Season 4 is here! 🎉 And we’re starting with a radical idea: what if some of the things we’re quickest to label as “problems” in middle schoolers are actually unfinished strengths?

In this episode, Suzanne explores potentiality—the difference between what something is right now and what it still has the capacity to become.

Because an argumentative kid might be developing the persistence of an advocate. A hyper-observant kid may be building extraordinary social intelligence. An overexplainer might someday become a powerful communicator. And the kid who feels everything may not need less empathy—they may need help learning how to use that empathy without carrying everybody else’s emotions.

Through middle school sociology, developmental science, classroom stories, a nearly indestructible Asheville geode,

• ​🧠 Discernment and knowing which battles matter
• ​👀 Reading the social world
• ​👂 Deep listening
• ​🗣️ Communication, argument & advocacy
• ​🧰 Resourcefulness: being competent, capable & connected
• ​❤️ Empathy with healthy boundaries
• ​⚖️ The justice detector
• ​🌱 Knowing who you are without abandoning yourself to fit in
• ​

This is not about pretending trauma is a gift or telling kids that everything happens for a reason. Trauma is not the superpower.

It’s about asking a much more useful question:

Now what?

What can we build with what’s already here? What skill might be hiding underneath a difficult behavior? What happens when adults stop confusing unfinished with incapable?

As a new school year begins, last year’s evidence does not get to write this year’s conclusion. Your middle schooler is still becoming—and there are entire parts of them they haven’t even met yet.

💎 Stop looking for bruised apples. Start looking for geodes.

And next week: Spotlight People—big egos, emotional gravity, manipulation, boundaries, and what happens when everybody else starts organizing themselves around one person’s spotlight.

Stop. Regulate. Listen.

And stay clever, little foxes. 🦊

suzanneswain@gmail.com

msmarypoppins.com

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Topics: middle school • tweens • teens • parenting • back to school • adolescent development • emotional regulation • neurodivergence • empathy • anxiety • resilience • social intelligence • self-esteem • boundaries • advocacy • executive functioning • parenting teens • parenting tweens • teachers • educators