School transitions- Elementary school to Middle school to High school

We are talking about the transition from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school.  

In this episode, I discuss how to prepare for the transition for both parents and students,

1) How to prepare for the transition- create systems
2) What will be different i.e. extracurricular, clubs
3) How to access resources
4) Who to ask questions so you can be prepared- example advanced courses etc.
5) The changes academically, socially, physically, emotionally
6)How to get children ready to be more independent

Take a listen, this episode is filled with little nuggets, I suggest you take out a pen & paper or an electronic device to take notes.

#Radioshow #fschooltransitions #middleschool #highschool #schoolclubs #mentalhealth #routines #advancedcourses #AP

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I'm a former tech executive, a podcast host and an entrepreneur. I work with Universities on Organizations to transition students to the corporate world and building successful leadership pipelines ensuring a healthy financial future.

If you're interested in coordinating or working with me on keynotes, workshops, or on a one on one basis, you can go to my website www.sirishakuchimanchi.com

Check out my other podcast "Women, Career & Life" where I share stories and practical advice to achieve your career & life goals as you strive towards financial independence.

All: https://solo.to/sirishak

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sirishakuchimanchi/

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Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to Live Beats with siria on Radio Caravan 1 0 4 0.1 FM and 700 am Thank you for being here this Saturday at five 30 as you go about enjoying your weekend. I'm your host, Siria Kumanchi. I'm a tech executive, a podcast host, and a working. I host the podcast, women Career and Life. It's spelled W O M E N C A R E R and life, and you can find it on any podcast platform, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. I talk about practical advice and share stories to achieve your career and life goals. And it was in the top 30% of Spotify podcast last year. So if you get a chance so you have questions in that round, do check it out. So if you've been joining this program, this is actually my second month as we wrap up January, we started the show in December and in January we started talking about vision board and goal setting, and we just wrapped up three shows on doing a financial health check. One of them was about, just managing it. The second one was about growing our wealth, and the last one was about protecting. I actually just drove up to the studio from a dance, Aung for a barge. And for those of you who, for this might be something that you may not be familiar with, it's a dance recital where the student is essentially graduating and ascending onto the stage to take up their next path into this art field. And it's a perfect segue for today's topic. If you were there last week, I was talking about today I was gonna talk about transitions. And this was largely for children in school and for parents who have kids in school who are transitioning elementary to middle school or middle school to high school. It can be quite a lot. change for both the parents and children, especially if you are not familiar with this education system here. I came here for graduate school. So other than that part of it, the whole school system can be quite different. I know basically in. India or wherever you might be from. The structure is more streamlined, at least was when I was there. So it's just trying to figure out how to navigate this, and it's actually an incredibly exciting time for kids and parents as they go from elementary and middle. During Covid, I'm sure that was a wholly different spectrum of things. You Everything was online, people were trying to figure. what to do and a lot of online school. But now that we are, fully everyone's back in school and the reason for really picking this topic, you must be wondering why is she talking about it in January when kids transition to school in August, and why am I talking about it now? The reason for picking this timing for this topic is a lot of schools, if you're in certain school districts, are going through this enrollment period for students to try and figure out which classes, what kind of pathway they wanna perform, what. actions they want to take what career path or other things, of course, for asking a 12 year old or a 16 year old, or anyone in that age, they may not know everything they want to do, but they start asking those questions and looking at that trajectory and how to do it. So I thought it would be a good time for us to just talk about resources. Where can we find the information, what to look for as we've gone through this. I have kids in high school, some experience with it from my own personal aspect, but I also was researching this topic to see what experts and administrators and people who do research around this to suggest how we get ready for this. There's obviously a lot of focus around academic preparedness, and I think this is what I found it really interesting when my kids transition from elementary to middle school. When you're thinking of middle school, these kids are. Getting to be teenagers. They have a lot of energy. They're going through so much change, physical, emotional, mental, everything is changing within their bodies and outside around their environment. And there is no recess. And I'm just thinking, where do they go and, expand all this energy they've pent up through the day. So that's something that you might find quite interesting to find out, at least where I, my kids go to school. There is no recess. I don't know if your children do. That'll be a change. They usually, the middle schools are much bigger than elementary schools because they feed in from very many. Kids will probably have lockers depending on how the schools are set up, so they'll have access to things where they'll put stuff away, walk down the corridors and have to be on time for their classes. This is all, every stage basically from elementary to middle, to high, to colleges is like a transition, right? They, you're gaining more independence, more freedom, trying to figure things out for yourself as a growing child, growing into a. So that by the time you step out, you have learned these skills over time. So those lockers and those timings, they're very strict about making sure you're on time. Usually they give like a week in the beginning for kids to figure it out and get their hallways and all of the timeline figured out, and they expect you to show up on time. there's a lot of more homework and definitely, lot of structure. I think everywhere I was doing, and this is what I saw, and a lot of suggestions were around structure and discipline, like having a place maybe to do homework, having a structure to the day, and this will be quite complicated. They make it sound a lot more simplistic. one of the aspects of, stepping into middle and high school, and the exciting part with this freedom of choice of making a lot of decisions is you have access to a lot of resources. Now you have access to clubs. Usually in elementary school you're going to structure, say an arts program or a music or a sports or something else. Parents are taking you usually, often it's after school and it's structured around that, but all of these clubs give you similar access to try different things. Maybe there's an art, maybe there's a theater. You could be playing soccer in your school or so many activities that are club related that could be competitive or just for fun, and that give you an opportunity to try new things. I think that is what is really exciting because you try so many different things. You'll meet so many new. All of this change is about new friends, new teachers. So in some ways it is also intimidating. So one of the things is it would be good to set some support around having your child keep in touch with a lot of their old friends as they're all going through this change. some continuity helps. Of course they will make new friends. If you go back to your own childhood, remember how you know you, you kept some friends a year and then transitioned over time. So keeping that around some structure helps and having them basically do the research and trying to understand, talking to their friends they will learn a lot of peer impressions, peer. access becomes very critical at that age. So as parents, you can do your own due diligence on what research and figuring out the school will give you a lot of information. Schools will have orientations, school days, parents come and visit days, kids learning things, a lot of information will be, frankly, I find it sometimes completely overwhelming. There's a lot. Process and just take in. And if you step into like even higher grades in high school, there's all of this choice between AP and IB and your credit. It's a lot to take in. Sometimes the simplicity of choice makes it so much easier just for us to figure it out. And trying to wrap our heads around that. So do some research and actually one of the great resources, of course Cool, gives you information so they'll have one perspective. you will do your research and what I find really helpful is talking to people who have gone through this transition, like where we live. There are kids, doing this registration process now, and my son is a senior in high school, so a friend's daughter who's going into middle to high school called and wanted to talk to him. Her decision was trying to decide between pursuing music or sport and which was her interest and what she would need to do for the next four years. There's a lot of wrap around these four years, but I think I wanna simplify it. There is definitely a lot of stress and pressure. We all feel, especially the children, but also I think there is some leeway. I think we have to realize that yes, college is just a stepping stone for everything else that comes after. So as she was trying to figure out which to take, she was trying to decide between what she would have time for, what she was really interested in, and what she would enjoy doing. So that was helping her make her. And the other thing she was trying to wrap her head around was trying to take some potential advanced basement AP classes earlier on and how challenging they would be. So it was a conversation she, my son and her mom had, so that they could decide, she could decide what was right for her to do. If you have friends, family, it would be good to have that discussion with someone else to get a different perspective, but you always have to remember that it's someone else's singular perspective they're giving you. It's like anything else in life. You gather a ton of information, you process it, and you figure out what's right for you. of course, when you are a child, maybe the oldest in that gang of people you hang out with, you might be giving advice in the future, but it doesn't right now help you figure this part out. So one thing you could do is you could just ask the school or for resources and see who you can talk to or even one other thing you could do is when you go into these orientations and stuff and you meet other people. some of your friends sons or daughters friends might have older siblings, so you could ask those parents for advice or maybe even talk to that child because really that's where you'll get a lot of information. One of the things is, since there's a lot of work, there will be ton of work. The day will stretch. If you had an early bedtime, seven, eight, that doesn't work in middle school, the sleep hours will be decreased. So that's what. They suggest is to have a sleep protein and they teenagers do need eight to 10 hours. I do not know if they all actually really get it, but that's what research suggests, that it's needed for them and for their mental health. So one of the things you could do is when you reach out to other F siblings or parents or friends to get information sharing, it'll be good to process it. And the reason I bring it, when schools give you advice and share information on what type of classes are there, at least according to having advanced classes, what I was reading, like one of the government websites for one of the states, and what they suggest is actually challenging yourself and stretching yourself to take those advanced classes if you think you're able to do it, and you're capable of managing that time and managing to do it. The reason is, if you. Say you can try it and do it, then you can give it your best. But say you, and then if you think it doesn't work out, say you sign up for an AP class, say human geography, and you're stretching yourself to do it, and you realize you're able to do it you'll execute on it. But say you find that quite challenging in the beginning, in the first few weeks, you can always downgrade the class. And this also applies to like these pre aps in middle school and things. you cannot step up in the middle of the year to take the advanced class. You can always downgrade, but you cannot go and then ask for a step up. That usually does not work in most school systems. And the way the system is structured is it's like a step ladder. You have to get on the first step to go on the next step to the next step. So if you really wanted to take this really advanced class later on, if you don't have the prerequisites, the earlier. Classes that you need to take, it won't give you the opportunity to be able to take that class later on. So you'll have to plan almost what you want to do. So it might be good for you to draw that plan out and see what needs to be done. And that's where talking to other kids and your child really talking to, peers and some seniors really helps set understand what that looks like. Because if, say your school district says it's going to be quite challenging, it might be challenging, and maybe your child is okay with that, or your child may or may not be okay with it, but. do decide to go and don't let someone else talk you out of it because like I said, you can take a step back, but you cannot stay. Step up later on. So that's something to keep in mind. One of the other things that it said was, there's a lot of change socially. There's a lot of the peer pressure and other things as well. So just having structure, having communication, setting some boundary conditions and rules was something that was very routinely advocated. And what really will help for you, because there'll be a lot of activities, what is really fun is when they start doing these clubs, Extra school activities. Say they're in the band or they're playing for the tennis team, or they're in the theater group and these programs go and perform in different cities. Maybe they go to Houston or they go to Austin or they go. Like across the country for a program, it's a great way for these kids to stretch their wings, have a lot of fun with their friends, go perform in front of other people, and really helps expand their skillset and just, raise their confidence and self-esteem because there's so much change going on, and that is part of it. Self-advocacy was one of the other things, because very much often in elementary school, you as a parent will probably be talking to the teacher more, but as your child steps into middle school, it's something for them to. Expand and do self-advocacy for themselves. Say they have not been able to turn in their homework on time or something on the test, or something on their paper didn't make sense and they wanna ask the teacher for clarification or teacher to re-review something or update this or, have a discussion or have a different opinion. I think it really helps for the child to figure this out. So if you are tuning in right now, this is life Beats with Cerisha. On Saturdays at five 30. I'm your host, Risha. Kumanchi. Thank you for tuning in. Today we are talking about transitions for children into middle school and high school. I'm your host. I'm a tech executive, a podcast host, and a working mom. I host a podcast Women Carrier and. It's spelled W O M E N C A R E R N Life. You can find it on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple. It was in the top 30%, and I share stories and practical advice for you to achieve your career and live goals. So as we are talking about kids transitioning, a lot of discussion was around spending time to get to know your teachers, asking, making sure the children. self-advocate for themselves and understand the consequences and take some risks. And when you think about it, what would you do if you forgot to take your homework? You did. You stayed up all night till 2:00 AM doing this English homework and you really slot through it. Just the Charles stayed up and they forgot to take that homework I guess that's a decision for the child and parent to decide then do you drop off the homework? Do you let the child take the consequences or they can finish their homework? So those are things and processes that everyone will have to go through. We all go through it trying to figure out what's the right thing to do. There's no right answer, but I think it also suggests that there's a way for self-advocacy and for them to face those consequences In some ways, if you think about it, the consequences are much smaller when they're younger. If they forget something. rather than if you're older in college or later on in life because the impact of those decisions can be much bigger. So it teaches you certain skills early on by, we all learn through mistakes. We've all done this, we've forgotten, we've tried the dog eating the homework. And probably in some cases people might have dogs that have eaten the homework. But I think it just teaches us a way to figure out how to have the conversation, Hey I did mess up. What is the consequence of it? Bear the brunt of the consequences, or maybe there's a way to work around it. Or maybe you help the child the first time and then lay some ground rules. Whatever you think is the right thing to do in your setting, in your place, in your house to Because homeworks have times, it takes a couple of hours to do it and you have to complete them and turn them on time because often they have a clock and they're going to be finished at that time. So when you look at extracurricular activities, there's just, like I said, lot of clubs, lot of courses, lot of things that you can do. There's a lot of community service. We haven't even really touched on that because as these kids are stepping in, they are looking at community service. Within the community, often in your neighborhoods, trash pickup would be volunteering maybe at the city's July 4th celebration. They're just various things. A lot of them have age requirements, so you'll have to check. Usually they need to be 16, and if you're less than 16, then there are guidelines around it, so you can figure that out. And the kids usually find out from their friends and from schools. Schools usually tend to send a ton of information. So as you look at it, they start to get involved in their c. And one of the things is as you start looking forward and really planning for college and other things, one thing that they keep asking for is leadership roles and asking for leadership experience. I found it very interesting when my kids were in middle school, I think it was like sixth or seventh grade, and they got the sheet home for one of these applications that they could apply for and ask for like leadership experience and work experience. And it really surprised me. that expectation was there for a 12 and 13 year old, because often I think, I don't know if all adults have, do have that experience themselves but here the school system sets you up with clubs and other activities for you to point away so your child can stand for those. These are like election positions, right? That are kids making videos and making cool videos. You're asking your friends to vote for you. You're going and looking at your water block. A learning experience, and it's fascinating to watch this. I didn't have to go through this myself, but it's very fascinating to watch them. Then maybe you win the election, maybe you lose the election. You try and figure out what to do next time. You know whom are you gonna support if your friends are running. So standing for those leadership positions and planning like maybe a year ahead or second year ahead. Which role do you wanna stand for? What are the odds? So it's a lot of mental math around looking at everything that you're doing and all. Let's not forget, ask for help when you need it. Especially parents, if you are trying to figure out, navigate the path, asking friends, asking school. The counselors are there to help you. The principals are there to help you. You can ask friends. Because there is a lot of transition, there is a lot of talk around mental health, especially in teenage middle school and high school. I'm not the expert or licensed to speak, but I am going to, in one of the upcoming shows, I will probably invite one of the experts to come and talk about it. But it is something for us to be incredibly aware of. I think Covid i's really highlighted that there is a mental health challenge, not just for adults but for children as well as they transition through. Cuz it did take a toll on everyone. So it's something to be aware. So really keeping those channels of communication open with, they are teenagers so it's challenging to get the communication going all the time. But listening to them, asking them questions and being there for them and for them to know they can come to you is incredibly important. I find that for me personally, a lot of conversations happen in the car. You have a captive audience, it really makes a lot, a great environment to have conversations. I think it also takes some pressure off because sometimes when we are having. incredibly tough for intense conversations, just not looking face to face and just having a dialogue really helps, go for a walk or, have the dinner, wherever you may choose to do it. Asking for help and making sure that you're there and say your child is finding the transition. Because there's, like I said, a lot of homework. The things start to get helpful. Everything is a new environment, so if they're having that, you could ask for help from the school. This, there's probably a study group or something. That does provide assistance or external things and one thing to watch for, and I think a lot of ki kids and parents are probably intensely also concerned about middle school transition especially, and even high school is. Around bullying and all of that, because there's cyber and in school and everything. So to be aware of those circumstances, they cannot be downplayed because they're intensely pressured and there's a lot of peer group, right? Kids at that age are looking for peer companionship and validation. So to be there, especially around that, having those open levels of communication as much as you can from their friends. And talking to schools if you see certain things and having a conversation with your children on how to manage these situations and what they need to do and what tools to use and you finding those resources yourself and figuring out what to do, research on how to do it. Of course, we are also having tough conversations around dating, drugs, all of this as well. And what to do and how to do this. Cause this is a a time, like I said, of transitions, right? That's what we are calling, it's So how do you talk? and keeping them talking with parents, teachers, counselors are fighting who they are, and schools have resources. They have counselors, they have principals. They have so many people to help for all of this. And looking at that and. We are not too far. I know summer seems like a long way off, but today's weather is like 70 degrees, so it doesn't seem quite that far. So even you can start thinking about, when you're thinking of summer, how do these kids spend their time in the summer? Do they do reading? Do they go for a camp? If they're over 16, do they work? There's so many things to think of. I'm not trying to. overwhelm you. I'm just trying to simplify it so that you can see that there's so much to do. A lot of this heavy lifting. The kids do themselves because they go to school and they figure it out. But also I wanna share with you that there are resources, your friends, families, schools, seniors, and others you can talk to. And I actually started to have an. kids joined school and I didn't really know anyone. It was just finding someone in the line who came to pick up that kid and starting the conversation there. So there are people, everyone's navigating this themselves and trying to figure it out. If you have questions, you can email me on this topic or you want me to talk about certain other topics, you can reach me on Gmail live Beats 1 0 4 0.1 gmail.com. It's spelled L I F E B E A T. Oh four one gmail.com. You can email me, you can leave me a voice message so we can take a look. This is your host Kumanchi. I am getting ready to wrap up. You can also check out my podcast, women Carrier and Live spell, w o m e n c a r e R. And. On any of your favorite podcast platforms where I share stories and advice to achieve your career and life goals, I would love to hear from you to see what questions you have, what thing resonates with you. It's always great to hear, so don't forget to email me on Live Beats at 1 0 4 Point Live Beats 1 0 4 0.1 gmail.com Chow.