There’s a middle school success path?

By Anne Evans-Cazier, LCSW | August 18, 2021

We all know middle school can be pretty tough. In fact, a whopping 99% of all Americans rank 7th grade as absolutely the worst year of their childhood.

But, remember that idea we told you about yesterday? Think how a proven success path and a supportive community of fellow parents could help you help your child get their homework done this year with less stress and more success.

Who wants to start another year of the same old nagging, arguing, or trying to get your resistant child to settle in and do their homework? It’s exhausting just to think about that whole cycle starting up again, leaving you feeling upset, alone, discouraged, worried about your kid’s future and damaging the relationship you want to have with them.

ARE YOU:

FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, or DISAPPOINTED because your middle schooler’s homework doesn’t get done or turned in on time?

DISCOURAGED or EMBARRASSED that nothing seems to work, even though you’ve tried everything you can think of including bribes, punishments, nagging, yelling, doing it for them, or just plain giving up?

STRESSED or OVERWHELMED since homework has become a major source of disruption and tension in your family?

BEGINNING TO DREAD school nights, and maybe even weekends too?

AFRAID your child is headed for a future filled with failures, missed opportunities, and limited options?

FULL OF DETERMINATION in spite of it all because you love your child and won’t give up on them!

If so, we hope you’ve caught our vision and are ready to CLICK HERE now and join us as a founding member of Conquering Homework in Middle School.

But just in case you want to know a little more, we’d like to share the Success Path we’ve developed for you based on our 50+ years of combined experience. Step by step, this path will show you what to do next and chart your child’s progress along the way.

Of course, knowing us it won’t surprise you that we want to tell you a story to help you catch a vision of this path to success.

This is the story about an adventure of Anne’s father, David C. Evans, who mentored hundreds of boys during his 27 year tenure as a scoutmaster.

Many years ago, Dave and his scouts, plus his 10 year old son, Doug, decided to climb Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. In order to summit the peak they had to cross a glacier. Dave carefully prepared the boys, teaching them the intricacies of climbing, especially techniques to keep them safe. They learned how to belay, or make an anchor. This was done by planting their pickaxe in the ice and wrapping the rope around it in a figure eight, or by positioning themselves behind a large boulder and wrapping their rope securely around the rock.

They learned that these simple actions protected both themselves and their climbing partner. Using a series of anchors, climbers provide security for each other as they take turns moving along the glacier. When one climber is ready to step out on the ice, he lets his partner know by calling “On belay.” His partner responds, “Belay on,” indicating that he is in position and prepared to protect his partner. From that moment on, the climber moving out onto the ice trusts his partner with his life. If the climber should slip or fall, all will be well as long as his partner is properly secured and maintains the anchor.

After summiting the beautiful peak and on a particularly treacherous section still high on the mountain, young Doug secured his dad with a body belay from behind a large boulder. Dave called out, “On belay,” signaling that he was ready to move out and put himself into Doug’s hands for safe keeping. Doug responded, “Belay on,” signaling that he was set and had Dave safely in his care. All was going well as Dave began down-climbing below Doug. When Dave was about 60 feet below the anchor point he heard panicked cries. He turned and saw two young men, not from their group, roped together, but with no anchor, plummeting out-of-control down an icy face alongside the rocks towards a deep and deadly crevasse below. Knowing that Doug was prepared and could be counted on, Dave called out, “Hold on for all your life!” and swung out off the rocks onto the icy slope with all his might into the path of the falling climbers. As they collided, Dave miraculously grabbed the first boy and managed to hold on as the second boy swooshed past them, then yanked to a stop as the rope pulled taut. Doug heroically held the anchor as all three lives hung in his young hands.

Consider the new paths these experiences opened up for Doug and the other boys in Dave’s troop. After talking about and reflecting on everything that happened on the trip, the boys, filled with new found confidence and skills, started planning their next adventures, dreaming of going to places they would never have dared to dream of before.

Let’s look at the success path Dave followed and apply it to helping our kids have more wins at home and school and big new dreams of their own:

STEP 1. CHART YOUR COURSE - start with a super clear vision of where you are, where you want to go, and the next step you need to take to get there.

STEP 2. GET READY - gather resources, teach by direct instruction and modeling the principles kids will need to be successful.

STEP 3. SET YOUR ANCHORS - just as Dave and his scouts set physical anchors before stepping out on the icy slopes, as a parent, you can set healthy emotional anchors to keep your child safe and secure as they tackle their mountains of homework.

STEP 4. GET IT DONE! - secure emotional connection empowers action and frees you and your child to work more effectively and accomplish more.

STEP 5. CELEBRATE - so often we skip the all important step of recognizing the progress our kids are making, celebrating with them, then reviewing the journey and revising our approach based on our experiences before we circle around and chart our course for the next adventure.

There will always be new mountains to climb, new challenges to overcome, new strengths to discover and develop, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Are you ready to chart a different course with your child this year? Then we invite you to join us in Conquering Homework in Middle School. We want you to be a part of this new community of parents, and if you are willing to contribute ideas on how we can make this THE best place to help parents help their kids get their homework done with less stress and more success, we are willing to extend that very favorable “founding member” price we talked about.

And remember the best part…

Join us as a founding member and your price will be just $20 per month. AND… you’ll be locked into that founding member price for as long as you remain a member.

All you need to do is CLICK HERE to join.

The last day to join as a founding member is Monday, August 23rd at midnight Pacific time, so let us know if you have any questions. Tuesday, August 24th we’ll jump right in because there’s no time to lose, SCHOOL IS STARTING!