Parenting 201: Middle school
Oceanside Middle School program helps parents learn about their kids
Middle school can be a confusing transitional time for parents and students alike. Realizing this, the administrators of Oceanside Middle School started a new program called the Parent Academy to help middle school parents learn how to deal with their children in proactive ways.
The program, held on Sept. 9 in the OMS library, was the first of four that the school is planning on holding. The goal is to help parents better understand their children during a time of development that’s confusing and turbulent, both for their children and for parents themselves.
“We’re really here today to talk about ways you can help them be successful,” said OMS Assistant Principal Christina Sapienza, who led most of the evening’s discussion.
The program was the brain child of many members of the school’s administration, but the original spark came from Principal Allison Glickman-Rogers, who was principal of School 5, one of Oceanside’s elementary schools, last year.
"Last year I was at the elementary school, and I really gained a deep appreciation for the parent-school partnership, and I saw the impact this partnership had on the students," said Glickman-Rogers. "The better you know the parents, the better you know the families, the more able and prepared you are to meet the needs of the students." So to that end, Glickman-Rogers, and the other OMS administrators, set about to find a way to include parents more in middle school, the way they are in elementary school.
They came up with the Parent Academy. Each of the four sessions will focus on a different topic to help parents help their children more. The session on Sept. 9 focused on understanding what children are going through during middle school and helping them succeed.
Middle school, Sapienza said, is the largest period of growth and development for children since infancy. "They are very curious," she said. "They ask a lot of questions. they look things up on the Internet. They're looking for answers." She said that at the middle school age, children tend to be very egocentric, trying to develop a sense of self.
