14 conversations to have before your kid starts high school
One author’s wise, but never scolding, advice
Depending on your pandemic mood, a new parenting book might hit you one of two ways.
Yes, please! I’ll take all the help I can get right now!
No thanks! Just trying to survive here! Don’t need any parenting advice at the moment!
Here’s the good news — Michelle Icard’s new book, “Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School,” threads a needle that manages to work for both moods.
It’s insightful and instructive, but never rigid or scolding. It’s that smart friend you turn to with questions because they always have great answers and never make you feel dumb for asking.
“I really feel like this is not the time to worry about getting things exactly right,” Icard told me Monday. “My hope with this book is parents won’t go into these conversations thinking, ‘This is my one shot. I’ve got to do it perfectly.’
“My hope is parents see these conversations as opportunities to build a rapport and a relationship so your kids are comfortable coming to you and talking to you about all kinds of things — and you’re comfortable too because you’ve practiced.”
Why 14?
“We should be thinking of 14 as the new 18,” she writes.
“Right before 18, parents start to cram a bunch of life skills and advice — how to take care of yourself, manage money, be a good person in a relationship,” Icard said. “I really would like to see parents step that back to the beginning of high school instead of the end, to start thinking about launching a kid at age 14, in the sense that that’s the age where they’re going to be heading out into the world without you.”
Icard recommends starting the conversations in her book between ages 10 and 13, depending on your child. Middle school is Icard’s sweet spot. (Her first book, “Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years,” is also a gem.)
The 14 conversations aren’t centered on specific topics — vaping, online porn, suicide, sexuality — though specific topics (including all of the aforementioned) are in there (and indexed alphabetically for quick access).
The conversations are broader and more timeless: “Talking about changing friendships.” “Talking about criticism.” “Talking about fairness.” “Talking about sexuality.” “Talking about reputations.” “Talking about hard work.”
Icard recommends a brief approach for each conversation: begin peacefully, relate to your kid, interview to collect data, echo what you’re hearing, give feedback.
“A conversation is quite different from a lecture, and requires willing participation from two or more people to make it work,” she writes. “You can force a lecture, but not a conversation.”
Icard offers 12 conversation crashers that apply to all topics, such as: “Don’t make assumptions about how your kid feels, has felt or will feel.” “Don’t be passiveaggressive.” “Don’t make threats.” “Don’t jump in too quickly.” She includes conversation crashers specific to each of the 14 conversations as well.
The chapter about changing friendships feels especially relevant
in my house, as the pandemic has stripped away most of my kids’ traditional social connections and left us with a whole lot of new norms, screens and feelings.
“This is the age when your child becomes obsessed with their friends and classmates to the exclusion of logic, reason, prior commitments, curfews, family time and geographical restrictions,” Icard writes. “Between grades six and nine, kids will do just about anything to be brought into the social fold of their peers.”
This can be frustrating for parents, especially during a pandemic when time with friends often means your kid is holed up in a bedroom on a screen again, repeatedly rebuffing your entreaties to tackle that fun 1,000piece Grand Canyon puzzle.
“Remember that, statistically speaking, few of us can rely on our family pedigree and accompanying social connections, inheritances
or enterprises to pave our paths in life,” Icard writes. “Most of us have to look outside the family unit for ways to ensure our future happiness and livelihood. … Middle schoolers intuitively understand this and begin exploring how to connect with, and be accepted by, people outside of their families in ways that may seem extreme to you, but do serve a developmental purpose.”
Still, there’s value in discussing and finding some balance, and Icard walks parents through those conversations.
She also writes about an underdiscussed (I think) reality for so many kids, which is that middle school can be an incredibly difficult time to find a good friend or accepting friend group. And that’s all the more painful when everything from novels to Netflix series to TV commercials aimed at tweens make friendships seem like the easiest, most natural thing.
“It’s as if you were 30 years old and single, and all you ever saw on TV and in the movies were Hallmark movies,” Icard told me. “You would feel like the weirdest person in the world that you couldn’t find a lid for your pot.”
Icard’s book tackles the temptation for parents to just fill their kids’ time with family friends (not always helpful) or say things to their kids like, “I wish people could see you the way I do.” (“Barf, is what your kid will be thinking,” Icard writes. “No kid wants the other kids at school to see them the way their 45-yearold parent does.”)
Different conversations will feel more urgent than others, depending on your kids’ particular development, needs, struggles, strengths. The book strikes me as a fabulous resource to keep nearby as those needs, struggles and strengths change.
“The main thing I want parents to take away is the more we practice this with each other, the better we get at it,” Icard said. “The goal is, ‘How can I best support my child?’ Not, ‘How can I bubble wrap my kids so nothing bad happens to them?’
“And ideally when you’re practicing and talking, you’re creating a bridge between the two of you so when bad things do happen, your child comes to you.”