<p>Things are getting ramped up here also with lots and lots of work and tests. The stress is definitely setting in. She goes to bed anywhere between 10:30 and midnight and gets up at 5:45 to get ready for school. She just had her 16th birthday and got her learner’s permit so she’s been distracted by that up until now. But now that it’s over, reality is setting in. I sensed her stress tonight when I got home from the 6th grade open house so I let her drive around the block twice to get her mind off of it all.</p>
<p>She is in honors Physics bc our school does not let them go into an AP science until they’ve taken the Regents course. I’m hoping they change that policy by the time my boys get to high school.</p>
<p>I’ve been meaning to ask…how old are your 2015’s? I know the age cutoff is Sept. 1 in other parts of the country so I’m wondering if she’s one of the youngest here. Our cutoff is Dec. 1st.</p>
<p>D is in week 5, so things have been ramped up for a while. She’s the kid who needs to see the first bad grade before kicking into gear, so she’s now trying to make up for the first bad grades of the semester. So far, she’s (mostly) redeeming herself. This is the week that the first academic warning notes go out, so there’s something happening in all of her classes as teachers try to get grades in the grade. That’s a good thing, except it means too much work.</p>
<p>D’s school has no classes with the AP designation, but there are some classes that line up well with AP tests. So I can honestly say that D has no AP classes, but has a very tough schedule, and is planning to take 6 AP exams this year. </p>
<p>D is my baby, and she’s the usual age for grade, but my D’12 was/is young for grade. It wasn’t ever really an issue, although there were some funny things about being a college freshman and not yet 18.</p>
<p>twogirls, my sympathy to you and your D. We’ve been in “Mom and Dad can’t do anything right” mode for at least a year here with our D annoyed at the way I load the dishwasher, the way Dad talks on the phone…and everything else! And she thinks she knows better than we do when it comes to decisions for our younger one–S’18 will be taking a competitive entrance exam for a private all-scholarship high school in our area; it’s been my dream for him ever since he was in K and showed academic promise, but D is all negative about it (they have around a 15% acceptance rate) and implying that we’re just wasting our time and effort.</p>
<p>We’re only in week 3 (and they had just 2 half days in week 1) so not ramped up at all yet here. But I’m bracing myself for when we get there!</p>
<p>suzy100, I saw that change in Northeastern NMSF aid and was wondering when their USNWR ranking jumped whether they might scale back on merit. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly!</p>
<p>D usually goes to bed by about 10:30 but when she’s stressed over something, studying for a difficult test, writing a paper, etc., all bets are off.</p>
<p>We are also in week 5 and school is in high gear. So far all is mostly well even with the increased work load of junior year. The greatest frustration for me is that my daughter always compares herself negatively to her friends. They are more outspoken, self-promoting types and my D is a quiet perfectionist who sets impossibly high standards. She has this fantasy that everyone else is achieving these high standards but her. I don’t know why it is that she can’t form a realistic picture of herself. Even when she is the only one to get a high grade on something or wins an award for something, the friends explain it away and she accepts it.</p>
<p>My D2 has a March birthday, but so many folks here hold their kids back starting kindergarten that she’s middle-of-the-pack age-wise in her grade.</p>
<p>She typically gets to bed ~11:30pm. Morning alarm goes off at 7:10am and she needs to be out the door by 7:40ish to be butt-in-chair for 8am bell. (It’s wonderful living a half-mile from the school!)</p>
<p>We have a December 1 cutoff- she has a spring birthday. My older one is a winter baby so she was always the oldest in the class. This one is in the middle. </p>
<p>Got a text message this morning ( she sent it last night after I went to sleep) from my 2015 kid. She apologized for her mini meltdown and told me that she behaves that way when she feels as though she does not have a lot of time to get things done. She told me that she is not dropping her classes because she knows that she belongs in the classes that she is in and that she understands the work- just does not like to feel pressured with time. Tonight should be a real test- she has a game until 5:30 and then an SAT session from 7-8. Normally she does SAT on Friday but this Fri she has a makeup game due to a rain out. So tonight she will come home after her game ( stays for half of JV), do a tiny bit of hw and then we are out the door again at 6:50 to be home by 8:10 and begin hw/studying again. She needs to understand that there may be days when she feels stressed by the lack of time- that’s life. Most days she is home early and has at least 7 hours before going to bed. </p>
<p>She was thinking of doing winter track- wonder if she will change her mind LOL. If she is going to do sports she needs to understand that sometimes things get a bit stressful. </p>
<p>I am glad she admitted that she belongs in these classes. This is a kid who is in the very top of her class of about 400- of course she belongs there. Now we just have to work on the emotional piece and she will be fine. This is also the reason why she can’t be at an Ivy ( if she gets in). I think being in an honors program at a lower tier school might be the way to go, given her personality. I will say, however, that her meltdowns are improving as she gets older.
I envy those of you whose kids get two hours a night of hw and take Friday off. The kids in our school who are in these classes easily work 7 hours each weekday night ( including Friday) and all day Saturday and Sunday unless there are games. Of course there will occasionally be a night off- maybe 3 hrs of work. </p>
<p>With her aversion to time limitations perhaps the ACT is not the way to go LOL.
My older one is easier- a happy go lucky kid, easy- going, average student. This one will do me in…</p>
<p>D is in the middle of her 4th week and classes are going at full speed (according to D). Her bed time is getting later and later with each passing week - around 11 first two weeks, midnight last week, and closer to 1 this week. She is out of house by 630 and at school by 7 – I drive her to school both ways rather than taking the bus to give her a few more minutes of shuteyes. She is an even tempered introvert (no meltdowns yet) with no competitive spirit. She just goes around taking care of her stuff. </p>
<p>She has her final ACT Reading tutoring session tonight (9 pm). This is one of four ACT sessions she had - 2 on Science and 2 sessions on Reading. With only 4 hours of tutoring, it’s not about learning the materials per se, it’s more about fine tuning test taking skills/strategies. I am not sure how well it will work out. </p>
<p>Oh - my S is surrounded by kids in his classes who do 7 hours a night of homework, it’s just not his style. Or I guess it’s not our family’s style since my older kids never did that much either! I think the right balance is probably somewhere beteeen my son and your daughter. So if they ever marry and have kids, the kids will be just right? Your D will have great college choices for sure!</p>
That’s the question in my mind. Oh she could use more sleep, even though it doesn’t sound like it - she goes to bed normally around 11 to 11:30 and gets up at 6:45. We drive her to school, because it’s on our way to work, and that way she can get 20 min. more sleep. most of the time she is tired. she says she needs 9 hours of sleep to feel good. </p>
<p>My D. is a very young junior. I wish she were still a sophomore, so she’d have 3 more years to grow up before going to college. organizational skills and time management need to be improved before she leaves home. That doesn’t happen overnight. My feeling is it requires certain level of maturity that actually comes with age, in general. Of course kids are different.</p>
<p>IJD - you said your D12 was not 18 when she went to college. Was it a problem because she was not an “adult”?</p>
<p>It sounds like all of our kids could benefit from reading up on “Stanford duck syndrome.” That’s the phenomenon where everyone around looks like they are gliding effortlessly through life while you’re paddling like crazy to keep up. The thing is that, if you could look “below the water” in other people’s lives, you’d see that they’re all paddling just as hard as you are – and many of them probably think you make it look effortless. I try to remind my kid about that once in a while, and it seems to help.</p>
<p>My daughter stinks at pacing herself. If she has a paper due in 2 weeks she insists on doing it all today. That’s part of her problem. Not sure how college will work since they give you a syllabus on day one for the whole semester. Maybe she will feel the need to do an entire semesters worth of work in one weekend and then get stressed because she has no time!</p>
<p>D is a young junior - not yet 16. The school system HAD a December cutoff but when D was about 3, they started moving to September 1st. This meant that kids born between September and the interim cutoff could enter early or late. This means the ages of her classmates and the year below are all over the place. D is younger by more than a year than some other juniors and also younger than some sophomores. </p>
<p>As for homework and bedtime, D works very hard NOT to have any homework. She does a lot of work during school hours (if she finishes classwork early, she moves onto homework). She put a lot of the books she needs to read on her Nook so she reads during the bus ride to and from school. She does the majority of remaining homework before dinner and usually finishes up by 7 pm. </p>
<p>In her freshman year, D made the decision she needed sleep more than A’s - so freshman and sophomore years, she went to bed around 9-9:30. While it would have been nice for her GPA to get those A’s she sacrificed, I kind of like having a well-rested teenager in the house. She gets up at 5:30 to catch a 6:30 school bus (school starts around 7:15am). This year, she appears to be staying up later - going to bed closer to10pm.</p>
<p>@Slacker, are you a morning person? Anyway, it’s great your D gets up that early. Nobody in my household is a morning person. That probably affected D. I’ve heard friends’ kids getting up early like yours. some even can get some homework done in the morning. It’d “kill” D if she had to get up at 5:30, no matter how early she goes to bed. The first year in HS, she wanted to join the jazz band. But the band practiced everyday at 7am. So she decided not to go.</p>
<p>My d is closer to midnight most nights. I am hoping once softball is over that will push back to closer to 11. If she is really tired after a game, she heads to bed around 11 and sets her alarm to go off at 6. She works for an hr before she gets ready for school. I could never do that, I would spend the night worrying that I would sleep in/ not get it done etc </p>
<p>One of d2’s positive traits is that she is an organizer/planner. I think that is how she is surviving at the moment. She looks at the week’s softball schedule and really plans ahead. She spends the weekend doing homework that she knows she will not have time to do during the week.</p>
<p>All the girls on the softball team are stressed and staying up late. we were comparing notes at the game last night. There seems to have been a shift on the type of girl on the team. This years group are very academically driven as well as athletically talented. I wonder if that contributes to the success of the team this year? Now 9-0 : )</p>
<p>Sally my daughter also plans ahead if she knows she is going to have a late night at a game etc. Sometimes she takes it to an extreme. Great stats for the team!</p>
<p>When D leaves the house - that’s my cue to GET UP out of bed. I do absolutely nothing to get her out the door. It’s all on her: schoolwork, clothes, lunch, etc. I used to be a morning person but then I had kids.</p>
<p>Our morning routine: DH gets up around 4:45 and is out of the house by 5:30. D gets up a little after DH leaves for work (I think she takes his departure as cue to get up) and leaves at 6:23. Then I get up, pour a cup of coffee my husband brewed. At 7am I wake up S and we leave the house at 8am. I take him to school and then I go to work.</p>
<p>Young for our state as our cutoff is Sept 30 and her bday is in August. I believe the only two younger than she is transferred in from the UK. Many of her friends are a year or more older than she is, as it is sort of a thing around here to hold kids back if unsure - especially boys but sometimes girls too.</p>
<p>My DD just missed the cut off by 9 days and at the time saw no reason to push her ahead…I am loving that decision now because she will have her driver’s license for two years in high school, not just one!</p>
and was wondering when their USNWR ranking jumped whether they might scale back on merit. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly!</p>
Your D will have great college choices for sure!</p>
organizational skills and time management need to be improved before she leaves home. That doesn’t happen overnight. My feeling is it requires certain level of maturity that actually comes with age, in general. Of course kids are different.</p>