What are the 12 middle school superpowers?

Flexibility, Belonging, Sight, Vulnerability, Bounce, Agency, Forcefield, Security, Healing, Balance, Daring and Optimism. Each one gets a chapter with strategies for parents and educators.

Is Middle School Superpowers a sequel to Middle School Matters?

It is a follow-up by the same author. Middle School Matters (2019) covers ten broad skills; Middle School Superpowers (2023) focuses on resilience.

What age is Middle School Superpowers for?

It is for parents and teachers of kids about 10 to 14, in the middle school years.

Middle School Superpowers – WISE Score & Parent Review | Screenwise

Middle School Superpowers

Name: Screenwise
Author: Screenwise

book2023Parenting, Middle School

89%

WISE Score

A school counselor turns resilience into twelve teachable "superpowers" that help middle schoolers bounce back from lost friends, bad grades and social media mistakes.

Middle School Superpowers

book

2023, Parenting, Middle School

89%

WISE Score

A school counselor turns resilience into twelve teachable "superpowers" that help middle schoolers bounce back from lost friends, bad grades and social media mistakes.

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Where to Read

Our reviews and ratings are 100% unbiased. Screenwise is a Bookshop.org affiliate and an Amazon Associate, so if you buy a book through one of our links, we may earn a commission. Bookshop.org purchases also support independent bookstores.

Screenwise Verdict

Middle School Superpowers is the book for the parent of a tween who falls apart at every setback. Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor who wrote Middle School Matters, argues that resilience is not something kids are born with. It is a set of skills, and middle school is when they are easiest to learn.

She breaks it into twelve superpowers, from Super Flexibility to Super Optimism, each with real scenarios, tween quotes and concrete scripts. Her advice is to pick the one your kid needs most, not to work through all twelve.

Parts are written for teachers as much as parents. As a focused toolkit for the hardest stretch of growing up, it delivers.

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Age Fit

A book for parents and teachers of kids from about 10 to 14. The scenarios are middle school ones, and many tips work into the early high school years.

WISE Breakdown

Wholesome

Kind and hopeful, with a focus on helping tweens recover from setbacks without shame.

Imaginative

Framing resilience as twelve superpowers is a playful, memorable device that tweens and parents can share.

Safe

Written for adults. Body image, identity and social media mistakes are handled with care.

Enriching

Concrete strategies and scripts for each skill. Narrower than the first book, and some sections are written for teachers.

Parent Info

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Why It Might Be Great

Resilience as skills, not personality. Twelve named superpowers give parents and kids a shared language for bouncing back.
Each chapter starts with real situations, like getting cut from a team or a social media mistake, and ends with how to raise the topic with your kid.
Written after the pandemic, for the kids who came back changed.
Advice to start with the one skill your child needs most keeps it manageable.
Book club discussion guides for parents and educators in the back.

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What to Watch For

Every chapter has ideas for educators. Skim those sections or share them with your kid's teacher.
Twelve chapters is a lot. Start with the superpower that fits your kid this month.
It covers resilience, not a full middle school survival guide. For friendships, homework and puberty, Middle School Matters goes broader.
If setbacks come with signs of depression or anxiety that last weeks, talk to your pediatrician or school counselor.

Conversation Starters

"What is something hard that happened this year that you got through?"
"When things go wrong, what helps you feel better fastest?"
"Who is someone you would like to get to know better at school?"

Deep Dive

Resilience can be taught, and middle school is the time

Fagell wrote this book after watching kids come back to school from the pandemic changed. Her argument is that resilience is not a trait a child is born with. "It's a set of skills that can be developed," she told Parent and Teen, and middle school is the right moment because kids are still impressionable and still care what adults think. They also feel everything, in her phrase, "as a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10," which is why a lost friend or a missed cut can feel like the end of the world.

Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers by Phyllis Fagell, the yellow first book standing beside the red and orange second Fagell's two middle school books. Image from phyllisfagell.com.

Twelve superpowers, one chapter each

Super Flexibility: managing change and uncertainty
Super Belonging: finding your place and making strong connections
Super Sight: anticipating problems before you decide
Super Vulnerability: knowing when and how to ask for help
Super Bounce: learning and recovering from missteps
Super Agency: finding your purpose and acting on it
Super Forcefield: setting healthy boundaries
Super Security: taking pride in your identity and stepping into someone else's shoes
Super Healing: coping and self-regulating emotions
Super Balance: setting a reasonable pace and realistic goals
Super Daring: going out on a limb and taking smart risks
Super Optimism: finding hope and humor

Each chapter opens with the moments that skill is for: losing a friend, getting cut from a team, a mistake on social media, a bombed test, body-image worries, the weight of the news. Then come strategies, Top Tips for Parents, Ideas for Educators, and How to Tackle the Topic with Your Middle Schooler.

Start with the child in front of you

Fagell does not expect families to work through all twelve. Her advice is to start where your kid needs the most support: Super Sight for an impulsive kid who does not think about tomorrow, Super Optimism for one who is relentlessly negative, Super Flexibility for one who melts down at change. Build from the strengths they already have.

One piece of friendship advice surprises parents. She argues kids do not need a single best friend, which can backfire if that friendship goes south. The kids who do best in high school, in her experience, are the floaters who can be friends with all kinds of people.

Phyllis Fagell smiling outdoors, with shoulder-length blond hair and a black top, trees behind her Phyllis Fagell. Photo from phyllisfagell.com.

Written for parents and teachers at once

Every chapter includes ideas for educators, and the book ends with discussion guides for parent and educator book clubs. A reviewer at WeAreTeachers called it an indispensable guide for educators. For a parent, that means some sections are written for a classroom; skim them or pass them to your kid's teacher. Fagell's earlier book, Middle School Matters, is the broader guide to these years and pairs well with this one.

Watch her explain it

Fagell on the twelve superpowers with Katie Kimball:

And on The Puberty Podcast from This Is So Awkward:

For the social side of these years, see middle school social dynamics.

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