<p>D is on her way back to school as we speak. I will miss her. I actually have a sign with that phrase on it prepare the child…then remind myself when she goes or does something that this is what I raised her with to enjoy her world. She did say that kids posted on FB that they were returning “home” to school. She considers “our” home her home and school where she is educated. This and she is happy there too. I am glad she still likes us. perhaps because we have never tried to hold her back. I am concerned about her sleeping habits, she stays up late and sleeps during the day, I dont think this is healthy. I talked to her about it but she will do what she wants.</p>
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<p>downtoearth, I am dealing with exactly the same thing. D has always been a night owl, but it seems to have gotten worse. I try to tell myself that it’s okay as long as she is doing well in school, meeting her other obligations, and staying healthy. But it is worrisome. </p>
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<p>Thanks, Shawbridge. While that saying may not be original to CC it is new to me and will go up on my bulletin board along with my other favorite bits of CC wisdom. Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>laxtaxi, I am with rrah. Both of your posts today brought me to tears. I’m glad you’re back. Please don’t stay away so long next time :)</p>
<p>Rrah and PRJ, thank you for the very nice feedback. I hope that the tears were good ones. I understand that this forum is an opportunity to read what others are experiencing and share a sense of community. For me, as well, this forum is an opportunity to express what is going on inside me. The process of sharing it helps me understand and, hopefully, accept. To the extent that others find these posts helpful or meaningful, that makes me happy.</p>
<p>Also, PRJ, I applaud you for recognizing that a kid who is doing well should be given latitude to make choices. S’s sleep habits at his school are atrocious. He is doing well, so we kept silent and let him find an equilibrium that works. If he starts to fail, then we might suggest that he reconsider his approach to sleep hygiene.</p>
<p>Son left at about 3 pm. I am just picturing all of our offspring crisscrossing the nation to get back to school. I had planned to take a nap and decompress, but then D had a big paper she wanted me to proof. I think I’ll go work out, then watch the new episode of *What Not to Wear *on the DVR. Borrowing from Scarlett O’Hara, I’ll worry about Son and school tomorrow.</p>
<p>Oh, by the way*** I ***want to spend a semester in Barcelona!!! Only not go to school…can our next road trip be to Barcelona to shop and eat the best olives in the world and fresh churros and drink cava sangria and that thick hot chocolate?</p>
<p>PRJ and DTE, that is a typical teenager’s sleep cycle. The melatonin (that cues us to sleep) kicks in later in the evening for them and many don’t feel tired until well after midnight. ShawSon has had a bunch of friends over and, given his sleep disorder, he is alert to not staying up. Plus, he’s begun working on his novel. So, he tells the friends, “I’m going to sleep. You guys can stay as long as you want.” We’ve known the kids for years and they are good kids so it is OK with us. And, guess what, some of them leave at 4 AM.</p>
<p>I agree with taxi in that we more or less let the kids do it “their way” except or until that CLEARLY isn’t working. I have never expected perfection, and I also believe in a balanced life so it usually works out. Of course, I also heartily subscribe to the Scarlet theory of life, “tomorrow is another day,” so I’m not sure how these work in tandem. (not always, this is true). But I feel much much better since I at least feel heard by S (which is very different from being listened to I admit), and he seems to get it (if only a little bit) about what I need in terms of peace of mind -which keeps me off his texts. I am thinking about all your kids heading back to school. Fortunately they are all enjoying better weather than a week or so ago, but it still makes me hold my breath a little bit until they at least get to where they were headed. </p>
<p>Missy… so was he going back to a single room?</p>
<p>As for Barcelona… I watched an episode of House Hunters international set in Barcelona. Man, it looked fabulous (and expensive). But amazing. I would definitely be looking to go for a visit if my kid was there, this is certain!</p>
<p>shawbridge - thanks for a better explanation of teenage sleep patterns than “that’s just what kids do” ;)</p>
<p>missypie - I’ve never been to Spain (wait…isn’t that a song lyric from the 70s?), but based on your food and drink descriptions I want to go now.</p>
<p>PRJ - “But I’ve been to Oklahoma.”</p>
<p>Just before leaving S at the airport this morning I supplied him with several items from the 5th major food group: Whoopie Pies.* Just got a text telling me it’s a good thing I did because the school’s dining service doesn’t open until Tuesday night. Good to know I’m helping him maintain nutritional balance.
*For those of you who don’t know about Whoopie Pies, try <a href=“http://www.whoopiepies.org%5B/url%5D”>www.whoopiepies.org</a>.</p>
<p>Taxi… I sent S a whoopie pie cake for his birthday. He did happen to mention over break that singles would have been better as there was too much filling in the cake/pie. It all looks delicious to me, but I have been on INCREDIBLY good behavior for the past week. One down, too many more to count! But I am determined! No Whoopie for me.</p>
<p>so sorry for your families loss laxtaxi.</p>
<p>Wow, what a whirlwind period here in my household. I just realized that today was the first day of my being home, with not a single scheduled activity, since about the 14th of December.</p>
<p>My DS1 went off to a school that he was not thrilled to attend, and still is not thrilled to be attending. The good news was that first semester grades are out, and he has a 3.9. The bad news is that he did so without much effort, and feels that the atmosphere is not challenging, yet his pursuit of transfer options has been ‘spotty’ at best, as has his pursuit of scholarship opportunities for the summer. Personally, I think the sting of the rejection letters still lingers, and he’s not quite ready to ‘put himself out there’ so to speak… and any encourgagement by me in that direction is met with only negativity. For him too - he could have easily done some of the applications over break, but slept like the children of others on this thread - often until 3pm or so - his admitted poor sleep schedule that he even maintained in college, while likely cramming like a crazy person before exams and papers…</p>
<p>I wore out my welcome as to encourgagement last year. And, in some ways, I wore out my stamina to continue the cycle of pushing him onward toward one opportunity or another. I guess I have to trust that he’ll seek out his own in his own good time…</p>
<p>DS1 does not return to school until late next week, so he’s catching up with DS2…</p>
<p>The worries never really change, do they?</p>
<p>Barcelona was one of our favorite family vacations…rivals Paris…we rented a flat, so it was not super-expensive (except that the US dollar has been in the tank for so long.) Barcelona is the kind of place where you can just picture yourself *hanging out *for several weeks (as opposed to just seeing the sights and leaving.)</p>
<p>Little sleep last night. So much to worry about, so little time. Also realized that unless I get a card in the mail today, it won’t arrive for Son’s birthday.</p>
<p>laxtaxi, my condolences. It’s always hard to lose a parent.</p>
<p>S2’s school sent an email today that gives the grade distribution for the fall freshman engineering students, sorted by 0-.99; 1.00-1.99; 2.00-2.99; and 3.00-4.00 for Fall 2001 to Fall 2009. It has quite a bit of variability. For example, the 3.0+ category went 43%, 27%, 56%, 48% in 2006-2009, respectively. Twenty percent had below 2.0 GPA in fall 2009. The email went on to say that many of those students would do much better this spring after getting a wake-up call while a not insignificant percentage of the higher GPA students would get too comfortable and see their GPAs decline. I enjoy these weekly emails from the school that include the parents in the process and put things into some sort of context.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that most parents of high school seniors are aware of statistics like this. Son is at a small LAC that wants to retain students, not flunk them out. However, here is the shakedown of the four boys in Son’s suite:</p>
<p>Son’s roommate - didn’t return but probably not related to grades
Son - low GPA but not on probation
Suitemate #1 - okay
Suitemate #2 - on academic probation</p>
<p>I really don’t think that most parents who have kids who do well in HS think that there is a significant liklihood that freshman year won’t go well.</p>
<p>missypie, I agree. I haven’t posted on the “what have you learned from cc” thread, but one of the most significant things I have learned is how many students struggle. In the real world, those struggles are often covered up, like in the old days where the pregnant high school girl was reportedly sent to Europe for finishing school when in fact she was sent to Edna Gladney’s in Texas. </p>
<p>I ran into a parent in the grocery store last year. His son had played soccer with our older son and gone to W&M. His mother is a math teacher at one of the elite private high schools in the area. Anyway, I asked how their S was doing and got the standard grocery store “just great” answer. I mentioned to S that I had run into x and learned that their son had in fact developed a drug problem, dropped out of school, and is now working construction in Florida (S keeps in touch with him on facebook). Of course, the parent isn’t going to mention that in a passing conversation in a grocery store. </p>
<p>The result, however, is we underestimate just how many students do experience difficulties and when our child has a problem we don’t know what to do about it. The advice, support, and experiences offered on cc are extremely helpful in that regard as our younger son remains very much at risk, in my view. Since he is attending a college where lots of at risk kids attend, the school actually is pretty helpful on what to expect and options on what to do.</p>
<p>LOL, eggmom! and there is another line about the women there being insane - I’ll fit right in ;)</p>
<p>I agree that another valuable piece of CC wisdom is the frequency with which good HS students struggle in college. another case in point: this weekend we ran into the parents of a classmate of D’s - stellar student and athlete, NMSF, attending Duke. the parents were not very forthcoming, but indicated that S had struggled academically the first semester.</p>
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<p>I admit that I was personally very good at school, so it’s taken me a while to see that college is a challenge for lots of smart people. I’m starting to look at my younger kids’ grades with a much more skeptical eye.</p>
<p>One D is in a weighted pre-AP class in a subject that sounds hard. The teacher gives daily grades (100 if you show up and act nice), quiz grades (all easy), project grades (posters) and test grades. D is pulling a nice A by getting 100s for daily grades, quizzes and projects…but her test grades are in the low C range. Were she in college and only had a mid term and a final (without all the fluff 100s added in) she’d have a C- instead of an A. Even in our “excellent suburban high school” it is possible to get an A in a “hard class” without mastering the material. (Son got a B in the AP class that corresponds to the one he failed last term and received a 3 on the AP exam. High school performance does not always college readiness make!)</p>
<p>Agree wholeheartedly with the last several posts. Another example, missypie, is foreign languages – I took French throughout HS and 2 years of college and started Spanish in college. (Didn’t major in either; just enjoyed them.) Both languages came quite easily to me. When D, and then S, started having some difficulty when they got to about Spanish III, I just didn’t understand. Took me a while to realize that neither of them was me, and just because I found it easy didn’t mean they would – and it also didn’t mean they were slacking off. </p>
<p>And, yes, the whole different approach to grading in most colleges can be a huge adjustment – a few quizes, a mid-term, and a final. Blow one and it can be much harder to recover.</p>
<p>LOL, we were just having a converstation with D about her foreign language. She has gotten a 100 or close to it all three years so far of her language and knows almost nothing. She says they are allowed to use their notes on every single test! She thinks that even if she takes it all four years of HS, she won’t be able to place out of even a single semester in college.</p>