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Middle School Madness
With Linda Perlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 09, 2003; 1:00 p.m ET
If you think middle school was complicated in your day, you should see it now. In Sunday's Post Magazine and her book, "Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers," The Post's Linda Perlstein shares what she learned after spending the 2001-2002 school year "embedded" in middle school.
Perlstein, who covers education for The Post, will be online Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 1 p.m. ET to field questions and comments about the article and her upcoming book.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Linda Perlstein: Thanks for joining me, and I look forward to taking your questions about middle schoolers. For more information about my book, visit www.notmuchjustchillin.com. Let's get started.
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Silver Spring, Md.:
I have a child in seventh grade. He is not yet 12 years old. From your article it seems that seventh and eighth graders spend much of their time thinking and talking about sex and maybe alcohol, drugs, etc. On the other hand Ms. Kelly had a column in Monday's Style section that talked about the joys of raising adolescents -- how they want to be with their parents and play board games, etc. Somehow, I got the sense of opposite ends of the spectrum of how middle schoolers act and it is difficult to know the truth. Is it really as grim as you portrayed? Do the kids you hung out with also not get along with their parents, not do their homework, not communicate with anyone but with grunts, really spend all their time thinking about freak dancing? Are you sure you hung out with a representative group of middle schoolers? washingtonpost.com:
The Terrific Teens: A Delighted Mother's Rhapsody, (Post, Sept. 8)
Linda Perlstein: The kids who talk about sex a lot are very often the same ones who are communicative and fun at home and play board games with their parents. That's the interesting thing about middle schoolers, and why my vantage point -- observing the kids not just at parties and at lunch but at home with their parents -- was valuable.
Certainly not all the kids talked this way. But all of them heard this kind of talk, and that it even had to go through their brains at all disturbed me.
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University Park, Md.:
We have one land phone, one stereo, one TV and one computer (no IMing) -- all in public areas of the house -- and have been teaching media literacy skills to our middle school daughter since she was born. She understands that pop culture is of fleeting value, that advertisers don't care about her well-being, and that watching or participating in crude, violent behavior hampers her development. She avoids kids that don't respect themselves or others, and, because her self-confidence shows, those kids avoid her too. Her closest friends are very much like her. Didn't ANY of your students voice similar ideals?
Linda Perlstein: One phone? Wow. I think controlling children's media intake is important, and I can't imagine allowing my (theoretical) children to have television and instant-messaging in their bedrooms.
That said, many middle school children are sophisticated enough not to believe everything they see on TV, and, delightfully, many have healthy doses of self-respect. It's still taxing for them to have to process the things that face them.
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Education Researcher:
Linda,
Congrats on finishing your field work and publishing. I'm looking forward to reading the book -- how did you gain access to the school and to the children? Why was this school in Columbia chosen as the field site?
Linda Perlstein: The book takes place at Wilde Lake Middle School in Columbia, Md. I chose the school because I already had a relationship with the school system and the principal through my work as an education reporter for The Washington Post, and I knew they would be receptive to the project.
I met the children at school and spoke with their families about writing about them, with the children's and families' names changed because of the sensitivity of writing about minors. They all bravely said, "Sure."
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Arlington, Va.:
Loved your article, and look forward to reading your book.
Question- my child is only in fourth grade, but based on your observations, what should we do as parents to prepare him for middle school?
Linda Perlstein: Say "no" and stick to it, so that he's used to the concept. Get him involved in activities outside the school and neighborhood, so he has another community he feels important in. Next year, give him my book to read -- or other books of the genre -- so he knows what to expect. Make it a habit to talk regularly about things on his mind. Show your love every day and do fun things as a family, and don't stop any of that when it seems like he's started to ignore you.
There are a lot of things parents can to do make middle school more smooth and productive, and many of them start far earlier than sixth grade.
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College Park, Md.:
What role did spiritual belief and participation play in the lives of the students? Did you find that students who were active (at least weekly) in their
church/mosque/synagogue were more resilient to the base influences of peers and media?
Linda Perlstein: Not Much Just Chillin' has a first communion, a Bar Mitzvah, and another girl who thinks a lot about God, religion and death. For many kids, middle school is when they start thinking seriously about those things.
As for being active: Like I mentioned in my previous answer, I think being involved in any sort of positive community outside school is a great idea. But the boy who does the most making out and feeling up girls and talking about sex in my book participated in church activities every week. As a matter of fact, that's where he found some of his prime targets!
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Leesburg, Va.:
We are relocating back to the states from Europe after three years. I would like to submit a suggestion for an upcoming article about the pros and cons of relocation for children. This is becoming a great problem even when relocating from one state to another because every schoold district uses different curriculm guide lines for each grade and many children are missing out on necessary subject matter due to the change in residence.
Thank you for your consideration.
Linda Perlstein: While some children indeed are quite resilient and find each move a great adventure, moving is far more disruptive to young psyches than many parents think. Being torn from your friends, having to fit in again, and -- as you write -- grappling with a new set of curriculum guides and a new set of tests and a new set of expectations at every school are all quite difficult for children.
However, a few New Kids showed up at the middle school I wrote about and were immediately fascinating and popular to the kids who were already there.
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Gaithersburg, Md.:
I get the impression reading your article, that the more things change the more they remain the same. Yet the advertising is one of how much more complex middle school is. Am I missing something? Is the advertising lieing? What are significant differences between what you observed and what you lived through? Do those differences reflect basic changes in the times, or just who you are and who you happened to observe?
Well written article, I will plan on buying your book.
Linda Perlstein: Marketing to middle school-age children is a whole new ballgame these days. They have movies targeted to them, television shows targeted to them (usually starring some fascimile of the Olsen twins), entire magazine racks targeted to them, entire wings of shopping malls targeted to them. I just had the children's department at Boston Store.
They also have a ton more money to spend. I made $1.50 an hour babysitting, which would be $2.68 this year, adjusted for inflation. They make $5, $8, $10 -- if they can be bothered to babysit.
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Woodbridge, Va.:
Even though having concerns about middle schoolers' behavior is valid, I think that middle schoolers have a lot of bark and not a lot of bite. They like to TALK like adults, but they're still kids on the inside and don't do half the stuff they talk about.
Linda Perlstein: They don't do one-fiftieth of the stuff they talk about. Thank goodness.
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Somewhere, USA:
From your references to the 80s, I gather you and I are about the same age. Which means we're getting to a point where the "natural" thing would be for us to complain about the no-good youth of today and how spoiled they are.
I don't remember my junior high years as a particularly idyllic time. I think parents were rougher on kids then; certainly we didn't have many computers, etc. People worried a lot less about "entertaining" kids with "enriching" experiences. And, since this was in the South, if you annoyed a teacher, you stood an excellent chance of being paddled to within an inch of your life.
For all that, though, my inclination is not to complain about today's kids but to feel sorry for them. The pressures you mention about sports. Constant high-stakes testing. Algebra in the seventh grade. Starting to build up a college entrance resume when you're 12. And so many of the "bad" things now have consequences that are potentially so much more serious: the 12-year-old who back then might sneak a beer at a party might pop an Ecstacy pill now.
So, basically, I think I'm glad I grew up then and not now.
How about you?
Linda Perlstein: I don't think today's kids are no-good -- though they are a little spoiled (not that I would advocate paddling). I do feel sorry for them -- despite all their "enriching" experiences -- and that's the theme of the story I wrote for the Washington Post Magazine this past weekend. They just have so much more to worry about than we did.
As for my admittedly idyllic middle school years, I would never claim they were fully representative. I had a pretty sweet childhood.
P.S. I had a computer! An Apple II Plus! Okay, we couldn't instant-message, but really, that's just as well.
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Laurel, Md.:
From my own middle-school years (which pre-date yours by half a decade) I do remember feeling that there weren't enough rewards for being a good student. The non-serious ones would drink and make out and if they were suspended for skipping class, didn't mind getting the day off school. It was the only the serious students who took punishment threats seriously.
Did you get the impression that a reverse-reward system exists at Wilde Lake?
Linda Perlstein: Most kids do want to do well in school, for themselves and for their parents. Many don't care as much, and that's a huge concern.
There are rewards for doing well in middle school and punishments for doing poorly, certainly. Problem is, the rewards are not in the arena kids that age care the most about: social. Until getting all A's makes you more popular and better-looking, I'm not sure it's going to be every thirteen-year-old's #1 priority.
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Silver Spring, Md.:
Do you think you got an accurate depiction of the middle-schoolers? I'm curious how you determined that they weren't being less forthcoming, or maybe even embellishing things a bit because of your presence. Look forward to reading the book!
Linda Perlstein: Yes, I think my depiction is accurate, and I'm hearing confirmation of that from the people portrayed in the book. I've spent several years focusing my lens on middle schoolers, and I have understood children well all my life, and my observations are complemented by a thorough attention to the research and literature and social science experts.
When someone is with you hours a day every day for practically a year, to the point you forget why they're there at times, embellishing would be nearly impossible. And I don't think they felt much need to keep things from me. I could have sniffed that out.
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Somewhere, USA:
If you'd heard my friends and I talk about girls when we were 14, you would have imagined we were headed for a spot on the sex offender registry. But in fact most of us were actually pretty innocent. And had a decent set of values.
Are you absolutely sure you paid enough attention to the (potentially huge) difference between what kids that age say to each other and to an adult when they're in a group and what they really believe?
Linda Perlstein: As I mentioned before, most of these kids have pretty good values, officially. I paid a lot of attention to the difference between what they say and what they do and believe, which is why I've turned down invitations to go on TV and talk about a supposed sexual explosion among our twelve-year-olds.
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Harrisburg, Pa.:
Your article contained excellent anecdotal information. In your book, do you have some statistics and studies to support that your observations are part of a growing national trend? In sum, are middle age children growing up faster than in previous generations?
Linda Perlstein: Statistics and studies are cited in the notes and bibliography of Not Much Just Chillin'. In some ways, middle-age children are growing up faster -- The Hurried Child by David Elkind and The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman are excellent books on this subject. But in some ways, they're staying pretty much the same. According to some studies, for example, the number of teens participating in sexual activity has plateaued.
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Arlington, Va.:
My sister just started teaching eighth grade in a tough inner-city school. On Friday afternoon the first week the kids got rambunctious. She responded by handing out their first quiz, to be completed over the weekend. You have to set consequences for kids at that age, so they can see disincentives for negative behavior.
Linda Perlstein: Absolutely. Parents and teachers both. And they shouldn't back down when the kids protest.
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Ballston, Va.:
Have you seen the movie, "Thirteen" and did you observe any similar radical changes in any of the children you met with?
Linda Perlstein: I'm glad you ask. I think "Thirteen" is a fantastic movie. The situations it depicts are extreme; very few first kisses wind up as oral sex. But while the degree to which the former good-girl protagonist, Tracy, changed over several months is abnormal, the fact that she changed (dress, attitude, friends, behavior) is not. The mother who ignored the warning signs, didn't want to upset her daughter, accepted her explanations that she was studying at the library: that is fairly common stuff.
Parents should learn from the horrible behavior modeled by the adults. A crackhead boyfriend? Dumping all your financial problems on your daughter? An ex who can't be bothered to pay attention? YOUR ACTIONS ARE YOUR CHILD'S GUIDE. Choose them carefully.
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Columbia, Md.:
I have a daughter in a Columbia middle school and everything seems to be cool with her most of the time. She does spend a lot of time on the phone as most teenagers do but the kids in her school also have a fascination with IM. It was starting to turn into a nightly thing until I put my foot down. Did the kids that your worked with spend a lot of time on IM and if they did do you know what the fascination is with it?
Linda Perlstein: Of the six children who appear most in my book, four (coincidentally, the girls) are on IM a lot. I IM with them regularly (so it's not all useless!), but in general I would discourage too much IM time. I would also insist -- on the spot, so they don't have time to change it -- that my child show me his or him IM profile. You'll get a sense from that if they use IM to be nasty to each other or for more innocuous purposes.
What's the fascination? Constant communication, even though they don't say much we would find substantive, with their friends. Which they feel is as imperative as their need to breathe and bathe.
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Gaithersburg, Md.:
I get really tired about how kids are different today and especially about how kids have it much more difficult today. I went to junior high in the 60's. All the boys talked about then was sex and sports then, so that hasn't changed. As for stresses, I continually had nightmares about nuclear war and our older siblings were being drafted to fight in Vietnam -- if they weren't being arrested protesting it. Not to mention race riots. As for college pressures and testing pressures -- in New York State we faced the dreaded Regents Exams, without which you didn't get into a college in New York. My daughter just finished middle school and she was LESS stressed by it then I was. There is so much more support for students that wasn't there when I went to school. There were no middle school guidance counselors, no school psycologists.
Middle school has always been tough. I just don't think things have changed that much.
Linda Perlstein: Kids who need it certainly have lots more places to go for support, and that's a good thing.
I don't mean to give the impression middle school is like going through the wringer. Most of the middle schoolers I know are pretty content and happy, in general, even if they don't admit it.
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Washington, D.C.:
I agree with you that a lot of kids are spoiled and not given enough limits. But what about the other end of the spectrum -- kids from such strict homelives that they rebel and act out against that. Do you this this is as prevalent of a problem?
Linda Perlstein: That's a problem too -- I would say less prevalent, but still a problem. Kids need structure and rules but they also need some warmth and reasonable flexibility.
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Gaithersburg, Md.:
I have a 7th grade daughter who is defiant and argumentative one minute "I hate you, etc." and the next wants you to snuggle her before bed. She will almost refuse to do anything if it comes from me. I feel like I am walking on eggs never knowing how she will react. My older son was even tempered and logical. Is her behavior usual for middle school girls or should I be worried?
Linda Perlstein: That's VERY typical middle school behavior! It's not a boy-girl thing, it's more luck of the draw. You might be relieved to read Not Much Just Chillin' and realize you're not the only one. And realize that your daughter has about as much control over her mood swings as she does over the growth of her feet.
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Bloomington, Ind.:
As a student teacher ready to enter the field as an independent teacher, I often wonder what differences exist between younger teachers fresh in the field and older, veteran teachers. As a 21-year-old teacher, I feel, by default perhaps, I am envloped in more of the pop culture of adolescents, and pick up much more on lascivious asides, risque comments, and taboo lingo than my older colleagues who can't tell Snoop Dog from Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Did you experience any such differences among the faculty at the school?
Linda Perlstein: I think it's great for middle school students to have some teachers who are young, fresh, hip. They definitely respond to that.
But I can't delineate by age which teachers pick up on tabooness. It's more personality and attentiveness and their level of engagement with the students, which isn't necessarily correlated to age.
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Bloomington, Ind.:
As an educator, what insight, ideas, and lessons do you feel teachers can take away after reading your book? For some middle school teachers, it has been many years since they themselves were students "being shoved into lockers."
Linda Perlstein: That when you are twelve, you can't sit still for 30 minutes at a time. You want the things you learn in school related to your life outside it. You want your teachers to set high standards and never stop helping you reach them. You HATE copying from the overhead projector. There's much more in the book.
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Plainfield, Vt.:
I am a MS teacher of 29 years. In our small rural school we have recently established an interim dress code... as you might imagine, to meet some of the challenges of the current trends. Question: What learning and observations can you share as to how "dress" is used to exert types of power or peer influence? (MS kids, as you know, come in a wide variety of developmental ranges and we are studying how current trends accentuate that age-old fact.)
Second Question: In your professional view, when does "dress" become an issue of sexual harrassment and/or a question of safety... for students and adults working with them?
Linda Perlstein: It's so hard to decide a particular piece of clothing is "inappropriate," since the tank top that looks slutty on a chesty twelve-year-old (wearing lots of makeup) may look just fine on an undeveloped one.
It's a struggle to convince a preteen girl that it's wrong to be flattered by sexual-innuendoed attention from boys, that wearing tight clothes don't help. Most principals keep ugly, baggy shirts around to give to girls who break the dress-code rules. Unfortunately, they are not often in hearing range to provide boys muzzles when they make lewd comments.
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Linda Perlstein:
That's about it for time. Thanks for your questions, and sorry I couldn't get to them all. Feel free to e-mail me through my website, www.notmuchjustchillin.com.
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