Author: Judith Warner
Through the stories of kids and parents in the middle school trenches, a New York Times bestselling author reveals why these years are so painful, how parents unwittingly make them worse, and what we all need to do to grow up.
With piercing insight and compassion, Judith Warner walks “us through a new understanding of the role that middle school plays in all our lives,” said a review in goodreads.com.
Warner argues that today’s “helicopter parents are overly concerned with status and achievement — in some ways a residual effect of their own middle-school experiences — and that this is worsening the self-consciousness, self-absorption and social “sorting” so typical of early adolescence.
Tracing a century of research on middle childhood and bringing together the voices of social scientists, psychologists, educators, and parents, Warner shows how adults can be moral role models for children, making them more empathetic, caring, and resilient.
Shannon Hale said in a review for The New York Times: “Warner gets personal with her tales of middle school woe — both as a former student and as a parent.”
