grade. There are no tests. And after a while, that starts to sink in with the student. For some of the students we have been mentoring it has taken a long time. It has taken that long for them to realize, “Okay, I think Mr. Antonacci actually cares about me. He's not just doing this for some alternative motive. He actually just genuinely cares about me.” And they start to open up more and they start to share more and they start to respect and listen to your advice more. And again, it's especially when they fall short in some areas. We need to be there for them and have great hope with them.
So going back to the opening address that the headmaster gave of one of the top prep schools, he said, “Who you are becoming here is more important to us than even what you are accomplishing.” And for us to say that to a middle school student would be most impactful if we partner together with you as parents in doing this. And we have to remember the importance of developing their will, strengthening their will, keeping the child close and having great hope in your child. And you can do this because you're not parenting alone. You have other parents alongside you, and, most importantly, you have a Heavenly Father who is looking after your child even more than you are looking after them.
[Following the talk, attendees shared ideas about strategies to help develop the will of their children and discussed their thoughts about various mentoring topics that could be helpful for mentors to bring up in meetings with their children.]