She's talking about a gap year

MichaelNKat
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 08:52:47 +0000

snapdragonfly, I was thinking about your daughter’s situation and went back to re-read your original post. From it, one of the things that struck me is what can be done NOW to alleviate your daughter’s stress and burn out. How many auditions does she have left and when will they be over? Are the schools to which she is applying very selective academically and have her mid year grades been submitted to those schools that require them? i ask because so often, high school teachers are oblivious to the stresses that audition program applicants are dealing with on top of the normal high school curriculum and think that once applications are in, the college application process is over. In addition, There is a real tendency for MT bound students who are also committed academic students to totally overload their plate.

Is it possible for you and she to analyze what she really still needs out of her high school process to meet the needs of her college admissions, taking into account and prioritizing things like how important top flight grades are for the rest of the high school year (not saying she should become a slacker, but if she is “driven” to get that “A”, does she really need to have the pedal pressed to the floor at this point), the role and importance of those DC credits you spoke about and what is needed to secure them, how important is that overbearing drama teacher at this point in the process, in other words, identify all of the stressors as best you can and then determine which ones are really important now and which are not. Would that help your daughter prioritize where to spend her time and energy and give her the opportunity to cut back on those things that while once so important as she built her high school resume are not so important now?.

Taking care of her physical and emotional health is so much more important than anything that is going on in high school over the next 3 months. One of the things we did (we were such “bad” parents) was to support our daughter taking “mental health days” during the last three months of high school anytime she felt she really needed one. We encouraged her to cut back on extracurricular activities that were not core to her desire to perform and even there, the decision regarding various performance related activities was subject to evaluation (she decided not to perform with her school’s select choir in an audition based competition in New York despite a lot of pressure at school because she and her doc said she had vocal fatigue and in the scheme of her future life, taking care of voice and preventing injury was more important than a high school choir competition). So often, the image of second semester high school seniors being on “cruise control” is so off base, particularly for performing arts kids that it is really a good thing to find that cruise control button where you can.

As to the summer, if your daughter wants to do anything other than MT or performing, I would support that. As dedicated as these kids are, they need to have lives outside of performing and after 4 years of intense involvement culminating in the stress of college auditions, taking a break before diving back in - whether it be college or training during a gap year - can be a good thing. My daughter took a break from performing the summer after her senior year of high school, taking only about half a dozen voice lessons during the summer break just to keep her voice exercised. She spent a lot of time playing, sleeping, being with friends and just being a kid. After 4 years of an insanely packed life, it was a much needed and well deserved break. She emerged from the summer recharged and ready to move forward.