Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers tells the stories of a number of children at a suburban middle school in
Columbia, Maryland. Washington Post education reporter Linda Perlstein spent a year observing the lives both at home and at school of these eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, and manages to convey their rapidly changing thoughts and feelings. Some of them come from two-parent families where they receive a great deal of encouragement along with pressure to succeed. Other children come from homes with divorced parents and less consistent nurturing. They live in a materialistic culture and they experience a wide variety of temptations and images, often making them want to behave like high school students. It is common these days to hear of middle school students engaging in sexual activity, drinking, taking drugs, and even getting pregnant, and most adults find such reports disturbing. So Perlstein's attempt to shed light on what leads these children to act so differently from middle school students of previous generations deserves attention.
Reprinted from www.Mentalhelp.net
