Braving Middle School Like A Boss

Hey, Jim Daly here. If you like the Focus on the Family broadcast and haven't grown tired of this voice just yet, you'll love my Refocus Podcast. On Refocus, I take a deeper dive with a respected thinker on different aspects of culture. I ask those hard questions that maybe they don't get that often, and I don't shy away from challenging topics to help you share God's grace, truth, and love with others.

So listen to Refocus with Jim Daly on your favorite streaming app today. I'm getting ready to start middle school, and I'm worried that I won't have any friends. When I first started middle school, I was nervous but excited at the same time. I'm also worried about getting around because it's a much bigger school.

I was worried about being bullied or my locker not opening in gym class. I'm a little worried about the classes and how they'll be hard on me. This year, as an eighth grader, I get to help the incoming sixth graders. I'm excited about being an incoming sixth grader because I'll feel more grown up.

Well, middle school is a time of transition. I think I heard the word worry in there at least seven or eight times. There's a lot to worry about when you move from elementary school to middle school, to junior high, and we're going to ease some of those fears today on Focus on the Family.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, I can remember when Trent and Troy started middle school. I think it's all that apprehension. You know, they don't really have enough confidence yet. They're trying to figure out what they're good at, what they're strong at doing.

And there's a lot of doubt. And that's certainly true on the boys' side. I can remember, I mean, some older kid kind of hit me in the chest in a PE class because he was defining for a friend of his how well-built he was. Skinny eyeballs, like he cracked my sternum.

And then he said, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you couldn't take a light punch, which made all the worse. But that is, that's kind of middle school. That's what happens. I mean, guys, boys are trying to figure out the pecking order and who's who and who's a good athlete and all that stuff.

And it's rare for a young man not to go through some kind of torture there. But it's great to hear what many schools are doing, like in that clip we heard where older kids are mentoring the younger kids. We didn't have a lot of that. No, none of that when I was in middle school. It didn't happen that way. Right.

And today we want to give you some tools to help you guide your child and you as a parent through these transition phases, like from elementary school to junior high school. And you may be going through that right now. And we have some wonderful guests.

The Cathermans, Jonathan Catherman, who has two sons, Reed and Cole. And Reed and Cole are both middle school survivors. So that's a good thing. And they have lots of great insights to share with us.

They do. And they've they've written a book called The Manual to Middle School, the Do This, Not That Survival Guide for Guys. And we're so glad to have them here. It really is an insightful book.

Jonathan's been here before and it must be fun to have his boys with him. Yeah. Welcome to Focus. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be back. Yeah, that's fun.

This is kind of unique. You know, having a dad with his two almost adult sons, right? You guys are on that pathway now. How old are you? I'm 15.

18. So I guess I am. OK, you can vote.

OK, we'll talk about that later. But welcome. And it is a good thing. How did you decide to bundle all this advice into one book for young people, young men particularly, who are about to enter middle school or who are in the throes of middle school? Whose idea was it? So you remember when I was here last time, we were talking about the manual to manhood and I had written that book for my sons.

Right. And after returning back home and I was contemplating what's our next project, these two guys were sitting at the dining room table over dinner talking about middle school because Cole was just leaving elementary school headed into middle school and Reed was just leaving middle school headed into high school. So over a couple of dinners, it was like, what should I do?

What shouldn't I do? And advice was flying and I looked at each at the guys and I go, I think we got another book here, guys. Yeah, right. No kidding. So, Reed, let me ask you in that transition, especially into middle school, if you can reach back that many years now, what were those those feelings, those emotions that you had?

Reed. It's all good. So going into middle school. So I think it was kind of stressful.

It was like, what am I going to do? I'd been in elementary school. How many since kindergarten to fifth grade?

So that's about six years that that was where my home was. That's what I was comfortable with going into sixth grade and into middle school. It was like, it's a much bigger school.

There's way more kids there. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm worried that I'm going to mess up or that I'm not going to make any friends. Well, sure. So fear is one thing you don't the unknown. How about you, Cole? I luckily had Reed to help me out. So you're watching.

I had that session of like, OK, what do I do once I get there? So you were observing your older brother. Yeah.

Parents don't always get that. We don't know if you're watching. I had to watch. I was freaking out.

And what was causing you strain or anxiety? Lockers were scary. You had to put your stuff in a box that was like behind a metal door that you can't always open. That's just freaky. Yeah.

And then you had to remember a combination, which you thought you'd never remember. Right. Yeah, exactly.

I can remember that. Also, just the kind of the for the guys, particularly that pecking order, what I alluded to in the opening is true, isn't it? I mean, it's maybe unspoken, but you're trying to figure out who who's who.

What group do you fit in? Did you have some of that anxiety as well? Yeah, I think so, because I had a friend. I think he was in seventh grade at the time, but he was talking to me about how, like, guys are going to, you know, find out who they are. And like, they'll kind of like mess around with you, you know. Right. Kind of what happened to me. Yeah, exactly.

If they think that you're weaker, that you're smaller or you're a little bit different, then they'll kind of like, you know, target mess around with you. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's not sometimes that's very serious.

So I don't want to make too much light of that. But there is something about the male orientation that, you know, you just you're testing each other. You're trying to figure out who's the guy. He was nice to me and he kind of like helped me through that. And he was like, oh, yeah, I'll make sure that nobody messes with you.

Yeah. Well, you know, Jonathan, being the parent, let's go to that part. Why is it important for parents to even pay attention? This is kind of the stuff that normally happens.

And do we really have to be that engaged? Because kids are kids and they're going to learn the ropes. Well, these are some really critical formative years, both for how they are thinking and how they're acting and going through middle school.

I think a lot of it is a whole bunch of experimenting on does this work and should I repeat it and does this not work and how do I never do this again? So as a parent, to give our kids the kind of advice that we believe is going to work, but we can't force them. It's kind of like you can direct, but you can't steer for them. And so what kind of direction can we give our children as they make that big transition between elementary school and middle school to set them up for the best potential success?

Now, they're going to have to give it the go. But if they don't know, often today they'll pull back and just not even engage. So I'm going to give them the best advice I can and share with them in any way I know how without forcing it down their throats so that it's their experience, not my told them to experience. I think that every parent needs to go through the sharing versus forcing their kids. And I would think that you've got to build that relationship so it's not just happening at the middle school transition. I mean, in other words, the happening is the conversation you've got to build as a parent, you've got to build that trust and that open dialogue. And how did that work for you three?

I mean, let's really unveil it here. Did you guys have a good kind of communication line with the head? We've always been open with our family.

It doesn't really matter. There's no huge walls between us. Don't you think that's the ground floor? You got to be able to communicate. What happens in a family where there is a lack of that communication? There's a distrust between the parent and the kid and there's not the ability to like talk about your feelings to the parent, which is always not good for the kid. Yeah, it's hard to speak up and like that can build up and that can crumble relationships in a matter of time.

So I'm sure you've had friends that fit that description. Do you guys talk about it at that level when you're sixth, seventh grade, eighth grade? Do you guys did you remember any conversation kind of behind closed doors? But then once we're once like I realized that once I went into high school, that's where we sort of become comfortable talking about family life and like what's actually going on in the truth. Not just like brushing it over like, oh, yeah, everything's fine. This happened, but it's OK. Yeah, but a little more open. I need help. Right.

This is what's going on. No, that's good. Jonathan, let me go to the faith component because that plays an important role, obviously, the role in Christian homes. And I guess the right question is what role does faith play in preparing for middle school? How does a parent make sure that their kid is grounded? How many moms? Let me just speak to the moms listening who are fearful of that moment, especially when their son. And we're addressing sons today. But you can apply these things to daughters, obviously.

But when their sons are making that transition, I'm sure a lot of moms are going, wow. Right. So let's go back and look at faith. The context of faith means you've got to believe in something that isn't necessarily always seen. And it can't always be proven. Now, think about this. If you are consistent in your faith in your family through elementary school and then you get into middle school with your kids and they hit that 13 year old age and let's just call it what it is.

It's cray cray. Thirteen is the craziest age ever. And you're thinking, what did I do wrong? Because now everything I've shown them seems to be thrown out the window or in my face or I can't do anything right as a parent. And don't take it personal, but to be faithful through the time, the message you shared growing up to this time, the message you're going to share as they move through some of those chaotic ages of their life, that middle school and high school time. So the context of faith, love the Lord your God, love your family, be consistent.

I think that's the biggest thing. Don't try to then do a massive course change because you now have a 12, 13, 14 year old. You've got to just simply be faithful through your process that has worked to this point and continue. Okay, raise a child up in the ways they should go. When they're old, they will not depart from it.

Notice in that scripture, it doesn't say in the middle. It says when they're old. If you were to add to that, which we're not going to, but it says raise a child up in the ways they should go. And when they're in middle school, they'll go crazy.

And then when they're old, they'll come back around. But the reality is this is a tough time. So the faith component in the family is consistency.

Yeah, I like that. And that's probably the best way to approach faith is that consistency so your kids see it, right? And they may not always follow it, I guess is my point. I mean, your boys are doing well, it seems. And there are families where there's going to be struggle. And John, you homeschooled your kids. So that's a whole different environment. But when your young people are in public school, you're being exposed to a lot of things that maybe your faith contradicts. What about that component with friends?

And what were some of the drama aspects of your junior high years? One thing we saw as a parent observing our boys and their friends is they begin to find their voice. And guys, you can now speak to this. Because one thing that we expect in our family is that you can say anything, you just need to do it respectfully.

And agree or not agree with you, we'll still hear you out. There's nothing you can do to make me love you any less, right? And I think that plays into the component of faith to parents because that's the way the Lord has relationship with us. Think about how many times we've disappointed God, yet he loves us no less.

In fact, I'd have to believe every day there's more there, considering grace and forgiveness. And as a parent, we're supposed to be modeling that. Now these guys take that message and go to school and their friends are all finding their voice. But there's not always that respect factor there. Because I think we've had a few conversations about that. Yeah, I think it's not like one particular drama, it can just be spread throughout middle school.

It's a theme of if you don't do something that somebody wants, or if you're doing something different, but you used to be friends, they're going to poke and prod at you if you aren't exactly the way that they thought you were, that they want you to be. Sure, that's got to be some pressure. Social media is big pressure as well.

So I mean, how do you manage that with your friend groups? Luckily, in middle school, that was when I really like Instagram was, I mean, but it wasn't like, yeah, I wasn't allowed to have one to a little bit later on to middle school. Yeah. How about you?

What was going on? A little more impact with social media? I mean, I didn't really care about social media that much until I got older. I mean, what about your friend group in junior high?

Did they were they already diving in? All my friends had social media, like Snapchat was a big thing for everybody. I didn't get that for much after everybody else did. So I was kind of behind on the curve. Right. Yeah. One of the things that I remember seeing in the book is that you had a group that you called the squad. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And that was pretty important to you. Yeah, I liked that friend group. And then after a while, kind of everybody just split off. And how did you form them?

I mean, what's the genesis of that? So it was just a bunch of people with similar likings. And then I met one person from the squad and then I kind of got like grouped in and then it just grew from there. Started out with like five people and grew to like almost 16. And yeah, it just went from there. And then in the end of like eighth grade, middle way through eighth grade, it kind of just split off because everybody had different classes.

Yeah, but that's a tribe that you get to be a part of, particularly important as you enter middle school. Jonathan, how much intentionality did you and your wife apply to the friend development side? I mean, these are the pillow talks parents have about it. Do you know the friend Reed has? Aren't you worried about him?

I mean, have you noticed what he says and does over at our house? Okay, so to that point, here's something Eric and I did when the boys were still in elementary school. We started telling them things that we knew would stick and one day they'd have to contemplate. One of the phrases we say is be more influential than you are easily influenced. And I would believe the best compliment a parent could hear would say, will you have your child spend more time with my son, my daughter, because your child will be a good influence on him.

I've never quite understood. I don't want you hanging out with little Tommy over here because he's a bad influence. Sorry, anybody's name's Tommy. No, but I don't want you hanging out with that kid because he's a bad influence. Basically, I've just told my sons that other child, that other middle schooler is more influential on you than you are on yourself and more influential on you than we can be. So I gave them the power. Be more influential than you are easily influenced. That means you can be friends with anybody. Right. I like that.

And possibly influence them for the positive. And did that work out for you guys? How did you apply that?

When did that light come on? OK, I get what dad's telling me. The way that they raised us with those sayings, it just helped us find people who were kind of close to what we liked. I like theater in middle school, so I found people like that. But I also wasn't afraid of, oh, are they into something different or something that's a little bit sketchy?

No, I can influence them more than they will influence me. I won't do anything that I would not want my parents to not see or that I wouldn't want my parents to not hear me do. Like I would want to do or what I'm trying to say is like I would do anything with my friends that I would do with my family.

You know, I wouldn't want to say you wouldn't do with you with your family watching. I mean, that's a good axiom and that's a good rule of thumb to follow. Did you always follow it?

Pretty much, yeah. You know, it's just sometimes those are difficult spots. And in junior high, what typically young people lack is the confidence to be that influencer. So, Jonathan, as a father, how how could you even in addition to what you said, which is one thing, half the time and I don't know about you boys, but half the time you're not even sure you're sixth grader, seventh grader is actually listening. You know, they're doing something else and you think they're hearing you. But I'm on behalf of many parents that are having these discussions with them. Sometimes it sounds like a lecture and they kind of turn off rather than a dialog.

Is that fair? That's fair. You're reacting to that. Sometimes it's like I'm in a bad mood or something. I don't want to listen to what he has to say, but it's usually important, but it's just kind of going in one year and out the other. And that's why you kind of have to repeat it sometimes.

If it gets annoying, it's still in there somehow. And then you remember that. Let me ask you guys this question. How as young people and, you know, fresh off of the junior high experience, I mean, you're 15.

So that's not long ago. What would you say in coaching parents? How can we do a better job communicating?

I think that like you got to communicate to your child or to your middle schooler through love and understanding and like understand where they are. Talk to them, ask them instead of saying, go do your homework or go read your book. You know, ask them, how can I help you? You know, what's what's giving you some troubles? Do you need help with that? You know?

Yeah, that's good advice. You know, in the book, I think it's you, Cole. There's an incident where you did some damage to the garage door.

Or was that Reid? OK, that's me. That's OK. I thought both of you did some damage to the garage door. We both done damage to the house. I was a garage door.

Kind of explain the garage door problem and what that taught you. So for context, I was into bow and arrows, you know, shooting the bow and arrow. Don't know what got into me. Thought that it would be interesting to see what it would be like to shoot or like pull back with the opposite hand. It doesn't work well. It doesn't work well.

And you shouldn't try it with an arrow in the you know, I don't even know what the technical terms. It shot off, went into the garage and I was like, I'm going to die. Like my parents are going to kill me. Luckily, they didn't. But what happened was they were doing a renovation on their bathroom.

So my smart self, not really. I went to the bathroom, got some of the like wall putty. I think it's like drywall putty, is it? Spackling.

Yeah. Put it onto where the hole was and kind of like textured it, put some dirt on it to make it blend in with the garage door, you know. And then, you know, it was good for a couple of weeks. And then we were driving into the driveway and my dad was like, is that a bug on the front door?

And I was like, I don't know what that is. You know, there's something on the garage door. And we went up and checked. And of course, it was the bump from the exit hole. Yeah, it was on the other side.

Yeah, exactly. Whoops. What was that? So then what happened? So, OK, so instead of yelling or instead of getting mad at me, I mean, I guess he was like, why didn't you tell me weeks ago? But after that, he taught me how to fix the problem and we did it together, you know?

Yeah. And so it worked out. So dad's perspective. Driving up and seeing the garage door with this dimple on the outside, I knew immediately what had happened. And we asked, does anybody know what happened to the garage door?

And of course, nobody could remember what happened to the garage door. Thank you for that honesty. So this is what I appreciate about the boys is I could see in their faces. They both knew, but they weren't ready to tell me. I didn't know.

I don't know. So either way, Reed shows up shortly thereafter and says, I have to confess, I shot an arrow through the garage door. And I could see the fear in his eyes. And this is where you go, OK, yes, discipline. Right. So it's time to be disciplined. Now, we believe that you are either self-disciplined or somebody else has to discipline you. Either way, you need to be disciplined. And so I said, all right, well, you need to be disciplined. And the discipline on this is you need to fix the garage door the way the garage door needs to be fixed.

And I will show you how. And we'll discuss from there what follows. And I was thinking, OK, it's going to depend on his attitude now.

Does he go off the deep end and tell me something? I'm so bad for making him fix a garage door. He dove right in that garage door, got the full treatment.

It looks great. I mean, he had multiple layers of paint on there. It was he did a great job. So he learned a really good lesson. Now, Jim, a moment ago you asked about confidence in his middle school, boys in middle school. Is confidence important?

It absolutely is important. But how do we get confidence? Right. I believe confidence follows capabilities. So if we can teach these young men capabilities, they know they're able.

That means their confidence level increases. So using I don't care about garage doors. I mean, I do with my house, but he is more important than a garage door. And I know he'd already learned a lesson about firing an arrow through the house into the garage. But it's the what can we do with this now? Can I teach him something to make him more confident through a capability, which would be, in this case, repairing the garage door and also maintain our relationship?

Last thing I want to do is fix the garage door and break our relationship. Let me on that serious subject that we, you know, handled a little light heartedly, the bullying issue, because boys can be really hard on each other, especially at the junior high age, which is what we're talking about. Did you ever encounter that? How did you deal with it? Maybe, Jonathan, from your perspective as dad, how did you even inquire about whether or not it was occurring?

So let's start with the guys here. Did you ever experience it? I had a couple people who were mean to me, but it was like more of trying to pick at me to see how far they could go till I got really mad.

Yeah. And I had like patience enough to not care. But there were some kids that just really got on my nerves and I would yell back at them, like, not anything bad.

I would just get mad and be like, shut up, shut up, be quiet. And nothing really passed that. But some kids were just picking at you to get on your nerves so that they could be better than you somehow. Right. That's true.

I mean, it's a tough time of life. Yeah. For me, it was more name calling and just like, you know, just dumb names. And so I think that my experience with that and my memory of that is just that love and trying to see what's going on in their lives is more powerful than hate and trying to break down somebody else's life. And so I've actually made a few friends.

Yeah. Not naming names, but, you know, somebody was picking on me. I talked to them, saw what was going on and found out that, like, you know, they weren't having a great time in their life at that point. And we became friends. And we were still friends to this day.

That's off on that one. And then also just with other people, we may not be friends, but, you know, some other people, I've just talked to them and it stopped because just communication and simple acts of kindness. That really jumped out at me is that you suggest even being kind to the bully, engage that person, disarm them.

And that seems counterintuitive to most of us, especially at that age. But it sounds like it really worked out. Jonathan, how did you as a dad stay in touch with Reed and Cole? And I try to do that.

The reason I'm asking the question is that I'm intentional about it with Trent and Troy. I'll ask them, especially during the junior high years, you know, is everything OK? Is anybody picking on you? Anybody bullying you? And their response was typically, you know, that doesn't happen at our school.

And I'm going, right, it's happening. You may not be seeing it, but they never really came back with any experiences of being bullied, except one where my older son was in junior high and, you know, he had a there was a bully on the playground and he came after Trent and Trent basically pinned him down. He just said, stop bugging people.

And Trent's a big kid. So, I mean, I think that was the end of that, I think. But there's all kinds of ways to handle it. The one thing that we approached our boys is they are givers.

They give to people who are in need. And when they would have a need to talk to a friend or message with a friend or see a friend because that friend is being bullied, that both the boys have experiences where they're giving care and comfort to somebody else. To me, that was then the opportunity to say, OK, yes, go help your friend or talk to your friend or message with your friend. That opened the door. How about you?

Is everything going OK with you? And then they would share if something was wrong or if everything was OK. And I think that because they are confident young men, they are less likely to be bullied than others. And this is the hard part for many parents, I think, to hear is because they're saying about their own children, my child's maybe not as confident as that. That's a stage. Help them work through the stage of building their confidence so they become less of a target and become the giver of comfort to others.

Yeah. Well, this has been great and it's a good start. And I really want to encourage parents, particularly dads with their sons, to engage. And Jonathan and the boys have written a wonderful book, Manual to Middle School. The Do This, Not That Survival Guide for Guys. And like you said, one hundred aspects of how to help your young man get more confidence is just an example of that.

So if you're in that spot, maybe your grandparent and you have that fifth, sixth grader grandson who needs a boost. This might be a nice little gift to give to your adult son to say, hey, this is a good tool to use in your fathering. That's the kind of thing we want to be able to provide for you.

So get a copy. We can provide that for you right here at Focus on the Family. In fact, just make a gift of any amount and we'll send a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you. And you can get in touch, donate and get the book and the CD that we're bundling it with. When you call 800, the letter A and the word family or look in the episode notes for further details. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll talk with you, pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. That's 1-866-875-2915.