@ME0909 – you have described D19. She is trying very, very hard, and has some classes where she is doing well (honors history with a 99 average), but honors algebra 2 is such a struggle. She sees her teacher after school at least twice a week, and the teacher is so generous with her time to try to give extra help, but there’s a disconnect somewhere between the practice exercises and the test. She ended up with a F for 1st quarter. So two As, two Bs, two Cs and an F.
@eandesmom – D19 has worked with her school counselor and has a request to drop down a level in Algebra 2, but these requests do not come easily and there is some sort of committee that meets weekly to consider such requests. We don’t know if and/or when they may meet to consider D19’s case. I know if she drops down, the F will show on her transcript since we did not get the request approved before the end of the quarter.
D19 is seeing a private counselor to try to work and talk through the stress. I wish I could do more to help.
@OrangeFish and @ME0909 sorry you are encountering some challenging times. I hope you can work with the schools and your kids to get things resolved in a positive manner. I am sure it’s difficult to deal with this. Good luck.
To those whose kids are having serious struggles in school: Speaking as someone who’s faculty at an open-access institution, and therefore who see s a lot of students who struggled in high school (and beyond), I have a few thoughts, in no particular order:
[ul][]Yes, college is not for everybody—and one can make a really, really good living off of an apprenticeship path, too. (Plus, an electrician’s job is less likely to be offshored than an electrical engineer’s. Just sayin’.) That has its own pitfalls, though—you have to go either direction with eyes open.
[]That said, college options are available, and we do have to be careful about telling kids who have a couple Cs—or even a couple Fs!—on their transcript that they’re inherently unable to cut it in an academic setting.
[]I once taught a student who flunked one particular class needed for graduation two times (and flunked it badly both times), and I’d quite honestly thought they were a hopeless case. (They wanted to be a high school English teacher. I’m not entirely joking when I say that I saw flunking them as a way of protecting my own kids and grandkids from this person as a teacher.) They then took off a year, got treated for depression, came back, and were one of the best students in the class on their third try. (And the curriculum had been revamped somewhat in the meantime—it wasn’t just having sat through it all before.) The moral of the story: Find out if there’s something non-academic (mental illness, learning disability, mild but real vision or hearing impairments, or such) going on—and if there is, get it treated.
[]Some people need struggles to wake them up. I’ve posted before that I was the brilliant slacker sort in high school (I found my old report cards recently—I was an even worse student than I’d remembered), and I flunked out of college. It was hard, terrifying, and (importantly!) expensive, but it woke me up to the point that I recovered, and later got my associates with honors and my baccalaureate with Latin honors, and eventually earned a PhD from an Ivy and am now tenured faculty. Second chances are available for those who take advantage of them.
[li]In some cases, community college isn’t just a “save money for two years” option, it’s the best option. One reason they were originally developed as a way to allow people to see if college is the right path for them, and to do so without a huge amount of financial risk.[/ul][/li]I’m sure there’s more I could say on this, but that’ll do for now.
@OrangeFish When DS19 was struggling with Geometry last year, he used Yay Math videos on you tube to help understand the concepts better. He could pause and go over it repeatedly until he understood it. Maybe that could help your daughter. I would also recommend having her evaluated for anxiety . It truly can be disabling to many people .
Hugely agree with @dfbdfb on wait-and-see. I had a horrific high school experience for a lot of reasons; got Ds in Bio and Geometry, suspensions, awful rapport with parental units, etc etc. I had to mature a lot before I got it together. Community college is a great bridge as well, financially and maturity-wise.
We used a tutor for D19’s middle school math struggles and it did help, though I wasn’t sure at the time. I think just being able to “talk math” in a nonpressure, nongraded environment, with a teacher (he taught at a different school and moonlighted as a tutor) who wasn’t going to penalize her for screwing up, was a real confidence-builder.
So D is doing well - not awesome, but it’s what it is. We have a semester system with trimester report cards within each semester, which is bizarre. She’s gotten two report cards - first all As and a couple of Bs, second, four As, two Bs and a C+ (the old Chinese nemesis). She has gotten some decent test grades of late, so that’s good.
Bad stuff: We are on the financial precipice as far as keeping her in the school, which is very expensive. I’m doing financial aid apps now for her current school, as well as two other privates which might offer more FA.
Good stuff: As word filtered around the current school that she might leave, we have been approached by various deans and teachers who all want her to stay, saying that she’s awesome and to please give the school a chance to literally counter any offer she gets elsewhere. Never thought I’d hear of a bidding war in high school!
Adding S19 to those losing scouting mojo. In our case, he says, well, I have three years to complete Eagle… He did not go to Philmont last summer and does not want to go to Northern Tier this summer. He earned his Life almost two years ago. In my view, he just needs six months of focus to complete 5 partials and the project.
Being a 12th year scout mom, I am not going to let him slack off. S17 dropped out early in 7th grade. I have been serving on the troop committee although I retired from the committee chair position. We have wonderful troop parent volunteers cheering along. We have a senior in the troop who will age out (turn 18) in January. During the last committee meeting, everyone offered to help him privately to complete several merit badges. We have Eagle scouts who offered to guide and help other Life scouts to finish strong. I plan to sit down with S19 during next week, set up and plan out work in small pieces to get them done, hopefully with as little pain as possible.
Hugs to everyone having disappointments and difficult time. =((
Grades are posted in the range of Good Enough but not Spectacular. S19 is saying MIT or CalTech, oh boy. Miracles can happen but I am sure he will not want to forego any sleep before and during college.
@Gatormama Hope a workable financial solution can be reached.
We continue to work through this. Another test this week and another 68. And he claims he knows the material. He studied together with a friend and says they understood equally - but his friend got a 90. S just panics when he sits down to take a test. Yesterday they did some problems in class and he was only one of 5 who got them all right. Yet he is sitting in the basement grade wise. This is an honors level class. He refuses to move down. He says that he has no trouble understanding the honors material and sees what they are doing in the lower level class and it is way too easy. I think I’m going to do some research on techniques for not panicking during tests as I think that is really his issue.
S19 is hanging in there, but I’m looking forward to the HS musical being over. He’s in rehearsals and he’s at school, 8am to 6pm, then sports 7-8:30pm. He’s starting to look a bit run down. He has his first weekend off in ages coming up. Qtr 1 grades came out and were fine, so good there. He’s not chasing a 4.0. Anyhow, his school doesn’t go over 4.0 (top is A and there are no A+'s) so you’d really have to get only As with no A-'s your whole 4 yrs to get a 4.0.
He had a downer month for sports in October. All his coaches were in foul tempers. Must have been something in the water. Things have gotten better in November. His soccer team finally won a couple games so the coach is now happier and in his 2nd sport, the coach retired (and is now happier).
D16 is coming home for Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to relaxing. We don’t do a big dinner. We’ll head to a friend’s cabin, cook something, not necessarily turkey, together, play board games and go hiking in the fall colors and quiet hills that have that ‘winter is just around the corner’ look to them. The hunters will be driving by with bucks in the pick-up bed. Smoke will be in the air and the sound of chainsaws will be heard as folks finish laying up a few cords for winter. With any luck, a cold front will roll in and bring the first blanket of snow.
@mom23travelers When kids did Greek fest during 4th or 5th grade, many used white pillow cases with three holes (for head and arms). A standard pillow case won’t work for a 6-footer but perhaps a white body pillow case (20"x54") might work? :)) :)) The girth is only 40" though. :)) Maybe just a white flat sheet and then cut and stitch and wrap around =))
Just received a text from DS19 who is at the Youth in Government conference. His bill was signed off by the Youth Governor. Now it will be given to every state senator and representative with the hope that it will be sponsored by someone and possibly become a law. He thoroughly enjoyed the process.
DS19 is also working towards Eagle. I am hoping that he earns it by the summer between Sophomore and Jr year .
@me29034 my d19 has a lot of anxiety issues, especially related to testing.
through trial and error some things that have helped her:
*Rubber band on the wrist- to snap when the anxiety is building so much she loses focus
*Practice taking a 10 second time out- going to a happy place (for her it’s Disney world) and breathing calmly and slowly
*swearing inside her head- so she is a kindest, sweetest kid who internalizes everything. I realized if she does something so out of character like swearing, it releases stress. She does it inside her head so she doesn’t get into trouble. And since The Good Place came out, she’s more like to be thinking “Fork this test, it’s bullshirt” instead of “What would Khloe Kardashian Say?” It helps some.
*test strategy reminder- I remind her she knows this stuff and Stay confident. Whenever possible if she freezes up to skip the question and come back to it.
@me29034 have you considered any kind of evaluation? Sometimes kids really can’t put into words what it is that gives them anxiety and test taking strategies or group studying may not get them there. As our kids get older and hormones come into play, I personally feel that signs of depression, anger and anxiety should be taken seriously. Test anxiety can come from fear of failure, perfectionism, timing and organizational skills, and a whole slew of things that really have nothing to do with whether or not the child knows the material or not but it not always as simple as test taking strategy. If it were me I would likely have chats with both the GC and our pediatrician just for their insight as a starting point.
My S19 used to boil over, and then shut down, very much perfectionist issues and still does from time to time (though it is limited to French at the moment). His is ultimately very very much fear based. Not remotely logical but it is there and as such, is valid. It is his fear whether it makes sense or not.
A few therapy sessions years ago were of some help. He simply needed someone that wasn’t myself or my H, to talk to. We needed some insight as to what was in his head as he has a hard time articulating it. He also has some strategies to help pull himself out of these spin outs when they happen. Of course they are so much rarer now, he forgets them. We had a good chat last night about French and what was going on and made some progress, finally, in getting to the root issues.
And they have nothing to do with knowing the material. Or the class itself. In our case it is a matter of patience, listening, asking the right questions and when those don’t work, asking the same ones in many different ways to try and draw out what is really going on.
Well we are onto 2nd quarter now. 1st quarter grades were good, so that was a relief. He was really working hard last semester. Soccer is done and son19 says he says so much free time now. His First Robotics ramped up though, and his 3 man team won a special prize at this weekends contest for Most Innovative. He was really happy about that. He spent the entire day at this event, pretty time consuming, but he had a great time.
I read that schools can see them on 12/5 and students on 12/12 (I think). I seem to recall that S17 only got the paper version from the school as a sophomore and after that set up the actual account. How soon the school sends them home is another question entirely.
S19 has a collegeboard account as he took a subject test. I expect the PSAT score will show up there after their ‘matching.’ (name, birth day, email, etc)
So two As, two Bs, two Cs and an F.