Middle School Matters is a great resource for parents with children in middle school or any parents that are concerned with their child’s social and emotional health during the preteen and young teen years. The organization of the book is such that you could read from front to back to gain the comprehensive knowledge or use it as a reference to go directly to the chapter that addresses the behavior of interest. I found myself reading parts of it out loud to my 12-year-old so that she could know that the friend issues or self-esteem concerns that she has are not only normal but understood and accepted.

An essential guide to the wildly unpredictable middle school years where tweens become teens, hormones unfold and peers influence becomes stronger. A must read for all parents and I recommend reading it before during or even after these tumultuous and dynamically influencing years where kids enter as and young adults emerge.

Every phase of parenting has unique joys and challenges. As the parent of a ten year old, I'm going to say that this phase we're in right now--the tween phase--is the first time I am legitimately terrified of messing up my kid.

Some of it's due to the era we live in. Twelve years into this grand experiment of putting the internet in our pockets and we don't have norms yet for how and when to bring kids online. (Frankly, they're already there, so it's more like how do we do this in a healthy way.)

Some of it's due to this being the very edge of having her completely under my wing. Now is the time to start the slow unspooling of control and letting her make her bad choices while we provide a soft place to land when she falls. Middle school children are starting to figure out who they are while simultaneously navigating shifting friendships and rapidly changing bodies. Parents have to find a way to set up boundaries and provide loving guidance.

Phyllis Fagell, a middle school counselor who has seen hundreds of children go through this transition, offers compassionate, sensible advice on how to navigate these murky waters. In <em>Middle School Matters</em>, she identifies ten key skills that she thinks are paramount for kids to master and offers concrete ways that parents can help their tweens grow.

The range of topics addressed is wide. She addresses academic pressures, social changes (making friends shifts from being proximity-based to interest-based), and emotional issues (puberty like whoa). She offers suggestions for how to cope with social media, and has separate chapters on issues that may be unique to boys and girls. She touches lightly on how and when to advocate for your child at school and elsewhere, all with a warm, encouraging voice. It was clear to me that Fagell enjoys working with this age group, and that she wants you to enjoy your tween as well.

**I can't recommend this book enough.** I hadn't even finished the third chapter before I told my husband that he was going to have to read this. He's been pulling his hair out with our daughter over the last few months, and I think he'll benefit from some of the tools presented here.

Before I go, I do want to evangelize about one tool that I learned of in the book that I put to use immediately: www.amaze.org. This site has a number of videos very broadly about sex education that are appropriate for children 6+. They address puberty, gender identity, intimate partner violence, and mood swings, among other topics, in short, kid-friendly animated videos.

A complimentary copy of this book was provided via NetGalley in order to facilitate this review.

Every parent of a middle schooler needs this book! Middle school is tough, but fortunately we have tools, like this helpful book, to help. It’s practical and simple; easy to put in to daily use.

This is an excellent primer for parents of middle school children (although it seems written more for mothers, the same ideas still apply). No book can cover every situation possible, but this gives good advice for the situations most likely to arise.

Lists the top 10 skills that middle schoolers need to equip themselves to tackle teen years and beyond! Each chapter tackles a topic with the corresponding skills that address it. It includes a portion for Educators to zero in how to help while at school. Each chapter ends with a summary to drive the points home. Establishing empathy and social skills, receiving parental and teacher support, modeling behavior etc. the action steps in this book are so clear and invaluable, this is a must-have parenting book!

I don't have a middle-schooler yet, but I am already starting to think about some of the challenges I might face as a parent of middle-schooler someday since that period of time was not the best in my own life as an adolescent. This book is matter-of-fact and easy to read and provides some great insight on some skills that can be utilized in making this important transition. I will absolutely return to this book in a couple of years to refresh my memory but I can already see how I can start to make some of these changes in our home now so that they are habit once this age is upon us.

Surviving and thriving in middle school can be difficult for kids, parents, and teachers. With her extensive experience as a middle school counselor, the author gives sound and tried advice to both parents and teachers of middle school students. She gives examples, teaching methods, and conversation starters that will help parents and teachers deal with the many difficult aspects of this age. This is a great how-to guide for parents and teachers of grades six through eight.

Well-written, helpful book. I highly recommend it for parents of middle schoolers.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is a well-written and useful book about adolescents. Good advice is interspersed with vignettes to illustrate the difficulties students face in their social, emotional, and learning development, and this book is highly recommended for both parents and teachers. I found the ten key skills to be realistic and they put the focus on developing the student's development.

I have been in elementary education for about 15 years, and felt pretty comfortable raising my son - until, that is, he got to the point of finishing 5th grade. With the imminent move to middle school looming right ahead, I felt a strong need to look into what resources I can find in order to prepare myself for parenting a middle schooler. I am lucky I got my hands on this book. It is quite detailed, has very clear description of different types of situations that can transpire within the course of those middle school years, and how one might go about helping a child process them. I like this book so much that I am going to start suggesting it to parents who ask for support for their 5th graders transitioning to 6th grade.

Having spent time working in a middle school, I thought this was a fantastic book. Such great information for parents. I wish I'd had this book before my kids headed to middle school which can be such a difficult transition. I will be recommending this to future middle school parents. Thanks for the advanced copy..

I received a kindle copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest feedback. I was interested in this book as my daughter is entering 6th grade next year. This is completely new territory for us! Overall, I liked it. There were some great pieces of advice that I am going to try and implement in our home as my daughter gets older. The author is obviously well versed in child psychology and with children in general. There were some pieces throughout that I felt were a little out of touch with today’s kids but having not tried these strategies myself, I can’t say? It also bothered me a bit that the book was written as if only a mother would be reading it. Granted, I am a mother so maybe it shouldn’t have bothered me. I could just see a father wanting to pick up a book like this and wondering why it is written in such a way that makes it seem as though only the mothers would care about these issues.

As I said though, it was a good book in general and I would recommend it to middle school parents.