Middle school is when kids start deciding what their experiences mean.
I felt left out hardens into no one likes me. That didn't sit right hardens into I'm probably overreacting.
This is not because anything is wrong with them . . . it's just what happens when they're making meaning alone, without support.
And most of us reach for the tools we were handed: be nice, ignore it, don't take it personally.
It falls flat, because advice isn't how these skills get built. Neither is control. Protection doesn't come from managing every situation your kid walks into. It comes from how they learn to move through the ones you can't manage.
Here's the part almost nobody says out loud: kids don't build relational skills from a lecture. They build them from reps, with a person who's safe to practice on. That person is you.
Noticing what they feel and giving it words.
Saying what helps and what doesn't
Holding their own read on a situation instead of talking themselves out of it.
Finding the way back after a rough patch.
Every one of those is a practice swing and the safest place to take it is your kitchen counter, with a parent who knows how to coach it.
This is not a broadcast
Here's the part that makes this different from every program you've ever bought and quietly abandoned:
On Day 1, before anything else, I ask about YOUR kid and I'd love for you to reply with their grade and one thing you genuinely like about them. Three times across the month, I ask you to text me back, and I read every single reply.
And, mid-month, you'll get a Q&A session with the option to pre-submit a question if you can't attend live.
I can't come live with you for a month. This is the closest thing I could build.
"Have you come live with me for a month????"
MM, a mom on my review team.
I am 70 now . . . If my parents or actually anyone important in my life had asked these questions I could have avoided so much unhappiness.
Comment on Instagram @bridget.parentcoach
I promise . . .
Nothing to keep up with.
No streaks.
No homework
Nothing breaks if you miss a day; the texts wait for you.
If you ask the question and get a shrug, that counts, fully.
This is the one place in your week that will never make you feel behind.
And if your kid's brain runs hotter or differently than most, you're not on the edge of this. You're at the center of it.
The month is built with you in mind.
Who Are We?
Bridget KerMorris is a Stanford lawyer trained in relational therapy and a parent coach. She's a mom of 7 (ages 6 to 20) and the creator of the Steady + Connected Parenting™ framework for middle school parents.
She helps tens of thousands of parents through her Instagram community of 104,000+ followers
She's been featured as a parenting expert on NBC’s TODAY Show
She hosts the Middle Years with Bridget KerMorris podcast where she answers questions weekly from middle school parents
Parents tell her every day, “Your posts are saving my relationship with my kid.”
Leah Anne Borrell Leah Anne Borrell is a teacher, university teacher educator, and author who has spent 25 years with kids at school, from kindergarten circle time to graduate courses for new teachers. She’s also a mom of teenagers so she knows these years from both sides of the backpack.
She taught elementary school for a decade in Santa Barbara, then spent fifteen years preparing new teachers.
As a mentor teacher and supervisor, she has watched hundreds of lessons and supported new teachers with feedback and encouragement, from their first university courses through their first years with their own class.
She has just finished her first book, Make Them Your Favorite, about turning the care adults already have into connection that reaches every child. It’s with education publishers now.
On Fridays for 30 days, she'll share what teachers see: what’s really happening in your middle schooler’s day, and the small moves that help kids open up.
