What is the deal with 6th graders?

I teach high school, and I encourage my 9th graders to ask questions when they get confused. This means I talk to a lot of 9th graders after school. <br><br>They always have a story about how they got screwed over in middle school, usually 6th grade. <br><br>They didn’t get credit for a project they spent 3 weeks on, because it was turned in on the wrong side of the wire thing on their binder. <br><br>They got a detention for waving at a friend in the hallway, and now have to serve Saturday school. <br><br>They were graded down on a project for 40 points because their font was a 11.9 instead of 12. <br><br>They got a zero on a test because they didn’t write their name on the right corner. <br><br>Their grades are mysteriously low because the teacher forgot to grade their last 3 assignments. <br><br>They were given 2 detentions from 2 different teachers for wearing earbuds while walking between classrooms. <br><br>They are serving a 5 day lunch detention for having a juice box in their lunch, even though they have a medical need for juice every day. They didn’t have their doctor’s note that day. The principal won’t let them call home to have their parents bring it. The principal says it doesn’t matter cause the detention was received before they showed him the note. <br><br>They had to throw away their lunch because they had the wrong brand of water bottle. It was the wrong color. <br><br>Their friend is serving a 15 day suspension (the rest of the year) for accidentally dropping their lunch tray and it made a big clatter and scared people. <br><br>What the actual hell? I’ve been teaching for a long time and I have never heard so many horror stories like these. I have never seen so many 9th graders individually crying in the bathroom before lunch. 9th grade used to be a tough transition for them, but the schools seemed to get better at helping with that transition. <br><br>My 9th graders are like a bunch of PTSD survivors from their middle school experiences. <br><br>What can I do to help them heal and trust their teachers again?