Joe Bruzzese Read Online Free

child, you may also have opportunities to gain valuable information about his day through casual observation. And when it comes to observation, rule number one is to keep your distance. Observing is different from hovering: although observing casually from a distance will provide you with information about your child’s social circle, hovering over your child by following himonto and around the school campus will almost certainly embarrass both your child and you.
    Look for and plan times when your presence will not be noticed by your child. The minutes following the morning drop-off or immediately preceding the afternoon pick-up can be wonderful observation times: when kids come together at school, their focus shifts to each other, which leaves you with a few moments to observe from the safe distance of your car, getting a glimpse of your child’s body language and overall demeanor while interacting with his friends as he walks into school or toward the car. Sports practices and games can be another venue for similarly unobtrusive information gathering. On the flip side, showing up at school or at an event unexpectedly in an attempt to gain a front seat to your child’s social proceedings can end badly. You may even do this unwittingly when you suddenly find yourself cast into a crowd of your child’s peers at a party pickup or after-school event. The less-than-subtle look on your child’s face will be a clear indicator that you don’t belong—and the cold shoulder that follows will reinforce this. When these inevitable moments occur, try a simple apology to your child. A statement like “I will try to stay farther away next time” may not gain you immediate verbal acceptance or forgiveness, but your child will know you’re aware of how important the social part of his life has become.
    A middle schooler’s social life doesn’t end at the conclusion of the school day. The prolific use of cell phones and text messaging can keep kids connected late into the evening hours. To bring more conversation back into your relationship, try identifying times and places where your child is not allowed to use the cell phone. Make your home a no-cell zone; this doesn’t mean no phone calls, rather, all social calls must happen on the landline phone. This doesn’t make it OK to listen in on your child’s phone calls, but it does give you the chance to keep an ear tuned to the first few minutes of the conversation—just long enough to find out who’s calling and why. If you’re genuinely concerned about what you hear, after she has hung up, try simply saying, “Let meknow if there’s anything you want to talk about.” This may be enough to get your child to open up about the call.
    Practice these tips by planning for short exchanges or casual observations throughout the week. Look for moments when you might share a few minutes of conversation over dinner or in the after-school hours before bedtime. If the weekdays seem crammed, look ahead to the weekend for a time when you might take a short drive or share lunch while taking on a few errands. It may seem hard to carve out time in a busy schedule, but the extra effort can earn you the invaluable reward of a deeper, more open relationship with your child, in which she is more likely to take your good advice on ways she can succeed in middle school—including how to make new friends.
    Though most new middle schoolers will naturally tend to look for familiar faces from elementary school, the hundreds of new kids on a middle school campus represent a great opportunity to add new friends to the mix. Give your child a leg up by reassuring her that you remember how challenging it can be to meet new friends in middle school—and offer the following three tips to make it easier:
    1. Just say “hi.” Starting a conversation with a complete stranger is challenging for most middle schoolers (and for some