Help Your Middle Schooler Rise Above Worry & Anxiety

Young adolescents are often self-centered. They are preoccupied with their own worries and insecurities.
But self-centeredness isn’t all bad. Kids must think of themselves to set and reach goals.
Your middle schooler needs your help to rise above worries, and balance the priorities of thinking of self and others.
To help, ask your child to set three goals at the start of each day: one for school, one for self and one for service to others.

Have him take five minutes to answer three questions:

1. What’s the most important thing I can do today for school? For example, should I do a report or prepare for a test?

2. What’s the one best thing I can do to help myself? Eat well? Exercise? Get more sleep? Other?

3. What can I do today to help another person? Be nice to an unpopular classmate? Help my little sister with homework? Take out the trash for an elderly neighbor?

Be sure to ask about the priorities your child sets. Praise effort, accomplishments and unselfish acts.

Also discuss obstacles. Talk about how your child might overcome them

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Source: Linda & Richard Eyre, Teaching Your Children Values, (Fireside, a division of Simon & Schuster, 100 Front St., Riverside, NJ 08075, 1-800-323-7445), ISBN: 0-671-76966-9, paperback, 256 pp., $13.
(Reprinted with permission from the April 2004 issue of Parents Still make the difference!® (Middle School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2004 The Parent Institute®, a division of NIS, Inc.)