For a lot of young people, middle school can be an incredibly difficult time.  If you don't believe me, take a survey of adults and find out what percentage of them would like to go back to being in middle school.  I have a feeling that very few adults would have any desire to re-live their middle school years and that's likely because for many of them they have memories of middle school being a difficult time in their life.

What makes the middle school years so difficult?

Everything is changing

And by everything, I mean everything.  Changing schools.  Changing bodies.  Changing faith.  Changing friends.  You name it; it is changing during middle school.  This can be difficult to navigate through.  Change is a normal part of middle school, but the sheer amount of change that is happening during these few years is a lot to work through.  All of the sudden a middle school student has to start figuring out why they have emotions they never had, make new friends as they go to a new school, and deal with the embarassing time of puberty.

Not a Kid, Not an Adult

Have you ever heard a middle school student that is frustrated with being treated too much like a kid?  It's common because they are no longer the kids they once were.  They long for the independence of adulthood, but unfortunately they are far from being ready for it.  This makes middle school difficult, because at times they want to be treated like an adult, but other times they want the freedom that they are used to from their childhood.  Middle school students are literally stuck in the middle between childhood and adulthood.

The Opposite Sex

In childhood years, nobody thought twice about playing with the opposite gender.  But all of the sudden during middle school, boys and girls start looking at each other differently.  Some students quickly become interested in talking to the opposite sex, while others still have no interest in speaking a word to them.  For the student who is not interested, this becomes a difficult time because they don't understand why so many of their peers are obsessed with the opposite sex.  For those who are interested it can be difficult because it is a whole new set of relational dynamics that they have to learn that often consumes a large part of their middle school years.

What do you see making the middle school years so difficult?

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