Monthly Archives: July 2023
About Middle School Years Without Tears Book 2
This second book in the Middle School Years Without Tears book series, originally published in 2020 as an ebook, is now available in paperback. I love reading books in my hands so if you are like me and want to feel the book in your hands, then you’ll love this one in paperback.
Book description:
What is it really like to be a fly on the wall of your child’s middle school? Here is your grand opportunity to know! Is your child already navigating the hallways, completing homework assignments, interacting with teachers, and learning who’s who with peers? Are you wondering, as the middle school parent, what is really happening with your child’s day? Have you had questions such as, “What do those teachers do all day long? Why won’t they answer my emails in a timely fashion? Why wasn’t I informed about my child’s fight today?”
These questions and so many more are answered in this interactive, no-holding-back book by a veteran middle school teacher. Just as in her other 14+ books focused on this age group and its parents, Lizabeth Jenkins-Dale, M.Ed. presents the nitty-gritties of middle school life from both perspectives: teacher and mom.
She delves into your child’s middle school life from the beginning bell to lunchtime to the last minute with a special section on how to keep your child safe at school. Lizabeth Jenkins-Dale thoroughly explains what components are in a typical lesson and honestly reveals the typical lesson distractions oh so common in middle schools everywhere. She writes to empower you with the knowledge regarding your child’s teachers’ lives from before the students enter the building to the last ding of the school bell with a special section of parent to teacher communication. You will definitely gain valuable information about the fast-paced and wildly energetic experience of middle school! After reading this book, you will know exactly how to communicate with all those involved with your child’s day from the administration to teachers to the staff to the intermittent district workers.
The following additional bonus material is also included in this book: 1. what to do when your child’s academics fall short of your expectations, 2. learning styles and how to implement them into your child’s life, and 3. how to address your child’s school’s shortcomings.
If you have read Lizabeth Jenkins-Dale’s first book in this series, Middle School Years Without Tears: Getting Ready (At Any Time) for Wonderful, Awesome, Successful, and Thrilling Middle School Experiences, then you already know her interactive, dialogue style of writing is inviting, calming, honest, spiritual, down-to-earth, and highly informative. You’ll be glad you read this book, too.
Enjoy the empowerment from understanding your child’s day AND your child’s teachers’ days!
Summer: Perfect Time To Gain School Perspective
I love the dynamics, diversity, growth potential, and awkwardness of middle school. In three short years, young humans transform from grade school students to high school students. This is no small feat!
It’s difficult, however, for middle school students to see the big picture of their schooling. Why is it structured the way it is? Why do teachers teach the way they do? What is the point of middle school? While in the midst of the day-to-day middle school routine, it is challenging to answer these questions AND have them heard. Summer is a great time for middle schoolers to gain middle school perspective!
Parents help students see the big picture of the day-to-day, hour-by-hour school experience. So can my book, Empowering Kids: School, written for middle schoolers, can help you help your student see the big picture of the entire middle school experience.
I explain, for example, why teachers provide a whole year’s curriculum in 180 days instead of all of it at once. Each day is a step, a piece, or a part of the whole. Fortunately for kids, the curriculum is sectioned into small units of study.
In addition, teachers create these units to fit together with other subject’s units for what is called interdisciplinary or cross curriculum instruction. A writing teacher may create a unit about history coordinating with the history’s teacher’s unit about WWII. The science teacher may create a unit about diseases, germs, and the origin of antiseptics and disinfectants with an emphasis on war.
Side note: Joseph Lister in the 1800s was first to introduce antiseptic surgery. Now can you guess where the product name Listerine came from? These connections of history to present life help students learn. What other fun facts can your child discover this summer?
Chapter titles include:
Choose to value the educational offerings your teachers plan and provide you every day.
Choose to explore all the educational avenues available to you, and they are all available to you.
Choose to adopt that you can become anything you want because if you can dream it, it already exists.
Choose to know every single person on the planet learns in his or her own unique way.
Choose to marvel at the “incredibles” regarding your school.
Choose to participate in events, activities, and situations that are pro only.
Choose to view every grade and assessment as your opportunity.
Empowering Kids: School is a very valuable resource for your child. It is beneficial for you as well. Would your life benefit from a less whiny child during the school year? Would you benefit if your child could understand his or her teachers better? Would you benefit if your child understood what a lower-than-expected grade really is and took responsibility for it? Yes! Yes! Yes! Get Empower Kids: School for your child now and see the difference the information in the book can make in your household for the fall.
Have Parent-Child Separation Anxiety? Solutions Here!
Unless we keep our kids with us 24/7, we all will experience parental separation worries. Sending our kids to school, camp, ex-spouse’s house, or on airplanes by themselves, can create lots of stinkin’ thinkin’ called worry, untamed fear, and wild thoughts gone crazy.
Worry can be minor all the way to a really big deal. It can grow to the point of paralyzing a parent until the child has safely returned. What is the cure for worry? Just as I write often in my books, “You are never stuck. Your child is never stuck. You always have options with everything.”
Take a good look at your worry. It’s nagging at you so you might as well turn around and look at your worry because that’s its function…to get your attention to deal with it.
Here’s a secret. It won’t go away until you turn around and look at it. It’ll just keep gnawing at you until you do. It won’t go away until you pay attention to it. It’ll just keep surfacing in your life in a variety of ways until it gets your attention AND you address it.
So…does the worry have any merit? Is there real concern for the worry? Is your child going to be or could be harmed? If yes, then take immediate action. Call the police, get on the next flight to where your child is, call, or whatever is necessary to ensure your child’s wellbeing.
If the worry is a bunch of what-ifs, then you have plenty of options. One option is…
Pre-pave the road before your child leaves. This is a really good one especially for new experiences such as the first day of middle school, first solo airplane flight, first date, first audition, first performance, or first whatever. You, as an empowered parent, know the power of pre-paving the road for your child…energetically…because you can’t do everything for your child physically. It would NOT be cool for your to go to your child’s middle school with your child. You can’t always be physically present. There are some things your child just has to do by him or herself.
BUT, you can energetically send positive energy ahead of time. The power in a parent’s positive energy is quite high due to the pureness of the Love. “I send the Highest White Light of Protection ahead of my child, all through, above, and below my ex-spouse’ house, every activity they’ll do, any place they’ll go, any conversation they’ll have, and anyone they’ll encounter so that only positive encounters occur. I send the Highest White Light of Protection to go now to prepare a wonderful, safe, loving, and fun experience for my child so that by the time she returns, she is enriched and has become positively more than she was before going.”
During the visit, keep sending the pure love of protection. Visualize it swirling around your child, through every nook and cranny of the house, and going before, up, down, and after your child’s movements.
Not only is this option very real, it will shift:
- you from fear-based to empowered-based
- you from worry to peace
- the energy around you so that you are ready to receive your child back without being in attack mode to shoot a barrage of what-if questions upon your child’s return
Instead of, “Did your father make sure you got plenty of sleep?” you’ll be saying, “Tell me about your visit!” You’ll be a much more relaxed parent for your child to return to. And, your child will be quite thankful.
Positive energy, or energy of Light, is powerful. Period. In light, there is no darkness. Projecting the Highest White Light of Protection is THE most powerful action you can take to address fear. You can tell fear, “I see you. I thank you for getting my attention. You have done your job well. (especially if there really is a real concern to address immediately) I am now going to send you to Divine Source and replace you with the Highest White Light of Protection. Well done. Good bye.” And, then, say aloud, project, visualize the Highest White Light of Protection moving toward whatever place, situation, and encounter you’d like.
Got your own issues? Send out the Highest White Light of Workplace Fun to your office and observe it transform quickly. Got finance issues? Send the Highest White Light of Abundant Finances with your bank account and checkbook. Want to attract a relationship? Project the Highest White Light of Relationships out to your perfect mate or friend.
The trick with this option is to keep the positive energy going. It’ll diminish the energy if the Highest White Light of Protection is sent, but then five minutes later worry thoughts dominate your thinking. If you catch yourself slipping back into negative stinkin’ thinkin’, don’t fret or judge yourself. Simply return to sending the Highest White Light of Protection.
Lastly, after your child’s visit and return, thank Divine Source/The Highest White Light for doing what you requested. Gratitude is the glue that holds you to the good stuff of life! If you want more positivity in your life, keep thanking for when it appears in your life.