🌱The Messy, Beautiful Work of Becoming

A Principal’s Reflections on the Upper Elementary Journey

Here’s a truth that may land with some cognitive dissonance: the most important work children do in late elementary has nothing to do with academics. Reading and math matter deeply, but they are not what determine whether a child thrives in middle school or beyond.

It has everything to do with:

• Identity

• Belonging

• Emotion regulation

• Boundaries & privacy

• Social navigation

• The courage to become themselves within a community

Many of the shifts children experience at this age can feel confusing—or even alarming—to adults. But years of child development research tell us something counterintuitive: the intensity, inconsistency, and rapid internal changes of this stage are not signs of something going wrong. They are signs of exactly what this phase is designed to look like.

These years ask children to grow faster than their skills mature—and parents often feel that stretch just as deeply.

So what does determine long-term thriving? A child’s ability to move through conflict, discomfort, rapid change, and even embarrassment without losing themselves.

When children keep hold of who they are—especially in the messy moments—they experience lower stress, greater academic success, and a stronger sense of internal stability. They enter adolescence with more kindness, compassion, and understanding—for others and for themselves.

And that kind of learning requires space, coaching, and safety. At WHPS, our goal isn’t to prevent every messy moment, but to ensure children never move through them alone.

This is exactly why our 4th & 5th grade program is intentionally designed as a middle-school simulation—a place where students can practice wobbling while adults are still close enough to steady the bike.

• 🧭 What This Work Requires

  Children don’t develop these skills by accident. They grow because the adults around them provide:

  • Time to pause and reflect

  • Language to name what’s happening internally

  • A community that treats mistakes as part of learning

  This is also the age when the prefrontal cortex — responsible for planning, judgment, impulse control, and long-view decision-making — is still developing. The emotional “whiplash” of this stage — maturity one minute, impulsivity the next — is normal and expected.

  Risk-taking and boundary-testing aren’t character flaws. They’re developmental features.

  That’s why the environment matters just as much as the curriculum — and why WHPS is intentionally built to support this stage of becoming.

• 🌿 What Makes WHPS Uniquely Able to Support This Work

  WHPS is small enough, connected enough, and structured enough to teach these skills intentionally rather than hope children “figure them out.”

  We have:

  • Morning Meeting & advisory-style check-ins

  • A comprehensive social-emotional learning structure

  • Personalized student goals

  • Student-Led Conferences

  • Team-teaching for more perspective and support

  • An average 1:12 ratio, allowing us to pause, coach, and practice instead of reacting and moving on

  This combination is rare — and children feel the difference.

• 💛 Why This Stage Is So Hard — Especially for Parents

  At a recent Alumni Panel, one parent captured this stage perfectly:

  “There’s no more dropping by Seth’s office when I have a concern.”

  That shift — from being able to intervene to learning to step back and let children lead — is emotional.

  It can feel like having the air knocked out of you…
  like losing oxygen…
  like standing behind a locked door with no way to burst in and fix things.

  And yet, that discomfort is the work.

  This is when children must learn how to:

  • Advocate for themselves

  • Repair relationships

  • Navigate hard feelings

  • Get back up after a stumble

  We begin loosening the bolts on the training wheels while students are still surrounded by adults who can slow things down, coach reflection, and help them practice courage in low-stakes, high-support ways.

⤵️ Top 5 Developmental Shifts That Emerge at This Stage

These patterns show up for nearly every child at this age — regardless of temperament, background, or academic strength.

The student perspectives and quotes reflect themes found in developmental research and in interviews with thousands of children navigating late elementary and early adolescence (see Rosalind Wiseman reference below).

• 1️⃣ Friendship Turbulence & Status Navigation

  Kids this age become status scientists — constantly measuring where they stand and whether they belong.

  From research interviews:

  • “You have to pretend you don’t care — even when you really do.”

  • “If you don’t say something fast enough, you’re out.”

  Small shifts feel enormous. Tone, timing, group chats, inside jokes, eye contact — everything matters.

  We help students name these dynamics, navigate conflict, and practice repair instead of avoidance.

• 2️⃣ Emotional Impulses That Outrun Judgment

  They can show genuine maturity one minute… and be overwhelmed the next.

  Anger, humor, embarrassment, and tears rise fast — often before their executive functioning catches up.

  We hear “I didn’t mean to” often — and they usually mean it. What matters most is not the intent, but the impact.

  We help students refocus on how their words or actions were felt or received by their peers and guide them through meaningful repair.

  We teach:

  • Emotional labeling

  • Reset strategies

  • Perspective-taking

  • Healthy recovery after a misstep

• 3️⃣ Boundary-Testing, Privacy, Body Curiosity & Humor

  Kids this age test reactions — not to cross lines intentionally, but to understand the unwritten rules of social interaction, attention, and belonging.

  Examples include:

  • Jokes that cross lines

  • Testing limits in shared spaces (such as the restroom)

  • Looking where they shouldn’t

  • Nudging or tapping to get a reaction

  • Comments made “just to see what happens”

  • Humor used as social currency

  These moments — while uncomfortable for adults — are developmentally expected.

  At WHPS, we:

  • Intervene clearly

  • Reteach expectations

  • Model respect

  • Guide authentic repair

  • Increase structure and supervision when patterns emerge

  This is how children develop self-control, empathy, and respect.

• 4️⃣ Identity, Belonging & Self-Comparison

  New internal questions surface:

  • “How do I look?”

  • “Where do I fit?”

  • “What do people think of me?”

  Children compare everything — appearance, ability, humor, popularity, family dynamics.

  We help them anchor identity in character, contribution, and community — not perfection.

• 5️⃣ Independence Before Readiness

  “I’ve got it.”
  Followed by: “I need help.”

  This wobble is essential.

  It’s how children practice independence while still having support.

  We coach when to try alone, when to seek help, and how to advocate for themselves.

⭐ How WHPS Supports Students Through These Moments

• ⚠️ Addressing Language, Identity & Respect

  Children sometimes repeat words or phrases they’ve picked up from music, gaming, YouTube, or peers — often without understanding their meaning, emotional weight, or impact.

  These moments — especially those tied to appearance, race, religion or non-belief, gender identity or expression, ability, or family structure — become powerful teachable gateways.

  An alumni parent once shared how we gathered a class to discuss a few charged words students had heard elsewhere. We didn’t shame anyone. We named the words (without spelling them fully), explained their weight, and guided the group toward empathy and responsibility.

  We also talk with students about why some comments carry different weight in society. Certain areas are legally protected because they relate to safety, fairness, and dignity.

  Students are often surprised to learn that if these same comments were made in a workplace someday, an adult could be disciplined or even fired. We don’t share this to scare them — we frame it as real-world readiness.

  At WHPS, we:

  • Intervene quickly

  • Reteach expectations around privacy and respect

  • Model appropriate behavior

  • Address harm directly

  • Help students build internal boundaries before the audience gets bigger

  These moments are handled with clarity, compassion, and a focus on growth — never fear or shame.

• 🧠 Making the Invisible Visible: The WHPS Social-Emotional Development Progression

  Our new Social-Emotional Development Progression gives students, teachers, and families a shared, concrete roadmap for growth — turning skills that can feel vague or abstract into something visible, teachable, and actionable.

  Social-emotional development is not linear. Children leap forward, plateau, regress under stress, and grow unevenly across different domains. Without a clear developmental map, it can be hard to know what’s typical, what’s still emerging, and what the next step should look like.

  For students, this tool:

  • Makes learning visible

  • Clarifies what specific skills look like at this age

  • Shows what “the next level” actually is

  • Reinforces: “This is something I can grow,” rather than “This is who I am.”

  For adults, it:

  • Identifies which skills are still under construction

  • Helps us predict where things might feel bumpy

  • Gives teachers and families a shared vocabulary to discuss growth

  • Aligns expectations across classrooms and across home–school partnerships

  • Turns big, amorphous concepts like “impulse control” or “self-regulation” into clear, observable behaviors that we can coach and celebrate

  Instead of asking, “Why is my child doing this?” we can anchor in:
  “What skill is still developing — and what’s the next step we can work on together?”

• 🫶 Puberty Education as a Transformative Outlet

  Puberty education at WHPS is designed as a confidence-building, shame-reducing, dignity-centered experience — not a one-off lesson.

  Because our environment is safe and trusting, students ask thoughtful, vulnerable, and sometimes deeply personal questions. Their willingness to do this is incredibly meaningful. It shows they feel grounded, supported, and comfortable turning to trusted adults.

  Our goals include helping students:

  • Understand how their bodies and brains are changing

  • Normalize differences in development

  • Reduce shame or confusion

  • Learn language that supports boundaries, safety, and self-advocacy

  • Build respect for privacy, dignity, and individuality

  This work:

  • Reduces stigma

  • Lowers anxiety

  • Strengthens emotional intelligence

  • Supports healthy conversations at home

  Families always preview the curriculum. And importantly: puberty education is not sex ed — it’s about development, identity, and dignity.

🌟 Why Our 4th & 5th Grade Program Matters — and Why This Stage Deserves Something Different

We are not protecting children from middle school.
We are preparing them for it — intentionally, thoughtfully, and with heart.

Here, students learn:

• I can do hard things.

• I know how to repair and recover.

• I can advocate for myself.

• My voice matters.

• I am becoming ready for what’s next.

These are the years when our partnership matters most, and we are honored to walk this journey with your children — and with you.

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📚 Research & Sources

This article draws on long-standing research in child and adolescent development, including themes from Rosalind Wiseman’s work (Masterminds & Wingmen, Queen Bees & Wannabes), based on interviews with thousands of children. Wiseman’s research — which also inspired the highly fictionalized film Mean Girls — highlights real developmental themes of identity, belonging, social hierarchy, and emotional intensity. Her work helps contextualize the universal patterns described here.