By Bill Wolf-Tinsman, Middle School Principal
 

The movement from childhood to adulthood is a process of self-discovery filled with unexpected twists and turns. As part of this process, many young people try on, experiment with, and discard a wide variety of personas and ways that they can interact with peers, siblings, parents, other adults and work. Provided that these experiments with who they are, what they care about, and how they interact are not overly dangerous, each iteration leads to new learning and a greater understanding of who the young person truly wants to be. Some of the decisions and experiments with friend making (or friend breaking) lead to positive outcomes, some do not.

 

Similarly, some decisions about how to approach school lead to positive consequences and increased learning; others do the opposite. A friend of mine described the process of watching his son experiment with his behavior as similar to watching a NASCAR wreck in slow motion.

 

Just like most fender benders, however, this experimentation rarely creates lasting damage. As a matter of fact, I will argue that in the long term, this experimentation leads to better and better decision-making and increased clarity about what is most important.

 

If we dig deep within ourselves (deep because many of us have repressed all or part of our middle school years), we may remember the time we decided not to study for a test, or the time we excluded someone for social gain, or the time we cheated, grade grubbed, were unkind, lied, broke the rules or what have you. Unless you are now sitting in a state or federal penitentiary, it is likely that your dalliance with these behaviors was just that, a dalliance, an experiment with what would happen if you tried on a new behavior. Most often, we are not proud of these decisions. We aren’t proud of them because in hindsight, they don’t represent who we are, our values and how we see the world. Remembering these missteps, though, may help us understand our children’s journey a bit better, particularly if we also recognize that we are probably who we are today because of, not in spite of, these necessary missteps.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if our kids could learn from our mistakes rather than have to make their own? Unfortunately that is not how it works. Children need to chart their own course through the choppy waters of adolescence. All must, through trial and error, discover what works for them, feels right and allows them to achieve goals in friendship, school, sports, academics and the arts. There are few shortcuts. Parents who understand this truth are ahead of the game.

 

Not too long ago, I asked my father about what it was like to raise three boys. He said it was a lot of fun, AND then he said that he counted on the world to be his partner in teaching many of the lessons that we needed to learn. This is not to say that he wasn’t actively involved in our upbringing, only that he knew our experiences and their natural consequences would teach us important lessons about what happens when you work hard or don’t, are honest or lie, treat people well or poorly.

 

Today as parents, we are perhaps a bit more reluctant to allow experience to serve as our partner in raising our children. Perhaps we feel that the stakes are too high to allow our child to blunder about. Perhaps we don’t want to see our kids feel pain the way we probably did at some point in our own past. Whatever the case may be, it is healthy to remember that childhood is supposed to be a time of rehearsal when the stakes are low.

 

One of the wonderful aspects of working with adolescents is seeing the dramatic nature of change over time. The same child who was a little shy as a sixth grader is on the leadership team in eighth. The student who couldn’t get out of his own way as a student in sixth grade is now passionate about science or math or English.

 

In this age of immediate gratification, the evolution of young adults moves at what appears to be a glacial pace; still, parents’ keen eyes can spy glimpses of the kind of young person that is slowly unfolding.

 

My hope for all of our students is that we can continue to provide the stage, not for performance, but for rehearsal. I also hope that we can create space for our students to try new things and discover areas of new interest and passion. As messy as it is at times, kids truly move through the chrysalis of adolescence and emerge stronger, more skilled, and generally ready to take on the new challenges presented by young adulthood.