I feel like a disappointment to my parents compared to my brother.

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

I’m a sophomore in high school. I’m failing geometry and have Cs in social studies and english. I’m in band but I HATE it. I just feel like my parents expect so much more out of me and I want to cry because I know I’m disappointing them.

And they keep freakin’ comparing me to my brother! My brother casually cruised past high school, finishing top 10%. Then he casually got a near-perfect score on his SAT and ACT. Now he’s casually cruising through college with a 3.5+ GPA.

All the time…“Jaylen didn’t have so much trouble with geometry. AND he took pre-AP” or “Jaylen took AP english and got an A so why are YOU getting Cs?”…Jaylen Jaylen Jaylen. I just want to scream at my parents, “I’M NOT F***ING JAYLEN!!!”

My mom said I seemed very stressed out this whole first part of the school year and said I should get tips from Jaylen on how to “calm down”. Well yeah of course HE didn’t stress out. HE didn’t have to TRY in school. He just churned out As. I’m not that smart.

I think my parents keep me in band because they figure I won’t get the same hefty scholarship that Jaylen got to go to his college. But band takes up sooo much time and only my brother knows that I freakin’ HATE it.

I just want them to stop comparing me to him. I’m currently grounded because after my mom made yet another comparison I made a rude comment about how terribly behaved my brother was despite his amazing grades (my brother thought my comment was hilarious btw).

My parents are being so freakin UNREASONABLE.

2

Why exactly is it that the good grades are important to them? Is it because they worry you won’t get into a good college? As long as you pass the required classes and graduate you’ll get in somewhere.

Do you feel like you’d do better in school if you weren’t in the band?

3

I just want to SCREAM y’all. My parents don’t understand!

I told my mom how much HS is wasting my time and she’s like “Well it prepared Jaylen well for college, didn’t it?”. My brother looked my mom right in the face and said “High school wasted my time and it’s currently wasting Jada’s time.”

I sure hope college is better than high school. I can’t stand these people. My brother says people suck in college too but it’s easier to avoid them and find the ones that don’t suck.

4

High school doesn’t prepare everybody for college though. I got a 2.35 GPA in high school, moved out at 18 (because my parents sucked), and after working for a few years I came back to community college and I have a 3.76.

5

When you say that HS is wasting your time, what do you mean?
Are you just frustrated because you are compared to your brother?
What are your future plans?
What type of thing would you like to do?
HS gives you a general education…it does prepare you for college, but even if you don’t college it prepares you for being a person in the world. You may think Social Studies is lame but even in the last Presidential Election you can see it is important to know history of our country and the world to understand why people had issues iwth the candidates… English exposes you to literature and gives you different ways to think about things or even just the basis of movies…and it helps you to write and to understand where other writers (in the news, on FB) get their sources info (or not).
Science helps you learn the scientific method so you can analyze if someone just made up something or if there are facts behind it.

What level of Geometry, English and Social Studies are you in? College Prep? Honors?
Does that match what you think you should be doing?

How hard are you studying? Do you do homework?

What don’t you like about band?
What would you do if you weren’t in band?
Does band keep you from studying more? Do you think it effects your grades?

I am a parent and what I would want for my kids is for each of them to do the best THEY can do.
Are you doing the best you can?
If not, what is preventing you?

Is there something you wish you were studying?

You sound like you have alot of anger …but sometimes anger is the manifestation of depression.

I would suggest talking to you someone you trust…your parents, your guidance counselor, a teacher and talk to them about some of this…if you are genuinely doing the best you can and still get compared to your brother, then maybe they can facilitate a discussion with your parents on better ways to support you.

If you think you can do better or are not sure, here are some general tips on doing well in HS.

  1. GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!

  2. Go to Teacher’s office hours early in the semester and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”

  3. If you have problems with the homework, go to Teacher’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.

  4. Form a study group with other kids in your class.

  5. Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or chemistry whatever. Watch online videos on line about the topic you are studying.

  6. If things still are not going well, get a tutor.

  7. Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.

  8. For tests that you didn’t do well on, can you evaluate what went wrong? Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do? Then next time change the way you study…there may be a study skill center at your college.

  9. How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.

  10. If you run into any social/health/family troubles (you are sick, your parents are sick, someone died, broke up with boy/girlfriend, suddenly depressed/anxiety etcetc) then immediately go to the guidance counselor and talk to them.

  11. At the beginning of the semester, read the syllabus for each class. It tells you what you will be doing and when tests/HW/papers are due. Put all of that in your calendar. The teacher may remind you of things, but it is all there for you to see so take initiative and look at it.

  12. Make sure you understand how to use your online class system…Login to it, read what there is for your classes, know how to upload assignments (if that is what the prof wants).

  13. If you get an assignment…make sure to read the instructions and do all the tasks on the assignment. Look at the rubric and make sure you have covered everything.

  14. If you are not sure what to do, go EARLY to the teacher’s office hours…not the day before the assignment is due.

  15. Take advantage any “re-do” s your teachers may offer…your teacher wants you to learn the material. Future material depends on it so you need to have the foundation. By explaining what went wrong you really understand it. Take advantage of this.

6

@bopper has offered you some good suggestions for dealing with school, but not for dealing with your parents, and that strikes me as your main issue right now. Is there another adult you trust that could help you talk with them? Because it does not sound as though any of you are communicating right now. A minister? A school counselor? You are angry as all get out, and I get that, but you need to find a solution to your family issues.

7

Considering your brother found your comment hilarious, why don’t you ask him to talk to your parents about it? I understand and hate it when I’m compared to others because I’m not them and they are not me.

8

@bopper I am sorry but I completely disagree with you. School does not prepare you for life. Sure what happened in the past is important, but what’s happening right now is even more important. I think it’s insane that if I ask my classmates about what is happening in Syria, an extremely large percentage of them will not know. The presidential election was completely ignored by my school, I was taught nothing about the candidates policies, or what they stand for. And people still wonder why voter turnout is so low. We learn about advanced math and science, which is exptremely important to the real world, but it won’t be used in 99% of people’s daily lives. They should be introduced to these topics and if they want to lean more about it, they should be allowed to, not forced. We aren’t taught how to pay our taxes, find our passion, or how to get a job. But hey, at least I know that we can use Sine to find the length of a triangle’s side. School IS a waste of time.

9

My kid’s school taught them how to analyze the quality of stuff they see on the internet. That came in darned handy in 2016. Some schools teach valuable real-life stuff – it depends on the school and the class.

10

School gives one the opportunity to gather friends who will support and nurture, or to freely associate with a group of people who will help you to find the distractions you seek to avoid having a hand in how your life moves forward.

Being in school offers an exercise in being away from and outside of view of parents, learning to forge relationships with people of authority (teachers and administrators, who may seem like idiots to the all-knowing, unquestioning young person), people of influence and persuasion (teachers and peers) and those with whom you interact as a result of being a student (club advisors, other parents, co-op officers/employers).

School is your early life lab. Academics is one area of the learning that you will be asked to delve into, to engage with.

Question, OP: Are you self-sabotaging by any chance to show your parents that you are not like your sibling? Can you put your hand on what it is you would apply yourself to, and seek to do well in, were you not concerned that you would be compared to meeting a bar set by your sibling?

11

@kisspow

I support you and all of your feelings. Good for you for reaching out to find advice and support from others. What you’re going through is difficult.

You are a different person from your brother. I’m sure that you know that, but it’s worth saying again: you are different. You will experience things differently. You have different talents. You have different ambitions and values. Sure you share many things, but you are different and it’s no surprise to me that your HS experiences are different.

First, don’t worry. You will be fine. No matter how you do in HS you will find a great path through life.

The easiest path that most people walk along is 1) do well in HS, 2) attend good college, 3) have decent career in something solid; 4) retirement; 5) boom, you’re done. This path is straight forward and from a parental POV it’s also “safe”.

Just because it’s “safe” and expected, doesn’t mean that it’s the right path for YOU, however.

There are many other paths.

As others have mentioned, another path is to just get past HS somehow. Either graduate with your basic classes or, if the anxiety gets to be too much, last resort is to drop out and get a GED. If you can hold on and graduate from HS somehow, regardless of GPA, then that’s the best approach, but for your peace of mind it’s good to know that GED is a viable option too.

AFter finishing HS somehow, you can take as much time as you want before attending college. As long as you don’t get married/have a family of your own and as long as you stay healthy, you can take your time deciding what to do. You can figure out your interests. During that time you can work in many exciting and wonderful jobs. If you want to leave home, the Student Conservation Association has work with housing. Volunteer.gov has work with housing. Workaway has work with housing. Coolworks lists jobs with housing and pay. Americorps NCCC/ Vista/Fema all have work with housing, a stipend, and money for college at the end. And you can work and volunteer around your local community and live at home.

When you are ready to attend college, you can always raise your grades in Community College then transfer to any college in the US. You would be a “nontraditional student” and there are many excellent schools and programs for nontrads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_and_colleges_for_non-traditional_students This is a partial list. Virtually any college has room for nontrads, even if they don’t have a special program. You would apply as a transfer student.

For now: I suggest talking with your parents. Do this calmly and in a public place so that everyone is on best behavior. Tell them clearly and calmly that you love them. You respect that they are trying to do their best by you. But that you want to try something different. Assure them that you can work with them and your guidance counselors at your school to find a strong, viable path, and that path will probably be different from your brother’s. You can reassure them that you are strong, smart, mature and will consult them, but that you would like to start trying something different.

This may be a shock to them. Expect some disagreement, but if you remain calm, and clear, they will see how mature you are. And that maturity will help them be brave. Your maturity will allow them to believe in you, and they will probably allow you to take your own path.

Best of luck.

12

Trig is the basis of calculus and physics. Had I not learned it in high school, I would not be able to study engineering (or get the good grades I’ve been getting).

So… Everything you narrowly consider irrelevant is important to someone.

13

@bodangles I never said that ti isn’t useful, I myself plan on studying Astrophysics, which evolves A LOT of advanced Math. It is a fact though, that a large majority of people will never use that in real life. I just think its stupid how we are taught advanced math instead of basic life skills…

14

@Pedro73 Math teaches people how to be quantitative, analytical, and solve problems. Those are useful traits to have. Though I agree there does seem to be too much content being thrown at people to memorize for two weeks sometimes before forgetting everything, never really learning anything.

15

Not everyone will use Math in college. Not everyone will be an artist. Not everyone will be in band. Not everyone will write novels. Not everone will be a scientist. But school exposes you to the basics of many academic areas so that you get a basic knowledge and can find out what you are interested in.