Looking for additional reading and resources? AMLE has curated a few of our favorite titles and podcasts offering great insights into the young adolescent brain and strategies for the families that support them.
By: Jack Berckemeyer
Embracing the Change: Middle School 101 for Families is a concise, brochure designed to support parents and families as they guide their middle schooler through a transformative phase of life.
The concise brochure distills the essentials needed to foster understanding, connection, and resilience during the dynamic middle school years, and introduces families to the comprehensive collection of resources available at middleschool.org. With a warm, approachable tone, it offers practical advice infused with patience, humor, and love, making it an ideal tool for school leaders to share at orientations or for PTOs to distribute to their communities.
This guide covers critical topics to empower families, including key parenting strategies for fostering independence, navigating the complexities of digital life, and providing robust social and mental health support. It also demystifies puberty, offering insights to help parents address physical and emotional changes with confidence and care. Embracing the Change is a trusted companion for every family ready to embrace the middle school adventure.
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By: Phyllis Fagell
Based on her many years working in schools, author Phyllis Fagell sees these years as a critical stage that parents can’t afford to ignore (and though “middle school” includes different grades in various regions, she maintains that the ages make more of a difference than the setting). Phyllis helps parents use the middle school years as a low-stakes training ground to teach kids the key skills they’ll need to thrive now and in the future, including making good friend choices, negotiating conflict, regulating their own emotions, acting as their own advocates, and more. To answer parents’ most common questions and struggles with middle school-aged children, she combines her professional and personal expertise with stories and advice from prominent psychologists, doctors, parents, educators, school professionals, and middle schoolers themselves.
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By: Jen Cort
Our students are confronted with many challenging topics as they negotiate the ups and downs of the world. How can we best support them, build their capacity to navigate challenging topics, and craft strong relationships and lines of communication? Through a series of HUBs, or Help Us Begin mindsets and strategies, Jen Cort provides practical advice any educator or parent can employ toward this aim. HUBs are illustrated throughout the book with stories, tips, application methods, and activities parents and educators can do independently or together.
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By: Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Almost everything about puberty has changed since today’s adults went through it. It starts, on average, two years earlier and stretches through high school . . . and for some, beyond. Gens Z and Alpha are also contending with a whole host of thorny issues that parents didn’t experience in their own youth but nonetheless need to understand: everything from social media and easy-access pornography to gender identities and new or newly-potent drugs. Talking about any of this is like puberty itself: Awkward! But it’s also critical for the health, happiness, and safety of today’s kids.
Bewildered educators and parents have begged for reliable and relatable information about the modern adolescent experience. This Is So Awkward answers their call. Written by a pediatrician and a puberty educator—together the hosts of a lively and popular podcast on puberty, and moms to six teens between them—this is the handbook everyone has been searching for. Eye-opening and reassuring, This Is So Awkward will help adults understand the turbulent pubescent decade and become confident guides for today’s kids.
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By: Phyllis Fagell
Middle school can be one of the toughest times in a kid’s life—for them and for their parents and educators. It’s filled with transitions, upheaval, and brand new experiences that can be overwhelming and intimidating. But licensed clinical professional counselor Phyllis Fagell has put together a practical, evidence-based, and compassionate guide for parents and educators to help their tweens through most challenging situations.
Middle School Superpowers teaches middle schoolers how to activate the 12 superpowers they need to discover their strengths and navigate tough decisions and disappointment:
Flexibility * Belonging * Sight * Bounce * Agency * Forcefield * Security * Healing * Vulnerability * Daring * Optimism * Balance
Whether they lose a friend, get cut from a team, make a mistake on social media, bomb a test, struggle with negative body image or identity-related issues, or feel weighed down by societal problems, these “superpowers” will help them find their place and thrive. Middle School Superpowers is the key to raising confident, self-aware, independent, and resilient kids who can recover from any setback—now and in the future.
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By: Chris Balme
How can parents stay close with their children through middle school? How do we help middle schoolers discover who they are, enjoy friendships, and manage their growing emotions? What kinds of learning experiences will keep them curious and motivated?
These and more questions are answered in this highly engaging and informed guide to the middle school years. Chris Balme draws on his experience as a middle school founder, principal, and teacher, together with the latest adolescent neuroscience. He shows what is going on in the brains of middle schoolers, and how that affects everything from their friendships to the way they relate to parents or show up in a classroom.
Parents will gain insight into how to transform their parenting to help middle schoolers find greater independence, connect well with peers, and have the deepest learning possible in and out of school. Educators will learn about the developmental keys to making middle school a place of belonging, with deep social and emotional learning and academics that draw out students’ full motivation and potential.
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A relatable and often humorous take on the challenges of puberty, helping parents and kids navigate this essential stage of growing up together.
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Parenting advice rooted in psychology and practical strategies to help navigate the everyday and the extraordinary challenges of raising kids.
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