Instead of being shocked and baffled by heavy issues in your tween's life, steel your nerves and think of the middle school years as the training ground for similar issues in high school. Your child's personality is apparent, but will still be malleable for years to come, and you can have a lasting, positive effect on his values and sense of right and wrong. As always, be the change you wish to see in your child by modeling appropriate behaviors.

Boundaries

A social life may be the ultimate motivation for a tween, so it's the perfect time to teach your child about friendships, including how close is too close. You can “coolify” boundaries somewhat — though right now it will never be cool enough — by explaining that each family or home is like a special club, and no matter how many other good friends your family has, nobody else is a member of the club.

Begin by explaining what's off-limits for you personally: how much money people make, how much they weigh, personal identifiable information like social security numbers, sharing sexuality with anyone other than the doctor and a spouse or partner. You neither show nor tell other people about such personal subjects, nor do you ask them to show or tell you. Next, explain why it's important to keep these things private: because people can use information like this to hurt you, so you can only trust members of your club with it. Ask your child which of these items are applicable in junior high, and if there are any more he has to add. Then explain that people who repeatedly try to violate your boundaries cannot be trusted and should not be included in your lives. Finally, while you can and should include your child's friends in many activities, you must also insist that some activities are for members only.

Teach Your Child How to Think

By explaining things like how you choose friends and enforce your personal boundaries, you're sharing crucial thought processes with your child that can become powerful tools for navigating life. Explaining that you make decisions by thinking through possible outcomes of your actions before selecting the one you think is best, is extremely helpful and can also improve your relationship with your child. Say something like, “I'm going to stop for gas now instead of later because the gas station is right next to the road I'm on. If I waited until we got to the next off-ramp, where I know that the gas station is several blocks away, it would be less convenient.” This teaches your child how to arrive at logical conclusions and also makes life appear more orderly to him, instead of living in a chaotic world where grown-ups make arbitrary decisions just because they feel like it.