Supporting Your Grade 6 Child: Insights from Our Parent Coffee

This month, our Middle School counselors hosted grade-level coffee conversations to bring parents together, build community, share collective parenting wisdom, and discuss topics relevant to each grade level. Counselors will host another round of coffee conversations in the Spring, following the Spring Conferences.

Two of the themes that came up in the Grade 6 discussion were:

How to balance after-school time and homework. Grade 6 students are working hard, and a large percentage are completing their work during X period, leaving less homework for them to do at home. Parent discussion centered around using the open time to ensure bedtime is early enough to allow for 9 hours, and balancing structured activities like sports and academic tutors, with free time and allowing for downtime in the afternoons.

Supporting Disorganized Children Middle School is a time for massive brain development and reorganization. One of the more frustrating aspects of parenting can be watching your child forget their ID, PE clothing, homework, whole bag, etc, at home or at school. This can happen despite reminders and specific conversations about these topics.

Our frontal lobes help us stay organized, make plans, execute our plans, and manage our time. They are our executive assistants! Our children’s frontal lobes are not fully operational, so they need additional support to remember, plan, and execute. Suggestions from our discussion included helping engage our children’s frontal lobes with questions rather than doing. Ex. “So, what is happening after school tomorrow? Oh, what items do you need for that? Is there anything else? Where is the best place to pack that? Where should we put this bag, so you can grab it in the morning?

Also, a checklist posted by the doors or on desks for kids to reference before they go can help. Finally, for adults, it is always important to remember to take a deep breath – especially in the morning – and to remind ourselves that this is developmentally normal. With time and some support, these executive skills do get better!

Feel free to contact the Counseling Office if you have any questions about life in Grade 6.

Great Resources:

• Why We Sleep – Dr. Matthew Walker (also a podcast)
• Untangled – Dr. Lisa Damour (also a podcast)
• Age of Opportunity – Dr. Lawrence Steinberg (adolescent brain research)