Help! My son is suffering from the terrible elevenses!

My son, we'll call him Jack, is suffering from the terrible elevenses and, therefore, causing those responsible for him to suffer as well.

What do I mean by the terrible elevenses?

If you must ask this, obviously your children are 10 and under, female or you are happily childless. Terrible elevenses become obvious to we parents around the entrance of 6th grade or as it is here MIDDLE SCHOOL. For me it was Junior High, terrible elevenses were actually 12 and they were known as just plain puberty. But, because of MIDDLE SCHOOL, we have a new syndrome.

Now, the terrible elevenses (TE) it doesn't take full terribleness (making up words today) until about 6 weeks in. That is the innocent time where they are scared to be in a new huge school and are not feeling like 6th graders, but kindergartners.

Unfortunately, as children have a tendency to do, they adjust to this new enormous school and think they are not eleven year old 6th graders, but "MIDDLE SCHOOLERS".

With being a "MIDDLE SCHOOLER" or MS, that means I have become stupid and everything (even hard boiled eggs) must be argued against.

Second Bit - Off on an Emotional Tangent

My son is learning about sex, drugs, the Ku Klux Klan, global warming and the holocaust....but, isn't he just 11? Isn't he just a 6th grader?

As I am writing this, I am feeling that awful feeling of panic that comes when your children start to grow into a new phase. That feeling that you are actually letting them go down the slide by themselves, or walk to school alone.

This is my second child to experience this, I don't like it one bit! I want him to grow up and be a man, independent and safe. But today I really just want him to sit on my knee so I can read him a story.