While parents excitedly snap first-day-of-school photos of their five-year-olds next week, it’s unlikely they’ll be so excited about their children who are going off to middle school for the first time.It’s a difficult transition for ten and 11-year-olds. According to mental health specialist and child advocate Fred Dyer, pre-teens experience significant changes in their development.Dr Dyer, of Dyer Consulting in Chicago, Illinois, has given several workshops in Bermuda aimed at parents and children and education and health professionals.He told Body & Soul that middle school is a crucial time for parents to remain heavily involved in their children’s lives.“Children will need the support of their parents to help them navigate the difficulty and challenges they will face at these ages,” said Dr Dyer.“Children at ten and 11 are slowly beginning to detach from their parents. They will ask not to be kissed when dropped off at school, and may request that the kiss come before they reach school, where no one will see.”Dr Dyer said it’s important for parents to understand the cognitive changes that are taking place in ten-, 11- and 12-year-olds.“Children are going through puberty at these ages and will often see rapid changes in their physical appearance, but they are also developing cognitively,” he said.“They start to move from a concrete way of thinking to an abstract, deductive way of thinking. They start to engage in hypothetical reasoning.”For this reason, Dr Dyer said it’s important for parents to develop a tolerance and even encourage their children to delve deeper into why a particular decision is made.“I call it going beyond the ‘no’,” said Dr Dyer. “It’s where children don’t blindly accept when you say ‘no’ and question your reasoning.”Although this may be trying for parents, it’s important for building cognition and self-confidence in pre-teens.Also important for parents to understand is that children at these ages begin to experience egocentrism. This manifests in several ways. One of them, according to Dr Dyer, is something called the imaginary audience.“This is what is happening when the child becomes concerned about what they wear and how they look because they feel everyone is looking at them,” said Dr Dyer.It is what is going on when they are embarrassed to wear items they may have previously loved. This phenomenon of the imaginary audience tends to dissipate in adolescence.Egocentrism is also behind a state sociologists call ‘personal fable’. According to Dr Dyer, pre-teens often don’t believe that the experience of others is relevant to them.“It’s the idea that this will not happen to me,” said Dr Dyer.It’s the reason why they may do something they actually know to be dangerous. And even if you try and explain it to them, they may not be convinced. They will say things like, ‘well just because that happened to you, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to me’,” he said.Peer conformity doing what everybody else is doing is also a feature of the pre-teen experience.According to Dr Dyer, parents need to recognise this and guide their children in making decisions that suit their individual situations. Having self-confidence will help them better navigate the pressures of doing what everyone else is doing. Parents should therefore foster confidence in their children.But nothing quite beats talking to your children every day, he stressed.“Be interested in your children’s lives. Ask them every day: What is going on? How was school today? Who is your best friend? What did you guys do today? How do you feel about the math test?”Expressing genuine interest goes a long way to having children that feel supported and are comfortable discussing with their parents, not just their successes but also their challenges.Parents tend to be heavily involved in their children’s school life at the primary level, but a key to their success is not to drop the ball and to continue this at the middle school level, he added.