BACK TO SCHOOL. Yikes! or yay? It’s up to you. (Shutterstock).

This is the “back-to-school” season, the annual shifting of tectonic plates which turns grade school kids into teenagers-in-waiting, and those into rapidly emerging pre-adults.

It’s a time of anticipation and apprehension. Will I have a “good” (i.e. easy) teacher? Will I make friends? Will I have to diagram sentences?

The older a kid becomes, the more complicated things get. I’ve always considered the principal struggle in the “upper” six grades as a battle against puberty, both for pupils and teachers.

Accompanying the mental/emotional addling that come with all the hormonal changes that overtake one are the physical changes that occur. Only a short time ago you were skinny carefree kids and now you are rampaging into a world of facial hair, deeper voices, emerging topography and terrifying insecurity.

As if all that wasn’t enough, in the last two years of high school, a student is bombarded with pressure to “pick” a major, pick a college, pick a career/trade, etc., an even — in some cases – pick a future life partner.

It can be annoying or even terrifying, both to youngsters and parents. Short of being born smart and self-confident – not easily done – my back-to-school advice for both groups is to … relax.

The things that seem earth-shattering will be reduced to minor memories. The behaviors of kids that grind the Old Folks’ teeth will eventually be revealed as the kind of stuff that the Old Folks did when they were That Age.
A 16-year-old romance fades quickly (most of the time) … chances are you will likely abandon  the college the major you agonized over … you will recognize that you don’t look any more ridiculous in your P.E. outfit than the other youths (or Utes, as Joe Pesci would say).

You are climbing on a roller coaster that speeds up and turns more sharply as the years pass. You can’t leave and it will take you in directions you would not have chosen. But you’ll learn how to cope with all the twists and turns and – despite the dizziness – you will likely be better and wiser for the experience.

There’s the bell. See you in class, smarty.