Seventh grade boys: 7th Grade Social Changes: What To Expect

7th grade: The worst year ever

It’s a commonly held truth that no three years are as miserable in an American child’s life as middle school. But those three years, so awkwardly sandwiched between elementary and high school, are not created equal. The top contender as middle school’s worst year, in all of its cringe-worthy, hormone-infused, brain-addled confusion is seventh grade, a tween’s annus horribilus.

Having survived the sixth grade gauntlet of adjusting to a new school and several teachers rather than just one, seventh graders awaken to find themselves in an even more disquieting new reality in which inexplicably, their parents suddenly are intolerable, their teachers hard-hearted brutes, and the only ones who understand them are their BFFs, who may turn on them at any moment. In fact, as any 12-year-old Hunger Games devotee will insist, pretty much everyone may be out to get them.

“It was like I was a hunted animal,” recalls one mother of her seventh grade experience. Never bullied before or after, she recalls that the year unfolded like a horror movie replete with furtive trips down empty hallways, being chased by rabid gangs of girls, and echoing nightmares. So great was her trauma from seventh grade that she chose a tiny middle school for her older daughter where there were too few students for tween peer culture to ever properly take hold.

Is it really that bad?

Surely, this is an exaggeration, a pop culture cliché about what the middle of middle school is like? In fact, attests tween expert Annie Fox, author of Teaching Kids to be Good People, “Seventh grade really does suck.” Fox, who has been answering thousands of tween and teen emails since 1997, is intimately familiar with the reality of what it is to be a 12- or 13-year-old seventh grader. “It’s not necessarily new that it sucks,” Fox points out. While one percent of the population swears they loved junior high or middle school, Fox says that for the remaining 99 percent, seventh grade is often the year kids feel like the rug is pulled out from under them.

“Seventh grade really is the worst year ever,” agrees Jennifer Powell-Lunder, a psychologist at Pace University who specializes in tween development. Once self-assured, happy kids become encumbered by new feelings of embarrassment, isolation, depression, and, for girls in particular, a loss of self-esteem. The reason, says Powell-Lunder, is a simultaneous onslaught of intense social and academic pressure.

Seventh graders also undergo intense cognitive, physical, and emotional changes that unearth uncomfortable contradictions. They aren’t little kids anymore, but they aren’t big kids yet, either. “Seventh graders experience middle-child syndrome,” explains Powell-Lunder, “You’re not special anymore. You aren’t so cute anymore. You’re no longer sixth graders who get a healthy dose of coddling so they can adjust to middle school. You’re not the glorified eighth graders who are focusing on getting ready for high school.”

On the home front, seventh graders often push their parents away, while desperately needing emotional support and clear boundaries. Parents must navigate contradictory impulses that make seventh graders downright perplexing. Both self-doubt and self-aggrandizement often simmer just beneath the surface, as kids try to figure out who they are and what they believe. The biggest agent of change? Puberty, which accelerates for many (but not all) kids during seventh grade.

Puberty: the great inequalizer

Powell-Lunder explains that a seventh grader’s social success often depends on physical maturation, which is tough when some kids look like they’re 10 and others 16. It’s unfortunate timing to suffer the indignities of acne, hair sprouting in new places, and awkward growth spurts just when you’ve never felt more self-conscious in your life.

“There’s no other time in a child’s development, aside from ages 0 to 2, that kids go through so many developmental changes,” says Powell-Lunder. As with ages 0 to 2, when kids walk and talk at different times, at the height of adolescence, development is uneven. “You might have one kid who is socially savvy and looking at the opposite sex, and for another kid, that’s the last thing on their mind. ”

Kids who haven’t started puberty yet may feel left in the dust. Boys who lack physical prowess often land at the bottom of the food chain. For girls, puberty can be the great inequalizer. “Different levels of sophistication seem to show up in seventh grade, far more than sixth grade,” says Fox. “In seventh grade, some girls may have gotten their periods and started developing. What you wear becomes a sign of how cool you are, and it can be very form-fitting. The girls really don’t understand the message in dressing this way. These seventh grade girls push the limits in sophistication and sexiness.”

The terrible twelves

In this sea of change, peer relationships become vastly more important and complex. Peers, not parents, rule their world, which puts them at the mercy of the mercurial, at times malicious, whims of classmates. More than other middle school years, says Fox, “there’s more competition for social status in seventh grade,” which is a veritable Versailles, with the kid courtiers constantly sizing each other up for the proper way to dress, speak, and act. Throw social media into the mix, says Fox, and kids never get a break — they live in the unrelenting social spotlight 24/7.

“I refer to seventh grade as the tween mean year,” says Powell-Lunder. In seventh grade, queen bees get their ruthless groove going, says Powell-Lunder, and top-of-the-heap boys perfect their craft of sending socially awkward boys who aren’t into sports or who don’t present a conventional version of masculinity to the bottom of the social caste.

For girls, close friendships from early childhood often fall apart. Fox says this “girl friendship drama” is a way of “trying on what it’s like to be older and more sophisticated and cooler. ‘I can’t be friends with you anymore.’ There’s a level of cruelty and a lot of backstabbing. With girls, they do it with a smile on their face: ‘No, I never said that.’”

“Then because you’re so unsure of how acceptable you are, you start posing,” says Fox. “And you don’t stick around with your old friends because they know you’re posing. So you hang out with new people. And then you’re encouraged to be fake. Plus, Mom and Dad know the fakery, so for the kid, they think, ‘I also have to keep you at arm’s length.’”

Diz-organized!

At the same time that seventh graders are trying to figure out who they are and how to fit in, their schoolwork starts to look less like elementary work and more closely resemble a high school curriculum. The expectation on the part of many parents and teachers, says Powell-Lunder, is that seventh graders should have their more difficult academic challenges pretty much nailed. “There’s more tolerance for sixth graders messing up,” says Powell-Lunder, but by seventh grade, “you’re supposed to have it all figured out.”

“In seventh grade especially, we expect kids to have a high level of organization and attention to detail,” says Powell-Lunder. “The life raft is gone and they’re on their own. So if a kid is neat and organized, she will do well.” But if a child doesn’t have that skill set – like the kid who can’t figure out which books to take to their locker – they’re in a tough spot.

This is precisely what happened to Todd David’s son Noah. “Seventh grade was so bizarre, just the worst year,” said David, noting that up until that year, his son had been a responsible, highly academic kid. “Suddenly in seventh grade, it seemed like the synapses didn’t seem to be firing correctly. He was in a fog and completely oblivious to the world around him. His mom and I would ask, over and over. ‘Did you remember to bring your lunch?’” Sure enough, says David, time and again, Noah forgot his lunch.

More troubling was how dramatically his son’s school work went off the rails. “The communication between what we would hear from Noah about what was going on in class was 100 percent different than what we’d hear from the teachers.” When his son’s grades dipped far below par, David and his wife contacted Noah’s teachers. “They’d say, ‘Oh, Noah hasn’t done his work.’ So we’d ask Noah why he didn’t and he’d say, ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to do that.’” Despite seventh grade being the Bermuda triangle of school years, David was relieved that by the second semester of eighth grade, the pod person that temporarily inhabited his son’s body had disappeared and his great kid was back — more mature and tuned in to school and life.

According to Fox, this rocky developmental phase often correlates with academic struggles. By the time kids come back from summer vacation after sixth grade, the academic pressure changes a lot of kids’ daily lives. “There’s lots of homework in lots of subject areas. You even find lots of seventh graders who are sleep-deprived because they just don’t know how to juggle it all.” In turn, says Fox, because the adults in seventh graders’ lives get anxious that they aren’t up to speed, “You start to see more parent and teacher conflicts with kids in ways you may not have had before.”

The best medicine for growing pains

So what’s a parent to do staring at their seventh grader in the throes of what they may look back on as one of the toughest years of their childhood?

1. Patience and empathy.

   Seventh grade reality is tough enough, says Fox, so parents should avoid piling on. Set firm boundaries and expectations, but try your best not to be on them all the time, whether it’s to clean up their room or finish their homework or “look me in the eye when I’m talking to you, young lady. ” Fox summarizes your mission this way: listen more than lecture, especially since the lecture will rarely bring about the change you want.

2. Be their personal fan club.

   When our kids are little, says Fox, it’s easier for us to notice when they do something right. But parents of 12- and 13-year-olds often spend the majority of their interactions faultfinding. Fox says this “fear that they’re growing up and we don’t have many years to steer them in the right direction” is normal for parents, but counterproductive for your child. Fox explains that tweens are desperate for you to see beyond their snarky attitude. They need to know you see the good in them, so catch them in the act of doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.

3. Support their passion project.

   Though your child’s experience at school may be going to hell in a hand basket, this is also a year of incredible potential. Passions discovered at this age often lead to a lifetime of learning, growth, and career pursuits. Help your child have mind-blowing, positive experiences outside of school by connecting them to whatever their interests are. It could be a sport, a hobby, a favorite book series, or even perfecting the perfect brownie recipe.

Finally, Fox encourages parents to take the long view. Seventh grade may be a trial for your child (and for you), but soon enough, your pre-adolescent child will be entering eighth grade, planning for high school, and looking back on their early years of middle school as oh-so-behind-them. While a tough truth for any loving parent to accept, it’s worth remembering that seventh grade is also a rite of passage. Most kids learn a lot from this year (even if they don’t master equations). Thrown into the academic and social tumbler of seventh grade, kids emerge despite and because of those growing pains with a much clearer sense of who they are.

Why Seventh Grade Sucks the Most for Tweens and Their Parents

Middle school started off great for my daughter.

In sixth grade, she loved her teachers, enjoyed the new flexibility of her schedule, and found a nice group of girls to eat lunch with each day. She enjoyed the extracurricular activities and did well in school. Life was good.I started wondering what all the fuss was about—middle school didn’t seem so bad.

It was only a week into seventh grade when everything started to fall apart.

She was worried about the fact that none of her friends were in any of her classes.  There was more homework.  Her lunch  group scattered and was sitting elsewhere. There was a sudden interest by many of her peers in the opposite sex and Instagram and shows on Netflix we had never heard of.

By the sixth day of school, she broke down in tears at the kitchen counter over her math homework.

“What is wrong,” I asked as gently as I could.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed.

I started to walk over to console her, but my once even-keeled, self-confident tween wanted none of it. And with that she picked up her book and trudged up to her room, not coming out again until dinner, when she was all smiles and everything appeared right in her world again.

The phone that was mainly used for emergencies in sixth grade became more like an appendage. I found myself constantly hoping that other parents were monitoring behavior like I was—but after seeing what came across her screen, I was convinced they were not. Mean girls began to emerge in group texts, and I heard about some awful behavior from kids in her grade from other parents.

School also became overwhelming for her. Keeping track of her studies, extracurricular activities, and social calendar was a challenge. Yet, she wasn’t open to letting us help her either.

There is a lot going on developmentally for adolescents in middle school

My daughter walked around our house like a ticking time bomb.

Some days she was an effervescent young girl wanting to play outside or snuggle up to watch a movie with her family. Others, she sulked in her room and fired snarky quips to anyone who dared get in her path.

While I was quick to blame hormones, that’s far from the only thing going on with kids at this age. I talked to a good friend, who also happens to be a pediatrician, and she shared that 12- and 13-year-old kids don’t have all their wires connected yet–the pre-frontal lobe of their brain, which manages impulse control, predicting consequences and planning ahead, is not fully developed.

Maybe that’s why middle school is the worst for everyone.

Worse, seventh grade is when so many kids start losing their own identity to fit in with their peer group.  Phones become the norm and popularity takes precedence.

At a time when girls are feeling their most awkward with growing breasts, braces and growth spurts, and boys are recognizing the differences among each other–all they want to do is blend in with everyone else.

So, what’s a parent to do?

Related: How To Keep Puberty From Killing Your Tween Girl’s Confidence

Tips To Survive Seventh Grade With Your Tween

All hope is not lost.   It’s not easy, but both you and your tween can come out the other side of seventh grade relatively unscathed. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Don’t take it personally.

Even though it hurts when your son snubs you off in front of his friends or your daughter shoots word arrows, recognize that it’s a reaction to something else and not directed at you. Don’t engage, and don’t think that by giving the same back to them they will understand how it feels and stop. This is the time to act like a grown-up and turn the other cheek.

Related: Why And How To Stop Taking Your Teen’s Attitude Personally

Relinquish some control.

At the beginning of seventh grade, my daughter begged me to dye her blue hair, but I truly did not want her to do it. At the last second, I gave her permission and her joy became mine. Seventh grade is the time tweens start craving some semblance of control over their identity. By letting them make some choices, you lend balance to the relationship.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Why am I saying no?” If it is because of your own personal preference or if you are worried about how it will reflect on you, it may be time to reconsider.

Set reasonable limits.

I found my daughter wanted more autonomy, but still thrived with boundaries and structure. I loosened the rules in some areas, like what shows she could watch and letting her go to certain places with her friends independently, but kept the reigns tighter when it came to technology usage and sleep schedules.

Understanding where your child is at developmentally and what sorts of external factors impact their behavior can help you determine what kind of rules you should set and where you can be a little more flexible.

Don’t be a fixer.

It’s hard not to sweep in and try to make everything better for your child—especially when you know they are hurting. Sometimes you just have to let your kids fail even though as a parent it’s the hardest thing to do. Let your son or daughter learn from their mistakes, learn how to take accountability for their actions and learn to overcome obstacles on their own.

This is the time when they need to develop the resilience to stand back up when life knocks them down again and again. They’ll see they can withstand heartbreak and loss and grief. Then they’ll discover their inner courage to take risks and make mistakes—and what comes next. The struggle is what will define them and what will allow them to grow.

Remember, if you fix their problems today, where will that leave them tomorrow?

Bite your tongue. 

I used to needle my daughter with questions when I knew she was upset, often providing anecdotes from my past in a futile attempt to try and connect with her. Now, when I see she is in a mood, I grab a stash of chocolate chip cookies, pour her a glass of milk, and just sit near her. If she wants to talk, she’ll eventually start chatting with me. If not, I patiently wait for my next opportunity.

Seventh grade is hard because kids are so insecure and their peers are lashing out from their own hurt. Tweens this age need compassion and empathy on their terms.

We got through seventh grade, but it took a lot of effort. You will too!

Looking for an additional resource to help you through the middle school years? We love this book, Finding the Magic in Middle School, geared to parents and teachers who want to help kids unmask their potential during this time.

Parenting Teens and Tweens is a tough job, but here’s a little more support to help you out:

Middle School, The Hardest Years of Your Life As A Mom (So Far)

How To Best Support Your Teens When They Need It Most

Why Going Rogue Can Be the Best Way to Parent Your Teen or Tween

*This post may contain affiliate links where we earn a small commission for products purchased from our site.

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what boys and girls take in 2022

last year. Usually, in order to assess the level of sports training of a child, his physical results are studied. However, today, in connection with the active development of the GTO Complex, the potential and physical abilities of children began to be assessed according to the standards of this program.

The result is often deplorable – only a small part of the teenage audience of 13 years old (corresponding to the level of the TRP level 4) is able to withstand the test. There are several reasons for this:

1. The child is inactive, devotes too much time to gadgets, a computer;
2. Love for sports was not instilled in childhood, as a result, the teenager is not interested in additional physical education;
3. The psychological aspects of age also leave their mark: a teenager discovers that he is far behind his peers who are more developed in sports, and, not wanting to seem ridiculous, abandons the idea;
4. In the TRP, 13-year-old participants are tested at 4 levels, the level of complexity of which is very different from the standards for physical education in the 7th grade at school.

School disciplines in physics, grade 7

As you know, it’s never too late to start playing sports, let’s remember the proverb “Better late than never”! It is good if parents demonstrate to their child all the benefits of an active sports life position by their own example.

Let’s study the physical education standards in the 7th grade for girls and boys for the 2022 academic year to understand which areas should be given additional attention to pass the TRP Level 4 tests.

Among the changes from the previous 6th grade

1. 2 km cross-country, children run against the clock for the first time, and girls this year will have to pass the 3 km cross-country skiing on a par with boys (last year only boys passed the exercise ).
2. All other disciplines are identical, only the indicators have become more complicated.

This year the children are still taking sports lessons three times a week for 1 lesson.

TRP tests 4 stage

A student of the 7th grade, aged 13-14, moves from the 3rd to the 4th level in the tests of the Ready for Labor and Defense Complex. This level can not be called simple – everything is grown-up here. New exercises were added, the standards for the old ones became more complicated. A teenager with poor physical fitness would never pass a test even for a bronze badge.

As you know, according to the test results, the participant is awarded an honorary symbol – a gold, silver or bronze badge. This year, the child must choose from 13 exercises 9to protect gold, 8 – silver, 7 – bronze. At the same time, 4 disciplines are mandatory, the remaining 9 are optional.

Let’s compare the indicators of the TRP Complex of the 4th level with the physical standards for the 7th grade – study the tables below: 146 – bronze badge – silver badge – gold badge

90 146 +15

Standing length jock with two feet push (cm)

90 140

Item no. 43
	Mandatory tests (tests)
1..	30m	5.3	5.1	4.7	5.6	5.4	5.0
	or 60m	9. 6	9.2	8.2	10.6	10.4	9.6
2.901 47	2 km run (min., sec.)	10.0	9.4	8.1	12.1	11.4	10.00
	or 3 km (min., sec.)	15.2	14.5	13 ,0	–	–	–
0147	6	8	12	–	–	–
	times)	13	17	24	10	12	18
	or flexion and extension of the arms lying on the floor (number of times)	20	24	36	8	10	15
4.	Forward bend from a standing position on a gymnastic bench (from bench level – cm)	+4	+6	+11	+5	+8
Tests ( tests) optional
5.	Shuttle run 3*10 m	8.1	7.8	7.2	9.0	8.8	8.0
6.	Running long jump (cm) 9or 0147	340	355	415	275	290	170	190	215	150	160	180
	7.	Lifting the body from the supine position (number of times 1 min.)	35	39	49 9014 7	31	34	43
8.	Throwing a 150 g (m) ball	30	34	40	19 9 0147	21	27
9.	3 km ski run (min., sec.)	18.50	17.40	16.30	22.30	21.30	19.30
	or 5 km (min., sec.)	30	29 .15	27. 00	–	–	–
	or 3K Cross Country	16.30	16.00	14.30	19.30	18.30	17.00
10	50 m swim	1.25	1.15	0.55	1.30	1.20	1.03
11.	Shooting from an air rifle from a sitting or standing position with elbows resting on a table or rack, distance – 10 m (points)	15	20	25	15	20	25
	ki with diopter sight	18	25	30	18	25	30
12.	Hiking with a test of hiking skills	10 km distance
13.	Self-defense without weapons (glasses)	15-20	21-25	26-30	15-20	21-25	26-30
Number of types of test types (tests) in the age group		13
Number of tests (tests) that must be completed to obtain the insignia of the Complex**		7	8	9	7	8	9
* For snowless areas of the country
** When fulfilling the standards for obtaining the insignia of the Complex, tests (tests) for strength, speed, flexibility and endurance are required.

Please note that at this stage, the passing of the standards for “Self-defense without weapons” was added, the distance “Running on skis” 5 km appeared. All other results have become much more difficult compared to the 6th grade – some by 2 times.

Does the school prepare for the TRP?

If we compare the school standards for physical education for the 7th grade for 2022 and the indicators of the TRP table of the 4th level, it becomes obvious that it will be extremely difficult for a seventh grader to pass the tests of the Complex. The exception is children with sports categories who have undergone enhanced physical training – but there are very few of them.

Perhaps the cherished badge will become a more real dream in the 8th or 9th grade (by age, students in grades 7-9 pass the TRP tests for 4 levels), when there is an age-related increase in strength and on the condition that the child will purposefully train all this time.

Here are the conclusions that allowed us to draw a comparison of the control standards of the 7th grade in physical education according to the Federal State Educational Standard and the indicators of the Complex:

1. Absolutely all the standards of the Complex are much more complicated than the indicators from school tables;
2. The school plans do not include hiking (and the GTO sets a distance of as much as 10 km), studying “self-defense without weapons”, swimming, throwing a ball, shooting from an air rifle or electronic weapons with a diopter sight.
3. At this stage, we can safely say that without attending additional sections, the child will not pass the TRP tests for a badge for the 4th level.

Thus, in our opinion, at this stage, the school does not comprehensively prepare students for passing the standards of the Ready for Labor and Defense Complex.