Top 10 Tips for Middle School Success
Lonely are the show I'm talking with parents about the middle school years, but today’s show is a little bit different. It’s for you the soon to be middle school or the person who will actually be going to middle school for the next couple of years. I have for you today my top ten tips for succeeding your middle school that I've gathered from across the country. I travel speaking at middle schools and I always ask the question of the people what is your number one tip for succeeding at middle school and here they are my top ten.
Number one, overwhelmingly be yourself. The tendency is I want to try and fit in which is great, but try fitting with the group that you really feel you best match up with. You're trying to hangout with a group of kids that you don’t have much in common with isn’t going to work out well in the long run. So look for friends that you seem to have something in common with and then get into that group so that you can really be yourself. Don’t try into somebody you're not right now.
Number two, get involve. The great thing about middle school or one of them is that they have a lot of clubs, after school activities and organizations virtually everything that you could ever want and get involve in, every interest that kids have is there in middle school. So get involve, sign up for a club maybe two. And if they don’t have what you're interested in, talk to somebody about starting a new one.
Number three, stay organize and that statement right assumes that you are able to get organized because getting organized is sometimes a bigger challenge. You want to make sure that you have the binders, you want to make sure that you have some type of files system at home whether that be a file crape or just simply another collection of folders that you can handle all that paper in because that’s a big change from elementary to middle school is the amount of papers. So you want to be able to make sure that you’ve got that stuff organized. Get and stay organized.
Number four, remember your family, the ones that you are trying definitely to get away from, but those are the folks that are there when all the friends step aside and you really don’t have anyone to turn to it’s the family don’t forget about the family. As important as it is to hangout with friends, you want to make sure that you carve out a little bit of time in your busy schedule each week to hangout with the family. If it were nothing more than enjoying movie on the couch, maybe you can out and have a dinner but remember the family.
Number five, expect great effort. When you expect that you're going to give great effort you end up giving great effort and then you see the results of that whether it’s your grades or something you're doing out in the athletic field, or maybe you're involve in the arts. If you expect great effort, you're going to tend to practice more which means you're going to tend to achieve more and you're going to be happier with your performance.
So expect great things and expect great things from other people too, your friends and the way that they treat you. Expect them to treat you in a kind, courteous manner being respectful and they will. If you're expecting being less from that, you’ll probably get less. So expect great effort.
Number six, set and achieve goals. If there's something you want to achieve this year beyond just the grades on your report card. Maybe there's somebody you want to meet, maybe there's a club that you want to get started in, maybe there's just something that you really being wanting to do that haven’t been able to do yet, set and create goals. Start with something that’s small, maybe something that you can achieve in the next seven days. So you build up a little momentum and motivation and confidence that you can achieve long-term goals. So start with something small, something maybe that you want to be able to achieve in the next seven days.
Number seven, find out more about your teachers. They're people too strange at times but people too. They have friends and they have interests. The more you get to know your teachers, the more of an interest they're going to take on you and believe me that’s helpful when the grades come around. So find out more about the teachers.
Number eight, this is a big one you're going to hear from parents and from teachers too take responsibility. And truly it’s kind of an easy thing, you just simply step up and when the time is right take responsibility for getting the homework done and getting it back. Your new rule this year about homework is it’s not finish until it’s turned in. It’s not enough to get that project done and leave it at home or get it done, put it in your backpack and not turn it in. Homework and projects are not done until they're turned in.
And hey if you make a mistake step up and say I made a mistake, I'm going to try harder next time but take responsibility and the simple way to do that at home is simply by asking what can I do to help out. And that says “hey I'm taking responsibility for my role here in the family and at home trying to help out” that’s part of growing up.
Number nine, avoid the friendship drama. Not too much with boys these days but more so with girls. There's plenty of drama. You probably already saw it in elementary school. Friends wanting to put you in the middle of arguments that you're not even really involve with, stay out of that. Realize that friendship change on a daily basis. Somebody who says they don’t want to be your friends today is going to be the friend tomorrow. Give it a little bit of time; try not to get uptight about it. People are just a little bit fickle that way they like to change up on one thing to the next but eventually the true friends come back. So don’t get stressed about it.
And finally number ten, have fun. There's lot of things to get excited about in middle school. The classes maybe not so much but the after school activities and meeting new people and getting involve, learning new things it’s all good times. So try not to get too stressed out about all the small stuff, have a great time and enjoy those middle school years. Take care of yourselves.
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