The Self-Driven Child
Helping parents raise kids with healthy motivation and resilience in facing life's challenges. Oh, and having more fun while doing it!
The Self-Driven Child
Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome
As parents, we often think of middle school as a gauntlet—something our kids just need to survive. But my guest today, education leader, author, and school founder Chris Balme, sees it differently. To him, middle school is an extraordinary time of growth and self-discovery—a period where young people’s brains are changing at their fastest pace since early childhood, making it the perfect time to nurture creativity, agency, and resilience.
Chris joins me to share ideas from his new book, Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome—a guide for kids themselves to turn these years into something remarkable. With challenges ranging from stealth artistry to healing broken friendships, Chris shows us how experiences can inspire, connect, and grow the skills kids truly need for life. Along the way, we talk about adolescent brain development, the power of awe, peer-led conflict resolution, and why middle schoolers deserve more agency than they usually get.
If you’ve got a tween about to make the leap—or you’re already in the thick of it—this conversation will help you see these years not as a trial to endure, but as a hero’s journey worth embracing.
Episode Highlights:
[0:00] – Kicking off with a quick update on The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child: The Workbook
[1:37] – Introducing Chris Balme and his passion for transforming the middle school experience
[4:19] – Why middle schoolers are the “ultimate underdogs” and how reframing these years changes everything
[7:25] – Building a curriculum of experiences—how “Challenge Accepted” was born
[10:19] – Science-backed challenges for the TikTok generation that build connection, creativity, and agency
[13:04] – The “Stealth Artist” challenge and the value of positive rule-breaking
[23:54] – “Propose a Better Rule” and empowering students to create real change
[29:01] – The brain science and benefits behind “Find Awe in Nature”
[35:06] – “Heal a Broken Bond”—tools and mindsets for repairing friendships
[46:27] – Why middle schoolers are heroes in their own epic adventure
Links & Resources:
· Chris's Website https://www.chrisbalme.com/about
· Harry Chapin: Flowers Are Red https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cVpkzZpDBA
· Mike Nicholson - educator https://www.learninspired.org/about
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If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com
Hey, folks, Ned here, like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know, to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to, in part, because we tend to refer to old ways. We hear a great suggestion or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before, it isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the seven principles for raising a self driven child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, the self driven child and what do you say? Full of reflections and exercises to do yourself, with your partner and with your children, we want to help make the self driven child way your way, so that you can, more often than not, be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be if you get a chance order a copy Bill and I and your kids would be grateful.
Chris Balme:And our first thought experiment was, what if we make a middle school curriculum that is only experiences and just created like a giant list of things, like a bingo board? Any of these experiences will enrich you, connect you, help you figure out who you are, what you can do in the world. And of course, the ultimate design of the school was a compromise between needing to cover some of the traditional things and those experiences. But it just stuck with me is Middle School is a time where you discover yourself as a social being.
Ned Johnson:Welcome to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William sticksert of the books the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives and what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance and a happy home. For many of you, it's that time of year. School is just around the corner, with new notebooks or computers to acquire. There are also butterflies to quell. Transitions can sure cause stress more so the transitions that are into new places or new phases of life, perhaps none feel more fraught than transitions to middle school if you have a jittery kid headed that way, or perhaps are the equally jittery parent of a soon to be middle schooler. Well, this is a conversation for you. My guest is Chris Baum, an education leader writer and school founder. He wanted Ashoka fellowship as a leading change maker in education. Has authored two incredible books and parents three fabulous young people. Most of all, he is passionate about helping young people discover more of their human potential. And sees middle school not as something to be endured, but as an incredible time of human development, and to make sure he got his book right, he enlisted a partner in scribe, a vicious editor, as he describes her, the kind of ruthless judge we imagine prowling the halls of middle schools. Yep, Chris's Middle School daughter, Abigail, who helped make his brand new book challenge, accepted 50 adventures to make Middle School Awesome. Well, awesome. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Well, Chris, welcome back when you and I first met, I think you were in the middle of writing your first book was that, is that right?
Chris Balme:That's right. I cannot believe we're back at it again three years later. And this is, yeah, in many ways, the sequel for kids instead of for adults.
Ned Johnson:So, so yeah. So you found all the magic in middle school that adults needed to know, check that box, and now you're moving on to moving on to kids themselves, which I which I adore. I've, of course, jumped and made a race here. Let me back up a half second and ask you if you could just sort of very briefly, kind of outline who you are and what your work is, and how you got to this for folks who may not have gone back to listen to that episode that we did that was so beautiful. Yeah,
Chris Balme:thanks Ned, grown up middle schooler, still a schooler. My core now in adult form. I've worked with middle schoolers for it'll be 25 years, next year, and every possible kind of way from teacher and after school programs founded two middle schools and served as a school leader and now writing about developmentally, what is going on for middle schoolers, because I think they are the ultimate underdogs, and there's a chance to really change the story about what we tell each other and what we tell kids about middle school.
Ned Johnson:Now, in quick review and sort of finding the mattership in middle school is it. My view of it and jump in at any point is, was really trying to help parents and teachers and kind of indulge it, generally, to shift their focus, rather from looking at it as these, you know, two or three years of just, just pain and suffering and drudgery of something to be just to get through and come out the other side, ideally, you know, if not whole, at least, at least not wildly scarred as you you know, emerge, you know, fully formed into high school, but rather to see this as just such a lush, critical, crucial, pivotal time for young people to be figuring out who they are, how they show up, developing themselves. And of course, growing pains tend to have at least a modicum of pain, and that we should what are the the Navy SEALs say, embrace, embrace the suck, you know, so, so it's just seeing us, you know, if it weren't little stress and struggle, you know, you don't get you don't get stronger by lifting the three pound weight, right? And to resign, kind of how we think about middle school and use you have such enthusiasm for people and compassion and really optimism for people that that age, it really is, it really is lovely. And is that a fair summary of
Chris Balme:great summary? Yeah, you're hired. Yeah. I mean, the essence of that book is that there are two periods in our whole lifespan where our brains are growing the fastest, it's early childhood and early adolescence, and these are the two hardest times to be someone's parents, and the way you can make sense of it is understanding them developmentally. So because we have those maps for young kids, then we kind of enshrine early childhood as this glorious period, even though it's also pretty tricky, because they're changing so fast, right? We get to the middle school years, we often don't have those maps. So the whole idea of that book is give us a map so that we know what's driving middle schoolers, so we can help them meet their needs, rather than battle them fruitlessly, which we often
Ned Johnson:right? If, if you could win, then carry on. But there's at best, it'll be a Pyrrhic victory, and most adults tend to be outwitted by um, by uh, by young adolescents, because those wildly creative still forming brains. Exactly so. Challenge accepted 50 adventures to make Middle School awesome for middle school kids themselves, right?
Chris Balme:Yes, this is the book I thought I was going to write first, because I've actually been working at it for a ridiculous number of years now. And when I was starting Millennium School in San Francisco, our kind of lab middle school, we were trying to figure out, how do we get away from the usual old curriculum, which we all know is kind of tired and does not engage kids. And our first thought experiment was, what if we make a middle school curriculum that is only experiences and just created like a giant list of things, like a bingo board? Any of these experiences will enrich you, connect, you help you figure out who you are, what you can do in the world. And of course, the ultimate design of the school was a compromise between needing to cover some of the traditional things and those experiences. But it just stuck with me is Middle School is a time where you discover yourself as a social being. You can sum up all of the brain science with, I think, that statement, who am I now that I see everyone around me, they're all judging me. I'm judging them. I have to rebuild myself. No small task. No
Ned Johnson:small task. Yeah, you know, and I love in the in the introduction to this book, you know, sort of talking right at kids and pointing out your brain will what's the language your brain will never, your is never changing as fast or growing as fast as it is right now, is that the phrase
Chris Balme:used, it's, yeah, it's basically a maximum speed. Right now I get what I was
Ned Johnson:I was reflecting on this this morning, thinking about this, thinking about your millennium, Millennium school, and the thought popped in my head was that, in any way tied to the Millennium Falcon. Falcon,
Chris Balme:you know, that became our mascot was the Millennium Falcons.
Ned Johnson:I don't know how old you are, but if you were like, you know, if, you know, if you were all into Star Wars when you were in middle school, I was like, let's have a school this like the Millennium Falcon. We'll play chess with little characters and, well, anyway,
Chris Balme:exactly, still working on the 3d floating chessboard, but Yes,
Ned Johnson:that'd be cool. And so the book is, organ is your as you talk about with Millennium School of what if we had a gazillion things that kids would do and they can go and go in a bunch of different directions and explore, kind of every facet of of learning and friends and just themselves and other people on and on, you know, kind of choose your own adventures you talk about in the book. And so you've organized this into 50 small challenges that folks can do roughly, going easy to hard. Yeah, exactly I my thought, my thought. A wise guy thought, as I was thinking about this this morning, is like, Oh, you've written a book for the Tiktok generation. One, one, it's bite sized, right? It's really punchy. It's super digestible and benevolent. Tiktok challenge is not like, you know, eat a time,
Chris Balme:exactly. These are
Ned Johnson:all science backed ideas people. These are science backed ideas?
Chris Balme:Well, that's also just a good reminder that, like kids, create rituals and rites of passage unless we offer them better ones. So if you don't have a good way to connect socially around a challenge, then you're going to end up doing crazy stuff that you saw on Tiktok. This is, I hope, a much more fun and healthier and ultimately, growth oriented challenge than, you know, eating chemicals or, God knows what's coming out there.
Ned Johnson:Yeah, yeah, there's, there many decisions are made in middle schools, not. Most of them are good. Most of them are good. Well, can I? Can I? I'd love to go through a few of these, just to give people a sense of the flavor of kind, of the energy and wisdom that is in this book. And the first one that popped out to me was number third, chapter 13, not because I'm a Swiftie, though many people, of course, should be, and 13 being her favorite number, be a stealth artist. I love
Chris Balme:that you pointed this one out. This is one of my favorite ones. Not that I officially, of course, I don't have favorites, but I'll tell you, this is one of my favorite ones I've seen now a lot of students. Part of the reason this book took a while to gestate is we've tested it with hundreds of kids all over the world for several years. And a lot, you know, some of the challenges got cut. We added some changed some in the course of that, and I've now seen a lot of kids take this one on. And the idea is to be playful and find a way to, in a way, you know, transgress in a in a way that's positive. So, you know, art is kind of meant to transgress in a way that's positive. I love that. I love that. Yeah. So, you know, that's, I think part of the gift from adolescents to the rest of the world is that they don't buy into all the stories that we believe or the rules, and if we try to force them into our rules, then we never make progress, kind of by definition. So the whole idea of this challenge is to create a piece of art and then mount it somewhere, place it somewhere, as if it's meant to be there, you know, without permission. And of course, do it in a way that's not destructive, where it's not gonna, you know, rip off the wall if someone wants to remove it. But, you know, put your painting up in Starbucks, see what happens. And, you know, you have, you know, write a poem and, you know, get some painters tape and put it on the side of the bookcase in the library. Things where, you know, it's just a creative, playful, positively transgressive acts and kind of speaks to the adolescent spirit, I think,
Ned Johnson:well, and I love that, you love your point that you know, if we're going to do things differently, we kind of have to see things differently, you know. And art, by its by its nature, is not, you know, so long as we're not doing paint by numbers, right? That that creative aspect, there's a, one of my favorite quotes from Einstein is, was, if we get this right, we cannot solve our problems using the thinking we used when we created those problems. And so, you know, and there's a Who's the other one? Marc Marcel Proust said the great journey of discovery is not in chain, is not in traveling to faraway lands, but in seeing with new eyes. And it strikes me that that's the beauty of children period, is they go, ah, and they and you they look at things anew, because it's new to them. And there's just such delight to be an older person as I am to see kids see things, you know, like a puppy scene snow for the first time. But it strikes me that, you know, before we got on this talk call, we were joking about the fact that, between the two of us, we've worked our way up to stick figures. So, so I don't I if I have artistic ability, it's not yet been discovered or developed, but when you see people who really are talented artists that they're they're just putting a new spin and a new and therefore, kind of a new look at things that are that have always been there, but but casting it in new light. And it's exactly it's so really, it's neat to see. I'll jump in on that last
Chris Balme:point. Maybe. What was this? Yeah, there's this is. This is pure conjecture. But one of the most interesting theories I've seen about why human brains take so unbelievably long to mature, you know, 25 years, is that it allows us to differentiate more from the past generation. Because. You know, we're not coming fully into our mental capacities until we're already, you know, ready to start branching off from our family of origin, and that maybe lets us evolve faster as a society. You know, it's not a this is conjecture, but I find it interesting to wonder,
Ned Johnson:yeah, I love that. The before I switch gears. My fi, my favorite line that you had in this article is, this, may sound strange, but art is meant to break rules. And there's a my core work, of course, as a jury test, tutor of jury tests, standardized tests. And there was a passage years ago about Pablo Picasso's Guernica, and how it was considered so, you know, kind of earth shattering and so provocative and made politicians upset by really, its depiction of war, right in the Spanish, you know, totalitarian regime. And there's a line in there said, if you know some and one, one artist is saying, art has never changed the world, and another artist responded, if it doesn't change the world, then why is it so persistently persecuted and repressed?
Chris Balme:Beautifully said. And who else is persistently repressed and persecuted, but middle schoolers, who are often told that just get through your period of brutal suffering until you're tolerable to be around. These are people who bring such creativity to the world if we let them. I think I'm still fighting for my inner middle schooler who was, yeah, so utterly bored and disconnected. And I don't want that to be the norm. I don't think it has to be. So,
Ned Johnson:no, I don't think it does, you know, and at our peril, right? Because if there's this wild foment of creativity, if you shut it down and shut it down and shut it down and shut it down, that at some point it stops. I'm old enough. I'm a was a big fan of Harry Chapin, who had this song called flowers are red, and it describes this little boy who moved to his school, and he's constantly doodling, like, maybe, you know, middle school Chris, but with artistic ability, he was bored, right? And so he's doodling, doodling and doodling, and the and the teacher comes over says, There's a time and place for everything. I mean, this is not the this is not the place for art. And there's a way things should be done. You know, flowers are red, green leaves are green. There's no other way to see, see then, then the way they always have been seen. Back to your point about, you know? And so he keeps doing this, and at some point she sticks him in the corner, and you know, you'll basically stay there until you learn to see things the right way. And so she just crushes his spirit. And so at some point, he moves to another school, and she has this, he has this wonderful, wild art teacher, and it's art class, and he's just making these rows and rows and rows of flowers with red leaves and green of red, red flowers and green leaves. And the refrain of it is, there's so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the morning sun, so many colors and the flowers. Let's use every one. Just, I just love, I mean, even for a person, again, who's still trying to find his artistic ability, I just I, and I particularly love the idea of using it in a kind of, you know, covert, underhanded, vaguely mischievous way, hiding your art in the library so someone else can discover it is pretty Plus, you'll make someone's day
Chris Balme:Exactly, yeah, and maybe inspire someone else to go do the same thing. Yeah. I think they need room for that. They I think in general, I know I'm preaching to the choir here. We tend to make kids at this age passive by just so many rules, so many adult structures, so many just react to the next demand. They thrive on agency, on having the chance to choose how to spend time, including making mistakes along the way.
Ned Johnson:What's interesting? My son is 23 and he's a music he was a music major, wildly creative kid, and he's always been dreamy. And everyone you know, I'd find myself saying Matthew, trying to lean on him about this or that, that I thought was important to teach him. And somewhere along the line, the idea popped into my head. Thank goodness that Ned, what makes you think or know, can't possibly nobody even think that the ideas that you have in your head are currently more important than the ones that he has in his head. And why don't you just let him run as much as you can? Right?
Chris Balme:Exactly? We try to shortcut their learning from a very loving place. Yeah, but yeah, it's just not very memorable when they don't get to experience editing. Yeah. I mean, case in point for this book you noticed earlier who it was dedicated to, which is my own oldest kid, who's in middle school, and she was my most ruthless editor.
Ned Johnson:Love it. Tell us more about that. What like? What did she do? Like to. I'm trying to picture what she'd be doing, rolling her eyes Like, seriously, Dad, what did they give me an example? What did that look like? What did she call her?
Chris Balme:Probably the best thing I learned from her was that, you know, I was trying to keep the book short and punchy and succinct and thank you every single Yeah, but every single time, that led me to just be kind of directive, like, do this and do that, she would was like, she was allergic to it. Instantly, she'd be like, That's a command. Cut that part out. Ironically, she was commanding me, but she just knew that, like, if this sounds like an yet another adult telling the middle school or what to do, they're gonna toss it. It has to be all invitations, just you choose where you want to go. So I actually rewrote the entire book based on, you know, that whole night of sitting with her and reading through these challenges and realizing, gosh, I have, I'm still sounding like an adult telling you what to do, and that cannot
Ned Johnson:work here. Wow. What a wonderful insight. But you know, Bill and I, my writing partner, Bill sticks should have paired paired up with a really, really interesting educator, a guy named Mike Nicholson. I should, I should introduce you to him when we finish this conversation, who's all about bringing self directed student, directed learning to schools, really, at scale. So not just, you know, charter schools or private schools where they have the kind of runway and bandwidth to do that, but really for large school systems, and it's just, it's great stuff. And we should, you know, see, he our thinking overlaps a lot with his. So you know, he appreciates the books that we've written, and I gave him a copy last year our second book called, What do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress, tolerance and a happy home, and it's so much of what you just put your finger on that you really need to take force off the table, so that if you really, if you want to have authentic buy in. And I shared this with Mike, and he said, he said it was so interesting because I hadn't really reflected on how coercive is so much of the language that's in school systems, it's time to do this. Now, shouldn't you be doing why haven't you right? And you know, we need structure in schools, but if it's predominantly coercive, you know, all the while, he did this really cool thing where he analyzed that the language, he coded the language in student handbooks, and looked at how much of language was about rules and regulations and expectations and how much it was about growth and development. 85% rules and regs, 15% growth and development.
Chris Balme:It's such an irony, and I think any middle schooler would be happy to point it out,
Unknown:gleefully, yeah,
Chris Balme:gleefully versus Yeah. It's wild to me. Like, how in a typical school day in middle school, where do you exercise choice? Like, who you sit next to in the cafeteria, maybe, but there might be some tricky social rules around that too. It's, I think they deserve way, way more. And yeah, if we want schools to be developing democratic participants, that can't be this dictatorial thing. And you're
Ned Johnson:funny to put your finger right on, on, on a sort of a signed lunch in, in, Middle School of cafeterias. Bill makes his point that if we, if we reflect on it, arguably, the two prime directives of adolescence are, one, to connect with people outside of your own home, and two, to develop independence.
Chris Balme:How about that? Right?
Ned Johnson:Yeah, so much for this. Let me pivot from from too many rules to chapter 43 propose a better rule,
Chris Balme:talk us through that. Yeah, this. This comes from one of my favorite moments ever as a school leader, which was, this is not quite a few years ago, and there had been a school shooting, unfortunately, not that it was a one time thing, not near us, but students were activated by it like we all were. And we're talking about, what are the rules around this? Why don't we have different rules around who has access to guns and things like that, and they decided completely on their own, that they would start a campaign that would kick off with a protest on the pretty big city street where we were based. And they printed up T shirts and made signs. And I will never forget this moment that they they walked out of the school building in the morning, probably 100 kids carrying their signs about wanting to propose better rules for gun control. And they started marching down the street, you know, very tentatively, wondering if they kind of were allowed to do this. And then people started honking in support. And. And rolling down their windows and cheering for them. And I just it was one of the most beautiful moments of my whole life as an educator like they, they stood up higher, they started chanting, you know, they kind of raised their signs up. There were more honks. And it was just the coolest thing. This would it was completely driven by kids, and they realized that other people were with them. They could rally people. It that's they just have much more power than we give them credit for.
Ned Johnson:Wow, I have a I have a friend who's an educator here runs a nonprofit organization called Learn, serve, and it's a social entrepreneurship organization and the and so there are young people make proposals, and then they work with, you know, old farts like me, who give them feedback. And almost like, you know, almost like they're making a pitch deck, right? And they kind of work on what the project is before they go to work, you know, putting it into implementing it. But where they start with is, what's something that pisses you off, and it's just it is all across the map, from issues of gun safety to mental health to litter in the neighborhood to lack of resources for kids who need just everything you can think of, right? Isn't that a clever way to organize it? Right? You know, because one of the things I think so much about we talk in the self driven child, a great researcher named Reed Larson, who in the 90s, was looking at, how is it that adolescents become intrinsically motivated, so rather than carrots and sticks, but wanting to work, not just working, but wanting to work. And he said, It's not through dutifully doing their homework, but what he described as the passion and pursuit of pastimes. And so we often think about that as you know, sports or music or coding or part time job, small engine repair, whatever, but social organization or social entrepreneurship, this makes me mad. We've got to do something about it. And so parents so often think, well, it's what they learn. It's what they learn. Is what they learn? Well, almost everything that kids get taught in middle school, they get taught again in high school because repetition is good and their brains are developing. And then pay well, they didn't do their homework, but they need to develop those executive functions, as though executive functions develop singularly from filling out a worksheet. No offense to anyone that's ever given a worksheet in ways that they wouldn't develop if you're trying to organize a protest. And who's going to get this? And what, how big the signs of what font we need to be, and what color should it be, and when are we going to do it, and what's the best time of day, and what permit do we need, and whose help do we need? You know? I mean, there are 1000 decisions just get, you know, a march with 25 kids for five blocks off, you know? Yeah,
Chris Balme:that often think that, like we we miss, like the ultimate gatekeeper with all this work, which is a gatekeeper that cannot be fooled. And it's the gatekeeper between short term and long term memory that when we do worksheets, sure, we can learn all kinds of things in the short term. But we know from loads of brain science, if it doesn't have emotional salience, if it's not connected socially, there's not a sense of broader purpose, then it will not get through that gate and it will not go in long term memory, right, right? I can literally remember the feeling after a test in high school of the knowledge just draining out. I had memorized this for a purpose. Was done. So you know this, we're making experiences. That's why I hope these challenges will serve to this. You know, experiences that are worth remembering, and that's what will form you
Ned Johnson:I love it. I love it. Let me pick your brain about two more, just because they're my favorite. I'd love for you to jump in if there's one that I've overlooked, or three that you've I've overlooked that you really like you. Hold on. How is this written? Let me look at my notes one more time. Find awe in nature. And this is something that is really close to my heart. We talk about this quite a bit in the self driven child. But can you walk us through some of your thinking on that and advice on that? And then I'll sort of, you know, add in color commentary, if
Chris Balme:I may. Yeah, I'm thinking of one of the very first students who took this challenge up when we were testing them, and it was actually during covid, maybe in one of the second second waves. And he, at first, was thinking, you know, I live in a suburb. There's not really any awe around here, the usual, but he managed to find basically an undeveloped Hill, and he got a path up there. It was not that long of a walk. And he described to me, after like, he just sat his back against a tree, and he could see his whole, you know, neighborhood and area. And in the midst of everything that's going on, covid, puberty, et cetera, came his happy place. And he kept going back there again and again as he felt peaceful, like connected to something bigger. And I just think we all need that, but maybe especially adolescents, where so much of the change that's happening is out of your control. You know, puberty does its thing. No one's setting the timing of that. It's just going to take you for. A ride. You know, if you can go to a place where you feel small in the presence of something awe inspiring, it's like a giant reset button. So that's, that's the essence of it.
Ned Johnson:I love that. I mean, you probably know the work of Dr calendar. You know greater good. You know, with on and friends with Deborah Chris farmer, who's got a brand new book out called Raising awe seekers. And so are, you know, hitting the same, same points about both what it feels like and then the science that underlies it. And one of the really nerdy things that I loved learning about is what's called the default mode network, which, you know, for folks who don't know, is an entire network that engages when you're not actively involved in a task. And we think that we need to be busy all the time to develop brains. Well, depends what part of the brain you want to develop, a few things that the default mode network develops, that other things don't as much. And see if these maybe possibly matter for middle school, it's really all about reflection. So we reflect on ourselves, our past experience. We reflect on conversations. John Dewey, a famous philosopher and educator, of course, observed that we don't learn through experience. We learn through reflecting on that experience, and so without time to reflect, we don't get a very good ROI on, you know, teen effort and energy, or, you know, parental tax dollars or tuition. And also in the default my network engages, we've also project ourselves into the future. So this is the, what they describe as autobiographical planning. When you figure out who am I, right, I'm an athlete, I'm an artist. Am I goth? Am I a politician? I'm a rabble rouser, I'm a conformist. You know, am I do good or who am I and how do I want to show up in the world? And so it's this constant process of pivoting to past experiences, maybe 43 out of the 50 challenges you've done from Chris's book, pitching yourself in the future, and say, Where could those take me? And you go back and forth and back and forth. It's incredibly valuable work, and it's how people develop empathy. I think about you. I think about me. I think about me, I think about you. I reflect on the conversation when I made you a little upset, and you a little upset, and you go back and forth and back and forth. And so I worry. I think all of us worry about, you know, all of us as parents and as kids spending too much time with our nose in the phone, so because it kind of disrupts reflection, we've got someone else's pre programmed agenda there. But we can also really do this by our work as parents and educators unintentionally giving kids messages that are for them, not busy all the time, that something must be wrong when we really want to carve out space for that reflection. So I hope that, I hope that every kid has a has a hill of his own to kind of take in the world a bit
Chris Balme:and space in their lives for it. I just totally agree. I mean, we're recording this in the summertime, and one of the things I've really noticed this summer with my three kids is when they are less scheduled, we try to make their summer more open. They are so much more ready to engage, like so much more curious. They've got more empathy that just feels like they have energy and interest in connecting, talking, trying things, versus, you know, the end of the school day kid who's just like, Get out of my hair.
Ned Johnson:I'm done. Yeah, my expression I always the expression that I always use with my friends and family and colleagues. My brain is full,
Chris Balme:no vacancy here. I
Ned Johnson:got, I got, I got, I got, no, yep, no, no space. Leave me alone. I just need to. I need to sit here and sort of purge. Well, the last one I wanted to ask about, and I really enjoyed this. And this perhaps talks to, you know, your boy on the hill, reflecting and developing empathy of of of be a healer, right? Whereas his number, number 46 heal a broken bond. Thank you. Heal a broken bond to get that one right. Oh, man, when I think about what is arguably the most kind of perilous terrain for young people, and kind of the thing that probably freaks their parents out the most is friendships, you know, faltering or fraying or fracturing. I had a friend who's a middle school, head of the Middle School here in DC, and she talked about, she had this great metaphor about bookshelves and that you have, you know, your best friends are the books at the very top right, and they have other ones that are second down, then that you interact with them occasionally, and you might have someone who was your best friend, and they're the top of the shelf of the bookshelf, but and they might no longer be your best friend, they may move down to second shelf or third shelf. But just because they move around doesn't mean that they're not. Somewhere on that shelf, right that you can reorder. It's not like you take them all and they all fall on the floor and there's no book on yourself whatsoever.
Chris Balme:I love that. It's a way to add more room for complexity. It's not black or white. And yeah, my gosh, when I was in middle school, and really, frankly, later, I think I had the idea that if you had a rupture with the friends, the correct response was never talked to them again. That was honestly like how I had absorbed the wisdom of conflict resolution, the fact that no one told me otherwise. And yeah, this whole chapter starts with a metaphor of bones. You know, when you break a bone, how terrible would it be if you just had to live with a broken bone for the rest of your life? I mean the amount of fear and sadness that would create. But thankfully, not only do our bones heal, they heal stronger, as everyone knows, yeah, it's good to realize that and have some tools and if we as adults, also can accompany them well, so that when they're in conflict, we see it as normal, because this is the prime social learning time of your whole life. We validate that we still have conflicts, we offer tools we don't blame them for it, they'll move through a lot more smoothly, and they'll be some of the most memorable learning experiences of your adolescence when you figure out how to repair a friendship. Oh,
Ned Johnson:I love that. I mean two thoughts come to mind. The first for me is that we see so many young people who are, I mean, are anxious, right? The statistics are kind of off the chart. And if the prime work of adolescence is to connect with people outside their home and to be more independent, if they struggle forming friendships or maintaining friendships, or to the point here, healing friendships when things go awry, how? And they don't know how to fix it. How would they not be socially anxious? Right? They're going to be disconnected. They've lived lost my last Christmas, my best friend the world. I'll never have another friend. I can't go back to him because I screwed it up, and I don't feel that I have the tool to repair the break that I made. Well, then how anxious Am I about kind of doing anything with any other person, anywhere else? And the second part to that is we know that we become closer to people when we share harder feelings, right? We can laugh all the time, and everything's you know. You know, skip what's skimming the surface, what's up from Wicked, right? You know. You know, the living, the unexamined life, where we where no feelings are deep, and everything's, you know, shiny happy all the time. But we know that we become close to people by sharing with them the things that we're, we're we're anxious about or ashamed of, or were stressed about, or feel guilty about, or mad, or whatever it happens to be, and when the people who we care about can hear those things and be like, Yeah, me too. That's hard for me too, and you just normalize that. That seems to me, you know, where you're really developing relationships that are much more meaningful because they're much more profound because we've shared with people, well, we'll go back to that rainbow of colors. We've not just shared the red and green with them, we've shared the black and the blue, right, and the gray and the things that are hard and when we and it doesn't always work right, because you can share feelings and people then ghost you, or turn it around and stab you and stab you in the, in the in the heart with those hard feelings. But when we do, we're we're conveying to people that I trust you with my hard feelings, and they can come right back and say, You can trust me with your hard feelings.
Chris Balme:I love that. And there's a, there's a tiny little chapter at the back of the book. I'm sure you saw that's a bit of advice you gave me,
Ned Johnson:yeah, I wanted to ask about that. Please go, Yeah, please, please, please dig in. It's
Chris Balme:yeah. It's just, it's just that idea that, you know, I think one of the best things we can do as adults who are accompanying someone going through middle school is to start revealing more of ourselves, so that when they bring us a problem, we don't instinctively response or respond with Okay, here's the solution, but we can first validate it through our own experience, because they're starting to have adult like experiences, or having complicated friendships or picking up social dynamics, and that's our world. We get that we're still in the midst of those so to first validate it and let ourselves be a little more open and frankly, weird. Yep, because every human is weird, we just sometimes feel that we have to hide it. And I think for middle schoolers, if an adult is hiding their weirdness, they kind of look like a statue, almost like we think that we will connect best when we show our most impressive sides. But the opposite is actually true. And I'm thinking of, you know, being a school leader and deciding that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, maybe classic midlife moment. It's like I do this, that I would bring it into lunchtime or break time at school and play terribly and. Yeah, every time I did that, there were kids often, sometimes the kids I had the most trouble connecting with, who would come up and be like, Please, let me help you. Okay, bring it on. Don't give up the day job. Express your kids will be hungry. Put you out of your misery. But you know, to break down these barriers. In that case, you know, I was a principal, and here's a kid saying, like, Can I show you a few things they might not have otherwise been willing to love
Ned Johnson:it. I wanted. I wanted. One quick thing to your point about validation, just because it's in my mind, a quick caveat that sometimes when a kid is, you know, I told embarrass myself. I didn't make the team. Everybody hates me. When parents say, you know, that reminds me of when I was your kid. And you sort of tell about your own difficult experience, I would put one little piece in there before you do it of vow, and say, Wow, that was a lot, or that would have been really frustrating, or that's I've boy, I'd be upset too, and then say, you know, and then and simply ask, can I tell you what I did that was totally embarrassed myself when I was in seventh grade or whatever? Because the normalizing of it that you describe is so powerful, because kids don't often know that their parents had all the same embarrassments and struggles, and it's so great for them, for them to see that we as parents work through that and became the Okay, maybe not remarkable adults to wear but the semi capable adults who do put on their pants before they put the survivors pseudo, you know, but when, if we if we lean, if we leave their hard feelings and bring to our experiences too quickly. It can feel to them not intended, but it can feel to them like we're trying to pull them out of their hard feelings, or maybe we're taking it from being about them to taking about us. And there's that beautiful moment to have it be. This is an us thing. It's not a you, me, it's an us thing. I
Chris Balme:love that. I think you're totally right. Yeah. Don't make it about it's a fine line. You don't want to take the spotlight from them if they want it, but to show them that this is normal human condition, and if you want, we can talk about it if you want. There are tools, but I get you,
Ned Johnson:and that's exactly language. I'm going back to the brilliant insight that Abigail made when it feels like it's kind of directive. Let me tell you about when I was in middle school, as opposed to, can I tell you about, can I tell you what I did to embarrass myself when I was in middle school? We've you've just gone from a direction. Let me tell you to agency to choice. Can I tell you about, and if your kid's like, not now, dad, seriously, that's cool. I get it right. But chances are, what self respecting team doesn't want to hear about the way that their parents bears themselves. It's just, it's not a matter of whether. It might just be a matter of when
Chris Balme:they already know we're embarrassing. They just want more evidence to add to their their data.
Ned Johnson:The last thing I wanted to ask about that kind of healing a broken bond, the most fraught part for most parents, because the most fraught part for kids is relationships, because arguably, it's really the most significant work of middle school, and the part of middle school for which we as parents can arguably help the least, because you can't, you know, you can't Go charging in there. You can't talk to the principal to solve it. You know, you can ask help, but no one can, no one, no one can repair the relationship between two people if those two people aren't going to do the work themselves
Chris Balme:exactly. And yet, when those things happen, it is the most important thing in a middle schooler's life, how you sort out that tricky or broken friendship. So, yeah, I can say, as a from the school leaders perspective, you know, schools that have peer mediator clubs or that teach conflict resolution, magical things happen. It's one of those times where we realize how much we've underestimated kids, that they can be incredible mediators for each other's conflict, which, again, is part of the whole idea of that chapter. Oh,
Ned Johnson:it's such a great point. I just met an educator whose name currently escapes me. I'm going to bring in who is does a huge amount of work in this and most, mostly doing his work in schools where, you know, a lot of discord, a lot of things not going well, and it has completely changed the energy around in those schools, in part because we go back to where we're I'm really upset with you. You're really upset with me. We can't be friends ever again. We used to be best friends, and it's this source of conflict, right? And until we heal that bond to the degree that we can and may not go back to what it was. It may be something different. We can't change the energy. And then for both of us, school and learning is likely to be wildly disrupted because both of us are wildly dysregulated, and then we become a source of difficulty for other people.
Chris Balme:That's it. I will never forget once on a school camping trip. So, you know, we take this bus up to somewhere out in the countryside, and we get off the bus, probably, I don't know 40 kids, you know, 37 of them go over to where we're setting up camp, and I see three of them walking, three kids I don't normally see together, over to a field, and they sit down at the edge of the field. And I was kind of keep keeping my eye on them, but it didn't approach them. And a little while later, they walked back, and kind of got into the camp, and I asked one of them, like, you know, what's up? What were you guys up to? And they had just had a conflict resolution session. There were two kids who were having an issue. Something flared up on the bus, and there was a peer mediator, and they went and used a tool and talked it out, and there was a grand total of zero adult involvement in it, and they just told me about it after like, Yeah, we're good. No worries. You know, where's the food? That's that's what kids can do. They're capable of that. And sometimes it's the kids who are most prone to creating drama that actually get really good at resolving drama as they've
Ned Johnson:they've had this I suspect that's true. I suspect that's true, right? Because that social intuition that allows me to go for your jugular emotionally, right, is the same thing. Helps me realize that's, that's the sense of the spot, and I've got to be, and I got to be, I got to be gentle when I go there, when I go there,
Chris Balme:yeah. So, yeah, they can do so much. And, yeah, I hope, I hope this, yeah, this book is, you know, 50 of an infinite number of things that could do.
Ned Johnson:And it's, I mean, it's so delightful. I mean, it's so, it's so, I mean, one, kudos to Abigail for her inputs, and kudos to you to be so, to being so open for her input. I mean, it's, it's punchy, it's light, these bite sized things. It reminds me a little bit of, do you remember the book 50 dangerous things for, you know, for boys and for girls and like, like, I had so much fun reading that we did a fraction things in there. But even just contemplating these, and then these ideas bop around in your head, and you might not pick them up and engage with them. This, this, you know, today or this week or this month, but to just even plant those seeds of like, yeah, that would be cool. And then you can circle right back to it and and pick those up as activities when you want. It was, strikes me be a great book, you know, they're all these, but, you know, everyone gets the places you will go, right, or the place you go is a high school graduation book, but I, you know, or middle school, but this would seem to be really lovely book to give kids, you know, as they're as they're heading into middle school, because it just it frames up so many of the things, again, that they're likely to face. But in the in a way, as your kind of superhero, you know, creation story are the things that can make you be the version of either you want to be. So I really like that.
Chris Balme:Thank you so much, Ned. I do really see them as heroes. You know, like heroes, they're on this epic adventure called puberty and middle school, and anything that helps them feel like they really are more, leading that adventure, choosing, you know, the next chapter. It's such a gift. So thank you so much. It's great to hear your your affirmation for
Ned Johnson:it. Well, thank you. And I want, I want to end with your words. The very start of the book is you write to kids. You can do anything, you can go anywhere, you can be anyone, And at the end, you're the snippet about the advice for adults. Because in many ways, middle school may be as Harder, harder for for parents of middle school kids as it is for middle school kids, because the work really is theirs, and we're just along for the ride. And by definition, we have a lower sense of control, as we talk about in our work, and that's stressful. And so, you know, you talk about being how hard it can be, and if you see, right? And if adults seem shocked by some of these, that's normal. They're just surprised or confused. I love this. Most adults underestimate middle schoolers. It's really not their fault. They were underestimated at this age, too. The truth is, and this, I think, applies to both the parents and to the kids, the truth is, you can do anything, you can go anywhere, you can be anyone, and just, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing for all of us to keep in mind. It's just that sometimes we do this looking through our fingers like we're watching a scary movie
Chris Balme:that is perfectly captures the experience of, you know, being the guide to someone on a heroic adventure. Yes, yep, we glory in it, and we're absolutely terrified for them, and that is the inevitable nature of it. And the very last thing in that, in that parent chapter, is how, if we let it, that can change us and can let us kind of evolve faster, you know, it's an interesting fact. You know, others have written about this, how we tend to be raising middle schoolers often in our mid lives, when we have some deep routines that we are used to, day in and day out, they will shake us and question that and you know, and their hair is on fire. Our hair catches fire a little bit too, and that that's actually a gift, you know? Way we can keep changing and, you know, pick up the guitar and play it badly or whatever it might
Ned Johnson:be so good. Yep, we all, we can all have a growth mindset, and we can all see with new eyes
Chris Balme:precisely. Yeah. Thank you so much. What a pleasure, what a
Ned Johnson:wonderful book. What's the best place if people want to track you down to have you come talk to the school, or buy 50 copies of the book, or just get more of your wisdom. Where's the
Chris Balme:best place? Oh, thank you. You can my website, probably. Chris Baum, B, A, L, M, e.com, or all the usual social media places.
Ned Johnson:Perfect, perfect. Thanks a bunch. Thanks again for bringing a wonderful book to everyone.
Chris Balme:Thank you, Ned, such a pleasure. Be Well, Chris, bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
Ned Johnson:Some takeaways. First, we need more educators like Chris Baum, his enthusiasm for middle school and middle schoolers almost makes me want to redo Middle School. Second, what a great reminder that the brains of early adolescents Middle School is when they're changing and growing their fastest offering such opportunity to sculpt developing young brains in healthy and motivated ways. Three, as Chris so beautifully shows us, there are innumerable ways, well, 50, at least, for young people to develop themselves, from stealth artistry to finding on nature to healing broken bonds and for adults around them, parents, caregivers and teachers to support them in those meaningful challenges. Is Middle School challenging? Yes, it is as it should be. Challenge accepted. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the self driven child podcast. Hey, folks, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill stixfruit reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together, please get in touch with us. Visit our website at prep matters.com, or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person. If so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350 you.