It usually comes out sideways. You suggest a book and get a shrug. You ask about a school reading assignment and get a “I’m just bad at reading.” It’s not angry, not dramatic. It is stated like a fact about the weather. Resist the urge to argue. “No, you’re not” is the natural response, and […]
At some point in the school year, the backpack becomes its own ecosystem. It sits by the door with a slight lean. It’s noticeably heavier than it was two weeks ago, and it has a strange smell that isn’t quite food but isn’t quite gym shoe either. You’ve asked, and your child claims that it’s […]
Remember the third week of June when bedtime stopped being a time and became a suggestion? Nobody decided this; it just happened, one late sunset and one “just one more episode” at a time. Suddenly the kid who used to be asleep by 8:30 p.m. is now negotiating at 10:45 p.m. with the confidence of […]
You have the list. It came home on a photocopied sheet or landed in your inbox, and it is strangely specific. Not just a folder, but a red folder with prongs and no pockets. Not markers, but a particular count of a particular kind. You walk into the store with a plan and a cart, […]
Every summer, parents worry about the reading slide. Will their children lose ground on math? Will the writing get rusty? Will September arrive to find everything they learned last year quietly leaking out of their heads? It is a real thing, and it is the slide everybody already knows to watch for. But there is […]
The registration form is sitting open on your laptop. Fall soccer, dance, band, or the swim team, they have done for three years running. You mention it at dinner, expecting a shrug and a yes, and instead your child puts down their fork and says they do not want to do it again. And something […]
Summer can be filled with small asks. Can I ride my bike to Jacob’s house? Can I stay home while you run to the store? Can I walk to the corner and back by myself? And so often a parent’s instinct is to say not yet. Maybe when you are older. Maybe next year. Summer […]
The first few days of summer break have a honeymoon quality. Everyone is relaxed, the rules are loose, and if your middle grader spends a long morning glued to a screen, well, they earned it. They survived a whole school year. Then day four arrives, and the loose arrangement you never actually agreed to has […]
While May is filled with end-of-school activities, June is basically a month-long exhale. School winds down, schedules loosen up, and suddenly, there is actual time to do things just because they sound fun. Lucky for you, June comes loaded with unofficial holidays that are exactly that kind of fun. Here are the ones worth putting […]
The last weeks of school look like excitement from the outside. Field days, yearbook signings, countdown chains taped to bedroom doors. The excitement is real, but for many middle graders, something else is running quietly in the background. This is a transition, and transitions are complicated at any age. At eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, […]
It’s raining. School is out or winding down for the day. Your middle grader has exhausted their usual options and has arrived in the kitchen to deliver the news: they are bored. Completely, desperately, nothing-to-do bored. The instinct, especially on a rainy afternoon with nowhere to be, is to fix it. Suggest something. Hand them […]
Every year around this time, millions of people fill out brackets predicting which college basketball team will take the championship. Most of those brackets are busted by the end of the first weekend. And yet, people love it. There is something genuinely fun about setting up a tournament, picking your favorites, and watching the whole […]