Your relationship with that Middle Schooler Just Might Affect Their Grades and Behavior

Do you remember your first day of 6^th grade? Do you remember that feeling of being treated like a big kid, but being the youngest in the school? Do you remember those preteen years of 10-12years old? Well, if you do, then you should know this was one of the most critical years of your young little development: as a student and as a person. As students transition from elementary to middle school the influence of Mommy and Daddy changes as their new friends and peers influence increases. Little do we, as teachers, parents and friends that our relationships with middle schooler’s affects their grades and behaviors. The problem is, if we’re not aware of these influences, we may end up making this transition even harder.

            What about these relationships? How the student perceives support or thinks about the support from the people with whom they have close relationships is crucial. People like parents, teachers and peers. These relationships have an affect on the 5 school behaviors.  It is important to identify this affect as scientists are showing evidence surrounding supportive relationships associated with academic success and supportive relationships associated with student motivation.

1.    Social behavior: School isn’t just about intellectual development, although it is the real reason we send kids to school. School is also about the interactions students have with each other, which establishes social and moral development.

a. Peers: How your middle schooler thinks his or her peers support them is most associated with this type of development.

2.    Academic Interest: This is the child’s own interest and curiosity. How much they want to gain knowledge. The greater the interest the more improvement you see in class assessment and performance. Interest leads to setting goal.

a. Peers: This is usually influenced by peers as well, but is open to wide a range of influences outside of relationships including media, role models and experiences.

3.    Academic goal setting and pursuit: academic goals reflect students desire to pursue social responsibility as a student and child in the classroom.

a.     Teacher: The support from educators is associated most with academic interest, classroom functioning and pursuit of goals.

4.    Self-motivation: This refers to the desire and how much the child tries to  pursue a goal.

a.     Peers, Parents & Teachers: The perceived support of all the relationships around each child has an effect on self motivation.

5.     Academic success: This can be defined as excellence in all academic disciplines, in class as well as extracurricular activities

a.     Parents: Let us not, as parents and teachers, underestimate our influence on a child’s schooling. This was the only relationship where the child’s perceived support predicted academic success. 

Ok, So how do we make sure that these relationships have only the positive effects and influences to ensure a smooth transition into middle school during this critical year? Well, based on the above findings it is clear that home socialization and interaction has just as much of a powerful influence on student emotional well-being at school as school socialization. Therefore, Parents, siblings, grandparents and extended family should offer moral and academic support to students. Personally, I think this should be all the time, not just during 6^th grade. This can be a little difficult, especially when there are several students in a household and when parents have to work to feed a family. However, this is an effort that is worth making to encourage a healthy foundation for student’s academic success.

As for teachers, it is and always should have been the teacher’s job to provide ampe support to children who steps into their presence. Basically, teacher student relationships are critical for academic success since most of the academic growth is done in the presence of and in collaboration with the teacher.

As for peers, as older individuals, there isn’t much we can do to effect how peers influence middle schoolers. Perhaps we can encourage them to engage in and do more pro-social and morally positive activities. This is assuming the social influence is negative. On the other hand, peers can have positive influences on each other as they challenge one another to think critically and strive for academic success. This is sometimes a conscious influence and other times unconscious.

The moral of the story is, no what your relationship with a student, whether it be close or distant, we must all strive to provide positive support to the best of our ability.

Peace and Blessings!!

Victoria Ryland

Wentzel, K. R.
(2003). Motivating Students to behave in socially competent ways. Theory Into Practice, 42(4), 319-326.

Wentzel, K.R., (1998) Social relationships and motivation in middle school: the role of parents, teachers and peers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 202-209.