Is all the work in high school worth it?

dietz199
Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:17:57 +0000

Kids can have tunnel vision. Kids can be influenced by their peers (are they all hyper driven), by obvious external influences ( CC, USNWR, all the other media pressure) and they can be influenced by pressures we, as parents, are not even aware we are asserting. Oh, and they can be influenced by their geographic surrounding (silicon valley).

I don’t agree with the sentiment - just let your son figure it out. At this stage, he is still in need of guidance. DS lost his smile somewhere in the second half of Junior year. We forced him to cut back. After all was said and done he started opening up about his fellow classmates who were struggling with “mental illnesses” that frankly sounded like a reasonable response to unreasonable stress and expectations.

HS brackets the years of late childhood and early adulthood. IMO, we are truncating the childhood portion, the panic takes over and we run the ‘race to nowhere’.

If he is in danger of losing his smile, his physical or mental health then it is up to a loving and caring parent to hit the ‘stop’ button.