Mental health is an important part of a person’s well-being, especially during the middle school years when children develop emotionally and face new social and academic challenges. Just like physical health, mental health needs attention and support. At this age, twelve-year-olds benefit from learning skills to help them manage emotions and grow resilience.

Children/teens aged 11-14 are going through many transitions: new friendships, more responsibilities at school, and figuring out who they are. These experiences can sometimes feel overwhelming. With your guidance, they can learn to understand and care for their mental health.

Some may face added difficulties, like family changes, social pressures, or personal struggles. In these cases, consider seeking additional support. But the steps here will help build everyday skills for mental well-being and resilience.

Whether it’s feeling nervous about a group project, worried about fitting in, or struggling with self-esteem, mental health matters. In the short term, focusing on mental health can help your child/teen:

● feel more capable of managing their emotions and reactions

● strengthen relationships by learning empathy and good communication

● develop greater self-awareness and control over their reactions

In the long term, they can develop:

● emotional awareness and ways to express their feelings healthily

● resilience in handling challenges

● effective coping strategies for stress, worry, and other emotions

Here’s a five-step process to support mental health, build resilience, and nurture lifelong skills.

Tip: Healthy communication[1] and a positive parent-child relationship[2] make these steps more effective.

Encourage your child/teen to talk about their mental health. Asking open-ended questions lets them reflect on their feelings and understand themselves better.

Questions to Ask:

● “What’s been on your mind lately?”

● “What’s something that happened today that made you feel proud, nervous, or frustrated?”

● “If you could describe a time when you felt worried or upset this week, what would it be?”

Active Listening: Show understanding by restating what they say, e.g., “So, it sounds like group projects make you nervous because everyone’s counting on each other. Is that how you feel?”

Trap: Avoid quick solutions like “Oh, don’t worry about it.” Instead, let them know it’s okay to feel what they’re feeling and that you’re there to support them.

Help your child/teen learn to recognize and manage emotions by modeling different techniques. Introduce these skills in a way they can relate to:

● Naming the Emotion: Teach them to label feelings[3] , like “I’m feeling disappointed” or “I’m feeling left out.”

● Sitting with the Feeling: Explain that sometimes, feelings just need to be felt, like when they’re sad...

Trust is an important foundation for healthy relationships. As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your twelve-year-old’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child/teen relationship and understand how to promote trust in your child/teen.

Lying represents an important milestone in your child’s/teen’s thinking as they learn that others have different beliefs and perspectives than their own. Experimenting with lying is a normal part of child development. Children/Teens can begin to lie and understand deception as early as preschool to cover up actions that they know are against the rules. A complete understanding of lying and its consequences continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence as part of their cognitive and moral development.

Children/Teens ages eleven to fourteen are in the process of understanding and making predictions about others’ thoughts and feelings. As they do, they also may seek to hide the truth, particularly if they fear harsh judgment from respected adults or peers. They are also testing boundaries and taking more risks socially and academically. Their risk-taking can often lead to mistakes, misbehaviors, or even failure.

Often, lies relate to challenges with impulse control. For example, an eleven-year-old might think, “I wish I had more friends and was popular. If I tell those kids I have the most expensive gaming system, they may think I’m cool and invite me to hang out with them.” Though younger children cannot distinguish between the subtleties of deception, those eleven and older can understand the differences between honest mistakes, guesses, exaggerations, sarcasm, and irony.

The key to many parenting challenges, like raising children/teens who grow in their understanding of the value of truth-telling, is finding ways to communicate so that both your and your child’s/teen’s needs are met. The steps below will prepare you to help your child/teen learn more about your family values, how they relate to lying, and how you can grow and deepen your trusting relationship.

Whether it’s your eleven-year-old lying about eating the lunch you packed them for school, your twelve-year-old lying about failing a test, or your fourteen-year-old telling you a friend’s parents are home supervising them when they aren’t, your child’s/teen’s ability to tell the truth can become a regular challenge if you don’t create plans and strategies.

Today, in the short term, honesty can create

● greater opportunities for connection and enjoyment

● trust in each other

● a sense of well-being for a parent and teen

● added daily peace of mind

Tomorrow, in the long term, your child/teen

● builds skills in self-awareness

● builds skills in social awareness, perspective-taking, empathy, and compassion

● builds skills in self-control

● develops moral and consequential thinking and decision-making

This five-step process helps you teach your child/teen about honesty. It also builds essential skills in your child/teen. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process[1] ).

Tip: These steps are best when you and your child/teen are not tired or in a rush.

Tip: Intentional communication[2] and a healthy parenting relationship

Twelve-year-olds require the ability to follow directions to get along at home and to succeed at school. Whether they are completing chores, following safety instructions, completing assignments, or showing their knowledge on tests, they will need to be able to follow directions. Though telling your child to do something may seem simple enough, listening and engaging in several steps in instruction necessitates many brain functions in addition to motivational factors.

Children/teens ages eleven to fourteen are working on understanding what it means to act responsibly. They are working to understand the rules and apply them in various settings. They are working on their independence. They are increasingly caring for their bodies (eating right, getting exercise). They are learning about relationships (managing their feelings and impulses, empathizing and working through conflict, being dependable, and keeping promises). They meet school requirements (manage homework and extracurriculars) and contribute to the household in which they live (do chores and cooperate with rules and expectations).

They are also working to define their identity. As they develop, as part of their growing self-awareness and self-management, they will test boundaries, forget things, and break rules. When they do, they require guidance on approaching a hurt relationship, revisiting missed obligations, and repairing harm. This is a normal part of their development and necessary for learning how to take responsibility.

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you can be deliberate in offering instructions to help your child/teen follow directions. Understanding multiple-step directions engages their short-term and complex working memory, an executive function that requires practice and development over time. In the case of short-term memory, you might ask your child/teen, “Would you complete your homework before dinner, get your shower done after dinner, and be in bed by nine, please?” They need to remember those three items as they move on to their homework. In an academic setting, as another example, a teacher may say, “At the end of our class, I’ll give you time to take out your pencils, read the directions at the top of the page, and fill in only questions 3. and 5.” Students have to retain that information as the teacher moves on to other topics and also plan for what they will need to do when they come to the time when they have to implement the teacher’s instructions. This expectation utilizes complex working memory and can be challenging for students.^1^

Following directions can involve all five core social and emotional competencies[1] . Children/teens may need to know their strengths and limitations (self-awareness) to complete the tasks given. They must use their self-management skills to wait and focus on what’s been instructed when necessary. They may require social awareness or empathy as they work to understand the needs, feelings, and thoughts of the one giving them directions. They will use their relationship skills by listening actively to what’s required. They will also use their responsible decision-making skills to decide whether and how to follow through with a request or instruction.

Some parents and those in a parenting role may feel frustrated and even angry when their children/teens do not follow their directions as they requested. A parent may perceive that a child/teen who is not following their directions is being defiant or disrespectful, when in reality, there may be another reason for the behavior. There are several factors to consider when a child/teen does not follow a direction. When faced with this situation, a parent may ask themselves:

- Does the child/teen have the capacity and skills to follow the...