Developmental Needs of Tweens with Joshua Sneideman
Our friend Joshua Sneideman returns to discuss his new book Parenting Tweens: Successfully Navigating the Middle School Years. We learn about a useful resource for teachers and parents about this important (and sometimes difficult) developmental time. Middle grades STEM expert Joshua will be familiar to many listeners from our February 2021 discussion of his last book Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers (co-authored with Erin Twamley). In this episode we talk about tween-age development including independence, embracing mistakes to enhance learning, outdoor experiences and ways to strengthen connections.
Links
Parenting Tweens from Walnut Street Publishing
Additional links of interest (links are provided as a courtesy and are not endorsed or vetted by The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast)
Resources on outdoor learning are available at the Children and Nature Network
Joshua mentioned The Happiness Lab Podcast hosted by Dr. Laurie Santos
Joshua also referenced forest bathing at Nutrition Facts
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:00
Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. I hope you are safe and well. On this episode, our friend Joshua Sneideman returns, and we discuss his new book, Parenting Tweens: Successfully Navigating the Middle School Years. He is also the co-author of Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers, along with Erin Twamley, which we discussed in February 2021, along with effective uses of education technology. Welcome back to the thoughtful teacher podcast. Joshua Sneideman.
Joshua Sneideman 0:46
Hey, Scott, glad to be back. Thanks for having having another conversation with me.
Scott Lee 0:50
Well, it's always good to have you back and especially just book The last time we talked, we were talking about everyday superheroes, women in STEM careers. This book parenting teens is not really a sequel or a second book in a series. Why this topic?
Joshua Sneideman 1:06
Well, that's interesting. So you know, as a 10 year middle school science teacher, I've encountered so many tweens right or soon to be teenagers, I call it that book title is actually parenting tweens. But oh, yeah, no problem. So tween is that in between, you know, right before you become a teenager, and I, it's just a funky time in a child's life. And having spent the years I have in the classroom, with parents with tweens, and having, you know, a background in education, and having read all this information on best practices for developing successful students in the middle school years, I thought to myself, I got a lot of knowledge about this, I'd like to share it. So I essentially wrote a small book that helps parents think about how this is a different time in their children's life, and what are the strategies they can use to help their tween or middle schooler successfully navigate it?
Scott Lee 2:07
Right, and you have two children of your own as well. So you do have some practical experience in this area?
Joshua Sneideman 2:14
Absolutely. So I have a tween, she's going into seventh grade. And I think a lot of the practices in here I'm trying to employ myself. But I've also you know, shared the pre-writing of this with with parents that also have tweens in there. They talked about how much of it It hits us a sweet spot information they didn't know but they're glad they now have it.
Scott Lee 2:35
Want to talk about in something that a lot of times end up talking with folks about is it's never perfect. It's always something you're striving to do. You're being a good parent, being a good teacher. Glad you point out that, that you're trying to do it yourself. It's not exclusively, you're not you're not perfect.
Joshua Sneideman 2:53
I would like to start this off by saying I'm I am not an expert in this topic. I just and I don't know anyone can be as you said, right? Because there's I don't know that there's an expertise, particularly with tweens because there's such a wide range of skills and abilities and entrust and, and challenges. And so definitely have my struggles with it. But I think the important point in the book is is really, there are things that are unique to this time age. There's a reason we call these middle schools, there's a reason this is a transition phase in life. So how do you support the transition? And here's some strategies to do it.
Scott Lee 3:29
So the first chapter focuses on independence. Some people might argue that teens and particularly young teens or tweens might have too much independence already. What is your take on independence? And why did you start focusing on on being independent? And where independence plays into parenting?
Joshua Sneideman 3:49
Yeah, that's a great question. And there's, I'm not sure why this is necessarily the first chapter. But independence in the tween years is critical. It is actually the time when children transition from concrete learners to abstract thinkers. And it's also a time when if we don't allow them to develop the skills and abilities to make choices. And to understand that choices have consequences if we're just managing their life for them. And they don't understand that they will be maladjusted teenagers and adults, because they need to learn and develop the skills to understand that and so what better time then to create guide rails? I'm not saying you just let the kid go wild on what was that book kids on the island, the Lord of the Flies, but you're not letting them run wild. You're giving guide rails but you have to you have to foster independence, things like establishing fair but clear rules and then letting them you know, work within the rules that you establish, rather than I'm a card carrying member of the helicopter parent club, right? And so it At some point, you cannot helicopter your child to successful adulthood. It is that is just not successful. I, in my mind micromanage.
Scott Lee 5:08
One of the things that I know when when I'm working with teachers talking about independence is that there's still an important piece about connecting with others, and allowing, in this case students to or teens and tweens to develop connecting relationships, is that part of what you're thinking about with independence as well,
Joshua Sneideman 5:31
I have actually that that part in the happiness section of the book, okay, which is that it's important to have relationships. So yes, I do think fostering independence in letting children make choices around building new relationships is is really critical. Obviously, as a parent, we do want to help our children give them chances to make safe choices. And so you know, we're not just allowing them to go out there on the internet and start making connections with whomever wherever, but to provide an opportunity to guide them to create the skills in decision making. So I think the important distinction and fostering independence is the tween years is not to let them go free. It is a establish clear rules and help them begin to make choices where they have some control over their choices, whether you're giving them a suite of choices, you can choose between A, B, C and D, you have a suite of consequences for some of the you know, not doing the chores, or what have you. It's not a full, let them free. But it is we have to start developing the skills of decision making and fostering a sense of independence. Can I just give an example. You and I both like to sail, when when kids go to sail camp, especially in the teenage years, but even in the younger years, I think when I want when a when a child learns how to sail a sailboat by themself. They've developed independence, because they realize they're in control of their ship. They turn left they turn right they tack the boom hits him in the head, but they're making the decisions and there's consequences for their decisions.
Scott Lee 7:08
And and we should say in your example, the sail camp, you're talking about the the kids sail in a boat by themselves.
Joshua Sneideman 7:15
Exactly. And so that's kind of but they're still lifeguards or sale camp instructors on the outer edges, making sure they don't go over the dam and and if they flip over a boat comes to not to help them turn it right. So that's a perfect example in sail camp. When a kid's boat flips over, the instructor doesn't jump in the water and turn the kids boat over for them. They sit there on the side and help them like have you tried that? Have you tried this, maybe you want to do that. Maybe you want to do that, until the kid learns how to flip the boat over themselves. And when they know how to write their own ship, the confidence that gives the sailor or the or the tween. I made a mistake. I knew how to fix it. I made a decision that caused the mistake. I know how to fix it. That's the skills you want to build in a student.
Scott Lee 7:57
Which brings us right to the second chapter in your book, which is all about embracing failure. Oh boy. Yeah, yeah. And you know, we don't talk about it enough. Failure is how we learn.
Joshua Sneideman 8:11
Absolutely. My favorite sub-chapter and that is failure, deprivation. And it's and that idea is that As parents, we try to keep our kids happy all the time. And we don't want them to make mistakes and we try and make sure that they never fall down. They don't get in their knee. They just they don't have the helicoptering parents society. But failure deprivation, what that leads to is a teenager who breaks down when they face failure. And there's actually research on girls, girls brains, but that we need to develop in students the resilience to understand that failure, what you just said, is a learning opportunity. It is one of the best teachers, you know, you read any entrepreneurship magazine, and they say that failure is, you know, no entrepreneurs succeeded without having massive failures in school. It concerns me that, you know, we mark red ink on paper and say you got an F and we teach failure in too many classrooms as just a negative experience. I've lost points, I'm going home, I'm in bad shape, I got a cease people are gonna be mad at me, I got an F I'm in trouble versus teaching students failure as an opportunity to grow. And so in the grading process that might look like or in the parenting of a grade process, asking them, you know, how they feel not just jumping down their throat, asking them what could you have done better? How could you prepared more, instead of in the tween years, instead of giving them all the solutions and then preventing them in the future, guiding them to recognize what the failure can do for them? And that's really important. I think that's just as part of the growth mindset. Right, right.
Scott Lee 9:47
I talked to teachers all the time about developing growth mindsets with their students, it is essentially the same issue. I mean, you talk to a teacher, you talk to a parent, what's more important you getting everything perfect, or, or better effort giving, giving the best effort possible. And everybody always says get the best effort possible. And yet teachers and I think parents also oftentimes want it right the first time for whatever reason.
Joshua Sneideman 10:15
That's right. And that's problematic. It really is
Scott Lee 10:18
and and how to develop that growth mindset. Do you have some ideas, you'll what parents need to do to help develop a growth mindset in their kids appearance using that the parent also is doing a lot on their own about developing their own or improving their own growth?
Joshua Sneideman 10:36
Well, you've touched on an important point, parents have to model the behaviors they want to see. So you know, a growth mindset is the whole the beauty of the growth mindset is that we now realize that the brain of the adult is plastic or elastic and weak also can learn new things, right. And so having a growth mindset as an adult, is a critical thing to model for your children. In terms of ideas and strategies for developing a growth mindset. And children, I think you sort of you touched on it. And it is that that there's more than you can take more than one chance more than one opportunity at a problem. So you know, in terms of strategies for creating a growth mindset, there's interesting research on gifted students. And you mentioned this, that praising effort, rather than outcome is a critical strategy. So with gifted students, if you tell a gifted student over and over how smart they are, oh my God, you're so smart. You're five years old, oh, my God, look how smart you are. You're So Amazing. Oh, my God, everyone's praising you for your intelligence, because they're wicked smart, we got that they're wicked smart. Those students fail in school. More often, they're they have students, because when a challenging problem is presented to a tween, who's never seen an algebra problem before who's who doesn't understand a complex geometry problem on the first go, it's okay. They're gifted, but they didn't get it on the first try. They will shut down because they've been told their whole life, they're so smart. And now they're afraid to prove everyone wrong by getting something wrong. So instead, and this is the same thing that you can do for gifted, non gifted all students, you praise the effort. Are you trying your best? Are you trying your hardest? Is the outcome? Will it improve with the heart with more hard work? Knowing that how you view setbacks, right? Is it that this criticism, or is this a failure? Are you looking at it from a lacking perspective, or a chance to gross perspective, but I think it's what you said, I think it is more important than anything else is, is looking at the effort you put in and recognizing the outcome, and then seeing how that impacts your ability to grow.
Yeah, and and I don't think we talked about that enough. When we're talking about what, what we should be doing with kids, whether it's parents, teachers, everybody, so yeah, and so
another one other strategy. And this comes from the stem, the STEM education world science, technology, engineering, math. But really, that project based learning is giving students engineering problems, projects that are challenging, where they'll fail. So the whole idea of the marshmallow tower is that most kids can accomplish it, you put a marshmallow on the top of this spaghetti tower, it's going to fall down at the end. And they're learning through that on my tower fell down failure, I can try again. There's actually research that kids that play video games have a better growth mindset because they understand and crash bandihoot I don't know the games in the video game world where you try you fail, the game's over, you start again, you try you fail, you make it to the next level. Great, you make it to level three, you failed. Great, you try again, you're at level four. That's what we want kids in a growth mindset. I'm gonna try again. I'll get it next time. So in in one way that video games do actually increase students flexibility for growth mindset.
Scott Lee 13:54
And it's so funny that you bring up that example because I wanted to ask you about screen time.
Joshua Sneideman 13:59
screen time. What do you want to ask about screen time?
Scott Lee 14:01
Well, screen time, I think is always a challenge. Yeah, because on the one hand, none of us live in a world where we can avoid screen time anymore. Yeah, and we need to just be okay with that. We're living in a world now where a lot of times we're having to go to school on zoom that may continue, and that may be a part of what we're doing in school for a long time to come. How How should a parent go about being responsible about screen time? I don't want to even say limit. What How do you what do you see is responsible? screentime?
Joshua Sneideman 14:33
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, it's sometimes it what's worked for each family. But there's research out there, that parents that monitor their students screentime those students have better sleeping habits, better eating habits, better grades. And so it is about having some it's going back to independence, you have independence to a point at which point you've crossed a line and there's consequences. So I think this is a tricky one for me, because I have my own personal feelings. And then what I've read my personal feelings is, you know, I'd like to be a troglodyte. I'd love my kids to just play outside the holiday long. But COVID has changed that my kids are much more tuned to their screentime. Because of COVID, they were indoors a lot more. And in that time, my my tween has developed some tremendous skills with the arts and crafts. So what I would say with screen time, is any of it valuable? Is any of it adding to their skill set to their abilities? In our family? As an example, you know, can I watch TV Dad, are you? Well, you've passed your screen time limit, but I can see you're really interested in a little more screen time. If you watch a documentary? Sure. So documentary films are big in our family, right? My daughter often asked for more screen time to do drawing online with her apps, that's acceptable, you know, we can push the limits there because you're growing as an artist versus mindless consumption. So I think trying to find monitoring your children, so you do know what they're observing. So you have a sense of how they're using their time. Obviously, my children use their screen as well for just mindless stuff. But try to limit that if I can. But there's, there's good research on brain development in screentime, too. And, you know, I think the effects on screentime on the brain are observable. And so I always go back to the the article, I think you've probably read it, many people have read it, that Steve Jobs and other people didn't let their children use the iPhone, right? Or didn't. There's something to that the creators of the content and the devices saying I don't want my kids on it. And I think that we should all take that with a with a serious grain of salt or look at that more deeply. What does that mean. And then, of course, the Netflix movie, which was a sensation, Social Dilemma, taught us that screentime can put us in our own personal bubbles, and can affect how we view the world. So what monitoring that's important. And if I can just add one more element, which is girls and screentime, especially with texting, and on their phones, it can cause an exacerbation of stresses in the tween years. So when you and I were tweens, we got in a fight with our friend, but we went home, and we didn't talk to him. Because my mom was on the phone, we only had one line. And I saw on the next day I cooled off in modern tweeting, texting social media, screentime, kids, tweens with cell phones, it just keeps elevating the tension to stress. They tweet at each other, and they text each other, they get mad. And so there's no cooling off period. And that can that's one of the reasons you see an increase in depression and children's so it's snowball. So I think on screen time, I think yes, there is a there is a purpose for limiting and monitoring, in the tween years what your children are looking at. Absolutely. And you know, the quick until your kids know this, I use the history. I asked my daughter for computer, I have her password store computer. And I check her history every so often to see what has she been looking at. And it's very cute. And it's very benign and innocent. And until that changes, I'm comfortable with how she's using the screen. When I noticed that starts to change, then then I'll take you know other other steps that screentime is a tough one. I mean, do you have thoughts on that? Scott?
Scott Lee 18:18
You know it is because because the other thing I wanted to talk about another suggestion that you made was spending as much time outside, you know, to get outside as much as possible. I think even something I was reading the other day, an expert on mindfulness, talking about expanding our view of mindfulness taking a walk in the woods, as a mindfulness exercise, and I had never really thought about that.
Joshua Sneideman 18:43
It's called forest bathing. Yeah. It's it's real. If you think about our evolutionary history, we spent a lot of time in nature before coming to this technological society.
Scott Lee 18:54
100,000 years of evolution, yes, brought us to that. It's only been 100 years that that a majority of people have lived in cities.
Joshua Sneideman 19:05
This is this is you know, for tweens. And I also there's a chapter in the book about you know, field trips as families. Well, maybe we'll talk about family dinners, but being outdoors is a personal, like, huge point for me. In life, like I just think kids need time in nature. My kids go on a nature walk, we try and do one a week. But being in nature is critical. There's a great book, [The] Last child in the Woods talking about nature deficit disorder. So everyone's heard of adult hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, attention deficit disorder. But nature deficit is when children don't spend time in wild places or at least open spaces. And it's really personal opinion. super important for kids to understand that there is a way to decompress. There is an outlet. And that outlet is just going into nature and there's literally something called forest bathing. I forget that Japanese word for it. But it's being in forests, elevates people's mood. It lowers their blood pressure. There's a great video on nature facts.org nutritionfacts.org all about forest bathing and the double blind placebo studies on Yep, you can see the effect on the human body from being outside and open spaces.
Scott Lee 20:22
One country that is in many ways more more screentime focus more technology focused South Korea, yeah, compared to the United States. And yet, most of the country lives one way or another, within 20 minutes of a natural area a place to go hiking, yoga just fascinates me that understanding the balance
Joshua Sneideman 20:46
well, and it's not just it's not for on the nature side of things. It's not just about me, me, me and me decompressing. It's about a connection with the world around us, seeing the little critters doing the little investigations, you know, checking out the different leaves the different species, the different. When you're in nature, you recognize that, you know, the world is an amazing place. And there's biodiversity, and it needs to be protected. And so I think time spent outdoors helps teens feel connected to the planet we're on. And connection is something they're looking for.
Scott Lee 21:21
And speaking of connection, of course, you devote an entire chapter to the family dinner,
Joshua Sneideman 21:27
How important. There's, I mean, there's the one of the greatest metrics for a child's success in middle school is do they family dinners. If you look at kids who eat family dinners, they're less likely to do drugs, they're less likely to be in dangerous situations, they're less likely to have suicidal thoughts, they're going to get better grades, all from spending a little time with your children. And when I do my professional development all over the place, I talk so much about actually providing a homework assignment, teachers gave a homework assignment to have parents talk to their students about x, at dinner time, encourage family dinner in any way you can. And in the chapter talks about interesting ways of doing that, you know, maybe it's through family, cooking night, or maybe it's through other things. But in this super, if this goes back to screen time, in this super connected world we're living in with streaming and binge watching Netflix and all the sports and over and over programming of children. When do they have a time to just sit down and see their parents and talk to them. And that's the time for modeling of how to socially interact. So one of the things we hear in, as we look at the job workforce is that kids don't have the soft skills. They don't know how to communicate, they don't know how to listen, that's developed at the family dinner table. How do you communicate with others? Oh, it's not your turn to speak yet because someone's still speaking, right? And in the tween years, it's it's a transition period, again, where kids are feeling some awkward shifts, some body shifts, some mental shifts, schools getting harder, more challenging, friendships are getting harder, more challenging. How great to know you have an outlet and mom or dad or caregiver.
Scott Lee 23:07
And it is interesting in a different context. This came up several episodes ago, had somebody on who was talking who had been a foster parent. And as it turned out, one of his foster kids, a new foster kid came on that kid's birthday. And so the other two foster kids are going, "Oh, cool. It's your birthday, man. You get a steak on your birthday. You get a steak on your birthday." And he's like, and so that was one of the things that that they always did. They would go to a restaurant, not a fancy resturant. Yeah, sure. Just a restaurant, get a steak in the-the. And this kid didn't understand how to order in a restaurant. Yeah. and ended up crying. One of the things we talked about was how many of these family activities develop so many different skills, develop skills, just don't think about that. And
Joshua Sneideman 24:01
so this, this, I'll never forget the day that the valedictorian at one of the schools I was at in his speech. He referenced his success as a valedictorian strictly to having family dinners and talking about the news of the day. That's where his interest in society his interest in asking questions, his parents modeling curiosity. It all began at the family dinner table for that valedictorian, and every student doesn't need to be valedictorian. But the family dinner is so critical, single family, parents, it doesn't have to be every day everyone. If you can do it once a week start there, but bring it back into your home and you will reap the benefits and your student will be better off for it. Guaranteed guaranteed.
Scott Lee 24:46
You end talking about happiness. You've mentioned that already. Everything that we've talked about, I think ties into happiness, developing independence, embracing failure, growth mindset, being In the woods, having a family dinner, all of these things kind of connect to happiness. Tell us why you ended the book with a chapter on happiness.
Joshua Sneideman 25:09
Yes, thank you for asking that question. So, you know, I was talking to my, my niece, who's a tween. And this is an interesting story. But you know, she goes, so I asked her Who's your worst enemy at school? And she said, I don't really have an enemy. She goes, who's your worst enemy? And as an adult, I gave her a very adult answer. I said, myself, I said, the way I talked to myself, the voice in my head the way I think. And I wish when I was your age, when I was 12, someone had developed in me the skills to understand I have a little bit of control over that through mindfulness techniques, through perspective, through a growth mindset. And so I do think happiness is something that can be taught, my wife believes that entirely that it's, you know, it's something you can talk and I really like Dr. Laurie Santos is class at Yale. They're all online, and you anyone can take them, it's called the happiness class. And it's one, it's a really great class, and she now has a blog, I'm sorry, a podcast, that's really amazing. But she talks about, you know, being happy with your life, the ways of evaluating your life, and recognizing, and this is for tweens, you know, to recognize what they do have to how to want what you have, not want, what you don't have, which always leaves the striving, but to want what you have. And so I just think this was not something I personally was taught. No one ever talked to me about, you know, skills and strategies for happiness. And in this chapter, I think there's 10 different things you can try. But I think it's, I think it's beneficial. I don't think the goal in life is to be happy all day, every day, all day, maybe be content. But I think it's helpful for kids to have an adult delivers them, bring that conversation up and give them some skills. And I'll tell you, Scott, in college, I saw this equation, and it sort of frames my life happiness is equal to satisfaction divided by desires. So if you have five desires, you're denominator, and one satisfaction, you're 1/5 happy. So the more things you want desires, the less happy you're going to be. And if we can show kids that there's young people that they have a lot and appreciate the appreciation journals is one of the techniques then they might just develop lifelong skills for combating the struggles that society will present as an adult and will are going to have the I guess that last chapter was a thinking back to my my personal tween years and wishing I had more strategies for dealing with the struggles that were to come. I think
Scott Lee 27:44
that's just a great place to stop. Awesome. Once again, the book is Parenting Tweens: Successfully Navigating the Middle School Years with Joshua Sneideman. the book is out now.
Joshua Sneideman 27:57
Yeah, on Amazon. And you could also go to Walnut Street press, either one. But definitely, I think probably Amazon's The easiest way to find it, or Walnut Street Publishing and and take a look at it.
Scott Lee 28:10
Well, great, we will definitely have a link on our website. And once again, thank you so much for joining us today, Joshua.
Joshua Sneideman 28:18
Thanks, Scott. I always enjoy talking to you about education, I think you know the things you're doing this this podcast, but the other work you do in social emotional learning is really important. And it's time for schools to take on the social emotional learning as as equally important as the curriculum and I think your podcast starts to deal with some of those issues. So thanks for having me on.
Scott Lee 28:38
Well, thank you so much. Take care. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations implement high quality, holistic and equitable interventions, please visit our website oncoursesolutions dot n e t. We also encourage you to support Kay-Blada Recycling. This has been Episode 2 of the fall 2021 season. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it either in person or using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the podcast app you use. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication on our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may be made on the "Contact Us" page at our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Please follow the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast on twitter @drrscottlee and on facebook at facebook.com Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
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