Chris Balme on Making Middle School an Adventure Worth Savoring

Debbie:
Hey Chris, welcome back to the show.

Chris Balme:
Thanks, Debbie. Great to be back.

Debbie:
Yeah, I’m happy you reached out to me about your new book, which we’re going to get into. I thought I was looking back in the archives and it’s been about three, three and a half years since you were on the show. And that was to discuss your book, which I loved, called Finding the Magic in Middle School: Tapping into the Power and Potential of the Middle School Years. Yeah, I guess it came out in 2022. So I thought it might be interesting to start by just talking about what has changed in the landscape, like in this space that you are really immersed in — the middle school years. What’s different now?

Chris Balme:
You know, middle schoolers are as awesome and as underestimated as ever. I would say I don’t think anything’s changed in how awesome and capable they are. I do think the way of the world is making things a little harder for them. You know, so much of what makes middle schoolers thrive is about choice and time with peers, and the way things are going feels like sometimes they’re experiencing less choice and less truly open time with peers. Social media is not going to count, obviously, and it’s going to work against that, as well as often the design of school. So, I mean, that’s why I wrote this book — I want them to experience choice and a sense of authorship over their lives and to have awesome adventures with friends, which is what I think middle school should really be about.

Debbie:
Yeah, I just love even just to start this — awesome and underestimated. It’s just this relentlessly optimistic and positive view of a time of life that has a really bad rap, right?

Chris Balme:
It’s so unfortunate. I mean, this is, I guess, my life’s work to change that story — that these two times in life, often compared, early childhood and early adolescence, are when our brains grow the fastest. We’re never getting smarter faster than in those years. And those early childhood years, we enshrine them as such a precious time. And I think that’s the same attitude we should hold for middle school. But the reason we don’t is often that we don’t anticipate the changes — we get caught off guard, and then we take it personally. You know, they’re more interested in their friends, they’re rejecting me — all of those ways we get stuck. And then we miss how awesome they are and how fast they’re becoming so much smarter.

Debbie:
And can you remind me of the ages of your kids?

Chris Balme:
Yeah, so my oldest one is in seventh grade. So I’m right in the thick of this. I have two younger ones in elementary. And yeah, my oldest one was my toughest editor with this book. She basically tore it to shreds in the first draft — and rightly so. I completely rewrote it after her edits. When I wrote it, I was trying to be really short and punchy and to the point. And when she read it, she said, “This sounds like you’re giving us orders. I don’t need another adult giving orders.”

Debbie:
Ooh, ooh, yeah.

Chris Balme:
And I thought, damn, I think you’re right. I’m going to have to rewrite this whole thing. It has to be invitations.

Debbie:
You know, we were talking before I hit record — I used to write books for teens and tweens, nonfiction kind of self-help books. And my child was super not interested in them. I mean, obviously, I actually had written them years before my child was in that age range. But I remember being so excited, like, “Let me present to you what I wrote for you,” right in the sweet spot for the audience for this — and it was just like not received in the way I had been hoping.

Chris Balme:
Yeah, yeah, that too much on-the-nose parental enthusiasm — just that shields up. And yeah, for her, you know, I think one of the things that I hope will work with this book is that it’s so much about choice. You know, there are 50 different things you can do. And so I think for my own daughter, she enjoyed flipping through the first ones and rejecting them. But then eventually she got hooked by one. And that’s what I hope will happen for kids reading it.

Debbie:
So, well, we’ve been talking around the book. I want you to kind of give us the overall vision for it. So this book came out in August, I believe, and it’s called Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome. So yeah, tell us how this book came about and — yeah, you go ahead.

Chris Balme:
Yeah. So twelve years ago, I was co-founding an experimental middle school in San Francisco, a lab school. That’s what the first book was about. And when we were all sitting together, this early founding team of educators, we just did not want to get sucked back into “How do we teach the same old curriculum better?” We felt like unless we have another center of gravity, we’re going to end up just getting sucked back to the norm. So our big dream was, we just asked all of the people we know from middle school age to 90, “When you look back at your adolescent years, what do you remember the most positively? Like what’s still lasting as a positive impact?” Actually, Debbie, I’d love to ask you that question if you’d be up for it. And I can share mine while you’re thinking, which is — the first thing that came to mind was my first job. And when I was 13, I worked in this little kind of gift shop retail place. And it was the first time I had this kind of objective boss who was not, you know, my teacher, who I kind of knew how to maybe impress them, or a parent. And I remember how completely terrified I was, you know, for the first weeks, literally in the early days. I remember my boss calling me into her office to say I had done something wrong, and I almost passed out. That’s how scared I was — like I started to get the tunnel vision. I was so scared of this woman.

Debbie:
Wow.

Chris Balme:
But then I remember six months later, so into working there, she said, “I’ve got to go run an errand. Can you run the store for 20 minutes?” And to me, like no one could have given me a higher compliment than the scary boss saying, “I trust you with my store” — as a 13-year-old. And I feel like I probably grew about a foot that day. I just felt so much more capable and ready for the world. And that’s the kind of experience that I want to guide kids to through this book. So what is it for you?

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, yeah, what’s coming up for me was — I am still a runner, but I was really obsessed with running starting in sixth or seventh grade. I had been a gymnast, and I pivoted all that to running and I was fast. And there was a coach who had been in the Olympic trials years ago. And he kind of noticed how obsessed I was with the hurdles in particular, and he really took a special interest in teaching me drills and would stay after. It was my deep area of interest for many years, so I really went into it. But just really being — yeah, like that enthusiasm was fully embraced and guided. And to have the mentorship of someone at this other level was really powerful for me.

Chris Balme:
I love that. Yeah, that has all the ingredients of what works so well in middle school brains. You’re choosing it, it’s an area of passion, you’re seeing your progress, you’re being mentored, there’s a relationship supporting it. It checks all the boxes — that’s what they need exactly. And I think we all know this, but we get distracted by fears, by schoolwork, all of that.

Debbie:
Yeah. Well, tell us how you then went about this book because, again, the one we were talking about earlier, Finding the Magic in Middle School, is really about how other people can support the middle schoolers in their lives. And again, loved that book and listeners, I’ll have a link in the show notes page — definitely go back and listen to that conversation. But say more about specifically, like how did you even go about approaching figuring out what this book would be for middle schoolers and how you would write it.

Chris Balme:
Yeah, so we asked that big question of “When you look back on your middle school years, what still lasts as a positive influence?” And then we had a huge list. And I remember putting it on the wall like a giant bingo card. And we dreamed like, could this be the curriculum for school? How much can we get away with making this the focus and trusting the academics follow when kids are engaged and connected through this? And of course, the school had to make its compromises — some of both. But since then, I started a program called Argonaut that brings advisory programming to middle schoolers all over the world. And so for five years, we’ve been testing these challenges with kids on, I think, four continents so far — hundreds and hundreds of kids — just trying these out and coming back, and in the beautiful way of middle schoolers, giving me really direct feedback about what worked and did not work. And so we gradually honed the list down and down until we got to these 50. And not all 50 are going to work for every kid, obviously, but I think these are the best ones. There’s going to be something in there that will hook, I hope, almost any kid.

Debbie:
So I want to understand how to get kids — or what you’re thinking in terms of how a middle schooler would come to or be presented with this book. Because I’ll just say, again, having written in this space, there’s not a lot of — even in a bookstore — shelf space for this type of book. So I don’t know if that question makes sense.

Chris Balme:
A hundred percent. If it comes across as another parental demand, it’s not on strong ground. I think in many ways, my ideal would be that middle schoolers discover this by accident, or parents keep it in their house but say, “Please don’t read this book.” Something like that might be a better way — or just simply leave it where it’s noticeable. In groups of middle schoolers, I think you could plant it with the kid who’s kind of most open to this and then have them invite peers. That’s another nice way. Anything is better than a parent saying, “Please do this book.” That’s not the spirit of this age. And again, it’s not because they’re rejecting parents in general — I think that’s a misunderstanding. It’s because they’re oriented through brain changes to the world of their peers, and that’s what gets the highest kind of priority rating in their brains.

Debbie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m a big fan of and practitioner of leaving things lying around, like in very kind of conspicuous places — the bathroom, dining — like just high traffic areas.

Chris Balme:
Yep, it’s true.

Debbie:
So would you give us some examples? I pulled out my favorites that I’ll ask you about later. Just so listeners have a sense of the types of adventures we’re talking about, maybe give us one or two examples and explain how they’re presented.

Chris Balme:
Yeah, so it’s 50 short chapters, illustration for each. And to give an example — you know, everything from how to cook a full meal for your family, to how to start your own business, how to go camping for the first time, how to become an apprentice, how to publish your own work — all of these things I have seen now many middle schoolers do. So I know that they’re possible. I’ll share my personal favorite from the book — I’m probably not supposed to have favorites — but there’s one called “Be a Stealth Artist” that I just love so much. And the challenge is to create a work of art and then install it in a non-damaging way in a public place as if it was meant to be there. Like hang a painting on the wall of your cafe (again, non-damaging way), or tape a poem to the side of the library bookshelf. And to me, there’s something about the spirit of adolescence that’s wanting to test boundaries and break some. But that’s also what art does. That’s what I think we cherish art for — the ability to do that. So to invite students — and I’ve seen some really fun examples of kids trying to cautiously put up a little canvas at Starbucks, something that they created — I just think it’s so fun and playful for them to feel like they can actually do that and impact the world in a kind of random and beautiful way.

Debbie:
Yeah. As you’re saying that, it makes me wonder if there’s like an online companion to the book where people can share what they’ve done.

Chris Balme:
I’ve been wondering about that too. It doesn’t exist yet. Instead, I’m just getting emails from people with, you know, a photo of their random art from somewhere or work that they published. I would love to find a way to do that.

Debbie:
Yeah, I think it could be really interesting. So all right, I’ll tell you what my favorites are. So I mean, I liked so many of them, but “Talk on the Bright Side” was a great one, “Find Shelter in an Emotional Storm,” “Propose a Better Rule” — love that one — and “Heal a Broken Bond.” Like I thought I was so moved by all of those, and they’re such great skills to have and so relevant. And the way that you kind of walk through how to do it — again, just for listeners, this isn’t like a long chapter. This is super like, get the concept, here are some things to try — so it feels very accessible.

Chris Balme:
I’m so glad you said that and feel that. And yeah, that last one especially — I feel like when I was in middle school, I did not know it was even possible to resolve social conflicts. I think my assumption was that if you have beef with a friend, you should just never talk to that person again. And that was the wise — that was the best possible course of action. And you know, that chapter starts with the metaphor of a broken bone — like how awful would it be if when you broke your arm, it’s just broken forever? And why would — thank goodness that’s not the case with our bodies. It’s also not the case with our relationships. And just like bones actually heal stronger, when people have been through a hard time and found their way out, that friendship is a lot stronger as well. So if we can show middle schoolers this is doable — I think part of it comes from modeling as adults that we still have social conflicts (guess what, newsflash, we’re not out of the woods), and we have — but we have tools for them. Hopefully, you know, we have some ways that we’ve learned that we can survive the conflict and be stronger. And that’s what that chapter is all about — here’s how you can help friends who are having a struggle get out the other side.

Debbie:
Mm-hmm. Would you go into a little detail about “Talking on the Bright Side”? Because that felt really relevant to this community in particular.

Chris Balme:
Yeah, so that’s the idea that, you know, we probably all of us have an evolved negativity bias. And I think middle schoolers are a bit legendary for their tendency toward negative comments — which I think often is misunderstood — where for the first time they’re seeing more clearly into the adult world. And frankly, they’re seeing all the stuff that doesn’t make sense and shouldn’t be there. And when they criticize it, they may not do it gracefully or in a productive “here’s what I’d do instead” manner, but they are pointing things out that are wrong often. And they’re trying to show that they have better judgment than we think — that they can actually critique what’s around them, not just be passive participants, which is what we want for them. When they’re complaining, we may not want more of that, but I think underneath that they are trying to claim some right to have their judgment. But they can get stuck — and all of us can get stuck — in the negativity, especially when we apply it to ourselves. Because when it’s just self-talk, no one else can interrupt that because they don’t know that it’s happening. So that chapter is a challenge to try to just completely drop negative language for a full day or as much of a day as you can. For any of us, it’s an ultimate challenge. I think the opening lines of that chapter are basically saying, “Don’t even try to do this. It’s too hard.” But if they go onwards, then it’ll give them some guidance.

Debbie:
Yeah, yes. Yeah, no, I really appreciated that so much. So let’s talk for a few minutes about neurodivergence. When you first reached out to me — like when I get pitched any book by any author — I’m always like, okay, is this going to work for kids like mine? Like, is there going to be a barrier to entry for this to really be accessible? And so would you talk about how you factored in — if you did — neurodivergence in the writing of this book.

Chris Balme:
Like any parent, I’ve got my own kids in mind so much when I’m writing. And so my seventh-grade daughter is neurodivergent and dyslexic. And so she, as my fiercest, toughest, ultimate boss-level editor, made sure that it made sense for her and her friends. And other kids I’ve worked with have been in all other types of neurodivergence. And ultimately why I love this book — and why I want schools to be more like this — is that it’s much more about choice. I think one of the key problems with school is how it removes choice from kids — and particularly for adolescents. And there’s research to support that when they are not given autonomy, that’s a direct link to mental health problems toward anxiety or simply just not reaching their potential. So the first reason I think this can work for neurodivergent kids so well is that it’s experiential, self-directed. You choose the challenge. It’s totally choose-your-own-adventure style — high agency, it’s out there in the world, relevant — and you can choose your level of intensity. Some of them are pretty straightforward; some of them — start your own business — we all know that could take a decade or more to figure out even the basics. So I think that’s the key — choice.

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, and I think about — that is something that Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud so often talk about in their work, and they wrote The Self-Driven Child — is just that not having control is one of the biggest stressors for any human. But at this age in particular, right?

Chris Balme:
I mean, you think about what is — if we can dare to remember — what is it like to have puberty in full swing in your body and mind? It is a feeling of not being in control. And no one’s in control — not even your parents. Puberty just happens to you when it wants to happen. And if you don’t have control in other parts of your life or don’t have space to process that or to feel accompanied so that you know what you’re experiencing is not something uniquely wrong with you, then that feeling of no control can feel like a nightmare. It’s almost like the definition of one. But when you’re accompanied — there are people who are on the adventure with you — and most of the challenges in the book are social if you want them to be — then instead of a nightmare, it can feel like an adventure. Not meaning fun all the time, but an adventure in the sense that it’s meaningful — that you’re getting something from this, even from the hard parts.

Debbie:
So I love that you keep referring to this as an adventure. And that made me think about what we know about the importance of taking healthy risks — not just that that is the job of this age group, but that it’s actually really important for their development. So can you talk a little bit more about that — the benefits on their own kind of self-efficacy or their developmental journey to take the kinds of risks that you’re writing about?

Chris Balme:
I think adolescents are tuned — and they’re just smart enough to notice what is actually important in the real world and what’s just, you know, a worksheet, literally or metaphorically. So if we want them to take risks that actually grow them, you know, like the story I told of trying to get a job and what that felt like, then it has to be real. And so I think designing that — setting the right conditions for them — means giving them choice. And all of the choices bring them into the bigger world. So almost everything in this book — whether it’s going camping or starting a business or many of the others — is something that has objective relevance in the world. You know, you can tell whether or not you started a business successfully. You know, did you manage to at least make your money back? You know if you went camping or not — and you have stories to tell. It’s kind of the opposite of the worksheet life. I just think middle schoolers are too smart for worksheets or to be tricked into thinking something is confidence-boosting because I gave you a star on it. That maybe can help a little bit at times, but nothing close to what it feels like to be out there in the world and see yourself succeeding.

Debbie:
You know, I’m thinking about that too — like you mentioned getting a star — like, great job, right? They see through that. And I wonder what the role then is or how you see parents kind of supporting in a very like chill way, authentic way — supporting the growth that we know is going to happen, even if it’s uncomfortable for our kids — but to kind of, in the background, support what’s happening when they do these adventures.

Chris Balme:
Yeah, it’s definitely a dance — and it’s a different dance than what we’ve learned, you know, the first 10 or 12 years of their life. And we might’ve talked about this even on the last one — about shifting from boss to guide mode as the parents of a middle schooler. I like to talk about the metaphor of, you know, if you were going off on a big wilderness expedition solo and you were going into beautiful but somewhat dangerous territory, you know, what kind of person would you hire to be your wilderness guide? And I think most of us — we would not take a boss with us for that trip. That does not sound fun if this is your vacation. But we would take someone authoritative. We’d take someone who knows when to intervene, but also is mostly there to enjoy it with us — maybe occasionally point out an option. So I think that’s our job description as parents for this age. And that’s why you can’t hand your kid this book and say, “Do five challenges — let me know how it goes.” That’s boss mode. But you can set the conditions. You can make sure they have time. You can see if there’s a friend that wants to do one of them with them. Maybe you help them get some supplies. You’re their first customer for their business. You help them figure out where they’re going to go camping — whatever it might be. You know, it’s more like we are there as a bridge to the bigger world. And I really believe in — and have experienced — that when middle schoolers know that you’re there to enable them versus to control them, like any of us, you know, we relish that: “Wow, you’ll help me do this? Awesome.” And if it starts to feel like a battle where I know you’re just waiting to control me, then they don’t even want to start. They’re, again, too smart for that.

Debbie:
And especially — there’s a lot of listeners who have kids who are really demand avoidant. And so that would be really important to really let this be on our kids’ own terms and how they’re going to engage.

Chris Balme:
Exactly. And what would be fun to do with a friend. Like the one that hooked my daughter was the challenge to create a time capsule. And the reason it hooked her was that she thought it’d be really funny with her best friends to collect all the memes and songs that are so important to them now — but they can kind of tell they’re going to be cringey really soon. And they thought it’d be really funny to put those all in a literal box and bury it somewhere. It was like, great — that sounds awesome. Go for it.

Debbie:
That’s great. Yeah, I love that. You talked about being someone who can enable and support during the adventure while they’re doing this. What about the after? If we think about like how we reframe — like we don’t want to praise “Oh my God, you’re so good at that.” We want to say, “I noticed that…” or “I’m so curious why you made that choice.” Do we want to play that same role of just kind of being inquisitive, not overbearing, but use this as a way to encourage our kids to make connections for themselves about what lights them up?

Chris Balme:
I think of middle schoolers as people who have just turned on this amazing radar that before that was never on, and it is pulling in a huge amount of data about what’s happening — especially in the social world. And a lot of their task and what focuses them is just trying to process all that data — of who’s reacting to me in what way, who’s including me, excluding me. And so anytime we can be a mirror for them and kind of reflect something back, it’s helping them tune that radar. The trick though is to do it in a non-demanding way, and to say simply like, “Wow, you seem super fired up after that,” or “I noticed whenever you’re with that friend, you seem kind of annoyed afterwards.” We’re just reflecting back, not saying they’ve got to do anything about it. And that’s just attunement that they can notice — “I felt that too,” and it’s being noticed by someone else, so I’m going to rank it a little higher in how I process that information. We’re just helping them make sense of this much bigger brain that they’ve just got.

Debbie:
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So — and I do want to just circle back before we wrap up on — and I just want to share with you that when you were on the show the first time, we talked about this guide, and you actually used the word “companioning.” And you shared a metaphor of being like a sherpa — like I pictured this still, like three years ago. I really leaned into that language. It stayed with me — this idea that our kids are on this adventure, they need someone there to make sure they don’t fall off the edge of the cliff, but it’s really their adventure to have. And so that has profoundly changed the way I show up for my kids. So I just wanted to say that, and thank you for that, because it is such a helpful metaphor.

Chris Balme:
I’m so happy to hear that. And I’m still working on it too. Since that show, I’ve started homeschooling my younger daughter, my seven-year-old, and that’s been such a beautiful and challenging journey for me — to make sure that I’m staying in that companion role and seeing what lights her up and helping her do more of that. It’s not easy. It’s so quick to slide back to a demand or control. But if we can have other parents on the path with us and laugh about it, cry when necessary, then we can stay there more of the time than not.

Debbie:
That’s exactly right. And again, my kiddo is now 21 and I am still leaning full into the companioning mode. It is my most important work right now for sure.

Chris Balme:
I’m with you. I think it works across the board — you know, with your spouse, with your good friends. It’s a pretty broadly useful rule.

Debbie:
True. Yeah, that’s great. All right, so we’re going to wrap up, but I want to mention the name of the book again — it’s called Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome. It’s a visually easy book to get into — it’s got graphics in it or illustrations — it’s a fast read. It’s not overwhelming. It’s the perfect book to leave lying around. The cover looks like a graphic novel, so a kid’s going to pick it up and be like, “Huh, what’s this?” Is there anything that we didn’t touch upon or mention that you would want to leave listeners with before we say goodbye?

Chris Balme:
I think — this is a bit of a different topic, but just to toss it into the mix here — there’s something really interesting about the fact that most of us raising middle schoolers are also in the midlife zone of our journey. And I think there’s an amazing complementarity there — that just as they are kind of on fire with growth and questioning things, we are probably deeply in our habits and parenting the way we have for 10, 12 years — maybe working the way we have for longer than that. So if we can take this as our challenge to really change — to let our parenting change, to be more authentic and vulnerable around them because they’re ready for it and they need it to get more insight into us, to keep trusting us — then we get this huge gift that we’re also changing and not stuck in our ways. So I hope parents get that as a kind of bonus with this kind of work.

Debbie:
Yeah, I love that. I was having a conversation with someone recently about this age and stage for people like me, right? And being kind of in this — I don’t know what it’s called — the third quarter of life or whatever. And the person I was talking with was saying it’s almost like being a teen all over again because we are redefining what do we want next for this next stage of life. But we have all of our wisdom and lived experience, potentially — hopefully — some more resources than we had when we were teenagers. So there is a lot of similarity in how we’re moving forward in this. I love that.

Chris Balme:
Totally agree. So I’d love to rename, you know, the classic “midlife crisis” to like a “midlife renaissance” or something like that. I think that can be what it is. And sometimes the challenge of meeting our middle school kids could be the trigger for it.

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so will you let listeners know where they can connect with you?

Chris Balme:
Yeah, so the book is available everywhere. I write a Substack called Growing Wiser — it’s another place. And then my own website or Instagram handle is just my name, Chris Balme — B-A-L-M-E.

Debbie:
Perfect. Listeners, I will have links in the show notes as always for those places. Yeah, thank you. This has been such an interesting conversation and congratulations again on the book.

Chris Balme:
Thanks so much, Debbie. Great to be back with you.