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<p>Funny, I had a teacher who believed students worked their way down from A+'s. Either way, it’s just two different ways of looking at things: glass half-empty, glass half-full? </p>
<p>At the beginning of each semester, your grade is 0/0. Some people think that if you have nothing, you have an “F,” whereas other people view it as 100%.</p>
<p>Second school night of homework was no better. I don’t know what time my son went to bed last night (def. after 2 am tho) and he looks exhausted this am. This is awful. I pray that he will learn to manage his time most expediently (this will be essential to both his academics and his healthy, not necessarily in that order).</p>
<p>seiclan - find out what your son is doing. Last year when my daughter used to have 2-3 hours of history homework every night. It turned out it was reading assignment. She was used to taking very good notes as she’s reading. She had to cut it out in order to get to other homework. One thing our older daughter (a junior in college now) said to us about one great thing she learned in high school was to manage her time. Every teacher threw so much work at them, she had to pick and choose how much she had to spend to get X grade. Unfortunately, sometimes it came down to “Ok, I already have an high A in this course, if I get a B on this paper, I could still get an A. But I have a B- in this course, if I spend a lot of time on this next exam I could maybe bring it up to a B,” so the paper suffers. It is an important skill to have later on in college when most likely they will have more work than they could handle. </p>
<p>This is beginning of school year, it is a good time to help them organize and teach them time management. It is not healthy to be going to bed every night at 2am. Good luck.</p>
<p>seiclan –</p>
<p>My dd has learned to fit in homework around her life. She does some at lunch, some immediately after school while waiting for a ride, etc. In her case, it’s to make time for extracurriculars, but it works when you’re experiencing homework overload, too, and might help his bedtime problem a little.</p>
<p>Any chance he’s doing perfectionist things – staring at blank screen/page, writing and then re-writing repeatedly, etc? If so, then he may want to set a timer and have to produce <em>something</em> in that time period, with additional time allowed for editing.</p>
<p>Is he texting & spending time on FB while doing homework?</p>
<p>If he has lots of reading, I can imagine at this point that he’s nodding off while doing it, which of course makes it take longer, which makes him stay up later, …</p>
<p>Is it taking everyone this long? It’s a really important thing to know if you end up needing to talk to the school about it.</p>
<p>My son took too difficult a courseload this year (which both I and the GC warned him about). He wanted to do this (2 AP’s where the school only usually recommends ONE for sophomores, and 2 gifted/honors classes and 3 honors classes). Hopefully he will soon learn what has to be done and what he can skim through. I also believe that many of these teachers are starting off tougher to scare the kids. He did probably spend an hour last night helping a school friend with homework (time which he really didn’t have to spare). </p>
<p>There are over 3200 students in his school. Lunch is frequently spent standing up in the brick courtyard outside the cafeteria (since there is not room enough for half of the kids in the lunch room). There is no place to go to do homework at school.</p>
<p>seiclan, can he drop down a level in one of the classes? I know a very bright girl who set herself up for failure last year by taking too many high-level academic classes. She ended up barely passing for the year, after having had high-honors all through middle-school. My d dropped her honors/accelerated french for a regular level class and it took enough pressure off that she could concentrate better-- I was really glad she did.</p>
<p>Not sure yet. Remember it has only been the first two/three days of school. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that he figures out how to ride this bronco. Because it was his choice of schedule, the GC will give us a very hard time about changing anything on this schedule (he was warned). Also, if he wants to drop anatomy and phys (a very time consuming class at our school) he may have no choice of elective to put there. I have a friend whose child registered late for school (she came in from a private school) and her daughter is stuck with guitar for an elective because everything else that period is already at capacity. </p>
<p>We will see what transpires for him. He has thus far, (since middle school) always finished the year with straight A’s. He has a 4.0 unweighted GPA as of now for 11 completed credits (he took 4 hs classes in middle school). I believe that I have to let him try this (although my stomach is in knots and every part of my brain is yelling impending train wreck). Remember, he has not complained yet…just me. The kid is just trugging along, on 4 hours of sleep. Sigh.</p>
<p>He’ll probably ace the year… (you’ll have white knuckles of course but…what parent doesn’t?)</p>
<p>We start on the 8th and I am very happy with DS schedule. It allows for homework and study in the middle of the day at lunch 
He is a gamer and I am worried about the transistion back to responsibility.</p>
<p>He has been going to bed late and waking up late. Next week will start to get them back on schedule. PSAT self study for the Oct sit date (doesn’t count because 10th grade, right?) </p>
<p>We have a short list - Maryland. I just don’t see this as a fit but at least he has some interest.</p>
<p>hi all, I can say right now I will lose track of this thread being in the cafe, but it is a lot more lighthearted than the one in the regular parent forum. I just don’t go into the cafe that often.</p>
<p>We also go through milk like crazy with two girls.</p>
<p>D2 the one in this thread is counting down the days until D1 the senior is off to college! They really do love each other!</p>
<p>School starts next week and summer homework is done. She is playing a jv sport so didn’t have to go to preseason. I am trying to get her to pick some activities and have a larger role in them than last year which could be a take it easy first year in the HS.</p>
<p>Not to worry, soon we’ll be like those parents in the thread “students with less than 3.6 GPA applying to Top 20s.”</p>
<p>Bumping this thread because, like jackief,
</p>
<p>D1 (HS class of 09) left for college 10 days ago and D2 (class of 12) has certainly taken her place as the resident “teenage-girl-with-attitude”! And she now wins the prize for messiest room on the planet :eek:</p>
<p>I volunteered in the HS guidance office this morning and it was so nice to NOT be thinking about college applications, recommendations, etc. I am going to enjoy this breather between D1 and D2 for as long as I can :)</p>
<p>Everyone must be busy - no recent posts on this thread! DD is enjoying a break from my “hovering” since I’m focusing on older sibling’s college apps. </p>
<p>Her school posts grades online and I see that her Spanish tests are not as good as they used to be but her homework and extra credit boost her grade up to an A. I want to tell her that the A isn’t the focus, it’s her mediocre test scores that tell me she’s not really studying. </p>
<p>What do you think? Am I overdoing it?</p>
<p>I am still here. Son is still doing lot of late late nights but not everynight. His grades are all over the place though (and this kid had straight A’s since…forever). He likes his classes though and generally seems happy. We had open house tonight and his teachers are all excellent. I do check his grades online but I don’t discuss them with him since he cares so much. He is still figuring it all out. As long as he has a mixture of A’s and B’s I am ok with it.</p>
<p>Still here too! Grades are starting to come in and I see some good ones! I am concerned about his “it will get done attitude” my husband says its a guy thing. I’m not buying it. When they want what they want - they research and devote time, his school work quickly needs to have the same approach.</p>
<p>I am really liking his math teacher. She is giving SAT questions as warm ups and it is eye opening. He admits he will need to devote some extra time.</p>
<p>This week will be telling. Tests and labs - hopefully he can stay strong.</p>
<p>This is only the second week. D2 likes most of her teachers, especially her math teacher. I see her working on Fri and Sat, which is unusual. What’s taking center stage now is her Sweet 16 party, the venue, invitation, decoration…it’s all good, a nice distraction.</p>
<p>Just had Back to School Night, we go to each class for 10 minutes or so. Great teachers for English and AP Euro, PreCalc H…not so sure about the Chemistry H teacher–really monotone, very slow pace. PE is PE, and her Spanish teacher is well, odd. Known to be odd. But DD can manage odd so no worries. I am a little concerned about the overall workload and the PreCalc H class, but so far things are going well.</p>
<p>D2 is doing well so far. We missed back-to-school night (work conflicts), but we know most of the teachers from D1’s experience. English teacher is excellent but tough, and D is already worried about getting B’s in the class when her friends are getting A’s. Hopefully, her competitive nature will kick in! She’s got A’s everywhere else, in spite of the self-professed bipolar (:eek:) Chem teacher and the very quirky Spanish teacher.</p>
<p>Sweet 16 does sound like a great distraction, oldfort. No Sweet 16 here, but homecoming is rapidly approaching ;)</p>
<p>Last kid is class of 2012. Not sure how I missed this thread. Anyhow, things seem to have gone from zero to a hundred the last two weeks. Freshman year was pretty easy for him, even with an AP course. But he didn’t have too much going on in terms of ECs besides being a serious piano student so life seemed pretty mellow. Suddenly, every minute seems to be jammed. He joined sports, journalism, is auditioning for a play tomorrow and getting involved in some other things – all with a very heavy courseload (AP Bio, AP World, Math Analysis B with Calc A next semester). I can see what the next three years are going to be like and it doesn’t look relaxing. So what warrants posting here and what warrants posting on the Forum thread – I assume there is one? I’m not concerned about college application stuff at this point. This is the fourth kid. DH keeps telling me to become one of those private college counselors – but I can’t imagine stressing out all the time over that stuff.</p>
<p>mimk6 - I gravitated to this thread in the Cafe because, at the beginning, there was talk of chocolate and wine, while the thread in the Parent Forum was more along the lines of “should my kid take 11 or 12 AP classes this year?” </p>
<p>okay, I am exaggerating a little, but this one just seems a little more light-hearted and that’s what I need, having just survived the college application and launch experience with D1!</p>