Frustrated re amount of homework - quit fabulous classes to keep kid's (and my sanity???)

“Would love to hear from parents who have bucked the system, forced kids into regular classes and still found their kids loved school, loved life and got into a solid university. Does that ever happen?”

Yes. My D (who is a freshman in college) was a humanities kid and dialed back on the sciences. I don’t think she took a single AP science class. She took regular physics her senior year, along with a study hall. She took art classes freshman and sophomore year. She opted for AP Stats in junior year over AP Calc because at her school it was easier - took that senior year. It was all about balancing the hard stuff in the areas of her interest with easier classes in the areas that didn’t interest her as much. She attends a top 20 school.

Kids who combine high school sports with several AP and honors classes run short on sleep and it is hard for the whole family.

Anyone have a son or daughter on high school swim team? There are 20 hours per week of workouts before (up at 5 a.m.) and after school and meets, and about 35 hours of classes - add on 5-6 hours of homework per night or more, and mandatory team dinners the night before each meet and if the swimmer gets 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night, she is lucky.

Both S16 and S14 are in programs that require a lot of work. S16 never put 4-6 hours per evening in and has rarely put in half of that. He sometimes chose to simply not do assignments he didn’t want to do. He ended up with D’s in English sophomore and junior years. He did very well on the SAT and made NMSF, but his GPA is in the 3.3 range. S14 is in a different program in the same high school, and he’s supposed to be making up a project he didn’t turn in right now. He thought about dropping out after freshman year, but the director talked him into staying. He’s close to the point where my wife will give him an “ask for help or drop out of the program” ultimatum. It’s at our home school, so he wouldn’t have to switch. In the younger one’s case I suspect there may be some mild executive functioning issues at play. The problem is that there are parts of the program he does enjoy. We’re not willing to let him put himself in a position to not succeed, though. Both my wife and I agree we wouldn’t have wanted to be in programs like our kids are in.

I have a feeling there may be a few things going on.

Since your daughter’s doing well in her classes, she’s probably feeling overwhelmed because she’s putting in extra effort. Teenagers often don’t recognize that their coursework is supposed to challenge them, and instead think there’s something wrong with them if they need to put in extra time to thoroughly learn and review material.

Some schools have a huge jump in rigor between freshman and sophomore year. It may take a little while to get used to this.

Athletics can eat up a lot of time.

I can’t offer many solutions since you daughter is ultimately the one most familiar with her academic situation and schedule. But I think these may help give more perspective.

My kid dialed down on History (time consuming) and Science (not interested), bulked up on Math (easiest) and Languages (relatively easier), and got Sports (not interested, time consuming) waivers by focusing on Arts (easiest, likely major). If that impacts college admissions down the line, so be it, but hopefully Arts schools will be understanding. Even with this shuffle there is homework each weekday till 9:30 pm, which is unhealthy in my opinion, and very limited time to hang out with friends, which is very unhealthy in my opinion. But it does free up time for Arts ECs (very interested) and Arts-related community service (very, very interested) outside of school. Also it maintains all Honors and AP courses and an A to A+ average.

Growing up in a foreign country I never had this kind of cram-school extraordinaire academic pressure practiced by competitive US high schools, and still got an education that enabled me to succeed in the USA.

To the OP, drop courses that she is not interested in, add the ones that she is interested in and that is therefore relatively easy for her. Forego a broad education as much as possible and focus on areas of strength and interest. That’s the only way to survive the insanity in my opinion.

As far as expecting the school to implement measures to be kinder and gentler to the honors kids, you should be aware you’ve already got that! Our kids don’t get PE credit for sports–my daughter will have to overload (9 classes) next semester to get her PE credit. My daughter comes home a half hour earlier than yours but she doesn’t have any hour long study hall before practice. Giving PE credit to athletes and having a daily hour-long study hall is already taking measures to help these students, help that many other kids are managing without.

As with taking PE vs. doing sports, I think you may find that if you drop out of honors classes you will be in the same boat as with the PE–un-motivated trouble-making classmates–and your kid will be dying to get back into working harder in the honors/AP classes. If you want to be in a class where the majority of the kids are motivated and doing the homework and where fights aren’t going to break out, you need to be in honors/AP. Your school may not be like that, but that’s how it was in my school and is in my kids school.

Other than the 5 a.m. part, that pretty much describes all varsity sports.

Anyway, from the student perspective, welcome to the club. Since it’s unlikely to change (and even if it did for one high school, there are 30K other HS’s full of kids attempting to go to the top colleges), time management in key. 3, 4, 5 hours of HW is not uncommon, but one trick that I’ve found is to utilize down time throughout the day. A free 15 minutes can be used to get through a chapter of the English assignment rather than texting friends.

If you have excellent teachers and she has a 92 average and is running, that is fantastic, I think you really only have to work on her health and stress issues. She should find friends that she can study with so that she has some social life / study time overlap. Is she really getting less than 8 hours of sleep or say 7? When she studies all weekend. does this mean she spends all day in her room (and is she really studying) or is hanging out with family and friends and putting in 6 hours … which might be OK?

Would a tutor help (if she either is spinning her wheels on difficult topics or having trouble with say writing and you can’t help her a bit as a sounding board and telling her if you think her essay is an A or a B)?

The workload sounds a bit high, but maybe recordkeeping will help you figure out how much too high. I would do a bit of recordkeeping too, if she is counting an hour that you saw her in the kitchen 3 times and hear her giggling on her phone in her room … subtract that one.

You should consult the guidance office and see what the norm is in your school 2 APs as a sophomore sounds pretty demanding … the rest, not so much. What colleges does she want to get into? Naviance can tell you what GPAs get you into which UC or which CSU (in this case Cali GPA which specifically will tell you AP/GT vs. honors).

The excellent teachers is something that is really hard to find, so if your school has these people in place, I would try to make it happen and maybe just drop down one class that she is not interested in … or switch to some of the easier APs.

What grade is she in and what subjects are most interesting to her. AP Euro is an elective, can she take another honor or regular history class? Another option would be to take honors or regular bio. 9th and 10th grade, taking one AP class is fine.


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The cost to her health, her extracurriculars, and our family is excessive. I have no idea what to do!!!!!<<

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Her health and family should always come first.

Based on our experience of D13 and S16, 3-4 hours per night of homework for a full schedule of AP/honors classes is about par for the course and can be manageable for many kids even with ECs. It really depends on the kid (and family expectations for time for family commitments).

My D attends a top 30ish LAC (and got into a higher ranked LAC as well). She is a theatre/singing kid and took advanced/AP track in English/Social Studies but dropped down to honors track in science, math and Latin. She was an A student with a few B’s sprinkled in (ironically, usually in the easier honors classes because they were in areas not her strength). She also had advanced/auditioned choir and advanced theatre class every year. Her ECs were demanding: competitive figure skater, theatre, an outside a capella group, voice lessons, and a regular volunteer commitment. She very rarely did homework on Friday or Saturday nights but typically spent almost all day Sunday on homework. And her sleep really suffered. She managed to be in bed by 10 or 10:30 through 10th grade but after that, forget about it. Midnight was more normal (even with leaving the house at 5:30 a.m.). That schedule was tough but she really enjoyed all her activities and it has set her up well for college where she is arguably even busier. And she apparently doesn’t sleep at college either.

D16 has a full AP schedule. He is more math/science oriented (AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Physics, AP Calc BC) but stuck with AP Lit and AP German this year. He also did AP US, AP Econ, AP Gov. His grades are also very good although he has had 3 or 4 Bs through the years. He is in a fall varsity sport which takes up a lot of time in season, and on club team winter and spring (which is less time intensive for practice but more time on weekend for games). He also plays an instrument and is in marching band/takes private lessons. But other than that, he doesn’t have big EC commitments. His top college choices are ranked in the 30s and we are hoping that his relatively weak ECs won’t hurt him. He spends a lot of time on homework but doesn’t complain very often. He just sees it as part of his routine. He is sometimes up pretty late but normally is in bed by 11 p.m. or so. This year, once fall sport is over, S has a part-time job lined up.

Neither kid ever had a study hall. It was too hard to fit in schedule with the theatre/music/band classes (and for my son, both AP Bio and AP Chem are double periods since there is no pre requisite year of the subject prior to the AP class).

Our HS does not do +/- so an A- counts the same as an A and both my kids learned to prioritize their work (especially in subjects they didn’t love) to do enough to get the A- but necessarily killing themselves to get A or A+.

Again, this might seem like a crazy schedule but it has worked for my kids and is pretty typical of the top 10% (at least) of students at our public HS. I do think it’s hard to ratchet kids back from the norm. But there are plenty of kids at our HS who had good grades in all CP/honors courses and less EC commitments and decent test scores who ended up at perfectly fine (and better than fine) colleges including our state flagship (although students from our HS generally have to have at least a 3.8 W GPA to get in these days).

I would listen to your kid and keep letting her do what she can manage without sacrificing her health (either physical or mental) and whatever level of commitment/attendance you deem appropriate at family events.


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"Would love to hear from parents who have bucked the system, forced kids into regular classes and still found their kids loved school, loved life and got into a solid university. Does that ever happen?"<<

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My oldest took honors chem instead of AP, and Honors US History instead of APUSH. Also did not take 4 years of language because it interfered with a recreational sport that he loved. He attended an ivy league school for engineering, and was also accepted at other top level schools.

In what way is the work affecting her health? Is she sick a lot? If it’s a matter catching colds often then you should focus on her nutrition, make sure she eats lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, drinks lots of water. Exercise can reduce stress and sounds like she’s doing lots of exercise with cross country. OTOH cross country may be too time consuming, she might be better off getting out of that and do something less time consuming like PE. If that’s still too much, then switch out of the class she least enjoys to a lower level class.

ohhhhh…brother… no…way…out… I am groaniing at this decision. Based on your responses, and my own ideas, I think I am going to do a few things::
1 - Talk to the Honors English teacher and ask his advice on shifting downward on English. Encourage him to continue to do in-class essays vs out of class. He does this sometimes, but I would love it if he would do it even more. After all, isn’t the key to writing as an adult being able to be fast and effective? DD1 would say this was absolutely key for her in college, and I don’t think DD2 has had as much of this. It would, in turn, lower her evening load. Question the “recreational reading” assignment which is a nonfiction book of their choosing and supposed to be 40 minutes a night.
2. Continue to encourage her to find pockets of time where she can save time.

3. Talk to the coach - is there any flexibility in her not attending every meet, when she is frankly in the lower 50% of her team? She takes things quite literally, and if he says everyone must go, she will be there. This might not be the best approach. Become more aggressive about picking her up after her event vs taking the team bus (although we are already doing this)…
4. Figure out a way to encourage the teachers to be more clear on the point value of busy work. If an assignment is worth 15 points, and that section of the grade is worth 10%, they should know so they don’t spend an hour. This has improved since we moved toward using “Aeries,” but teachers are not good about telling kids beforehand how many points an assignment is worth. Frankly, I think this is essential.

We should bookmark this thread and show it to those posters (a few show up every year) who claim American high schoolers don’t work as hard as their European/Asian counterparts…

I would like to add a nuance to that. The high achieving American high schooler works far hard than his or her Asian counterpart, in my experience. But the average to low achieving American high schooler works far less. This is because Asian countries typically have the same curriculum for everyone. A low performing kid can’t just graduate from high school without doing calculus, for example.

Since the latter are the overwhelming majority, on average the American high schooler works far less than the Asian counterpart. This is not only within a school, it is also within a region as different schools have different amounts of funding and hence different rigor. It also differs by race and geography as schooling is done to local standards, and different communities have different attitudes towards education. In Asia however a common standard across the country for all students in a given grade is typical.

I have no experience with Europe.

Personally, I think a big part of your “frustration” is the unrealistic time estimates that you received from the teachers… And it can psychologically be a downer to a teenager who is struggling to “keep up” with HW that a teacher says should take no more than xx minutes.

Instead of under-seling the work requirement, the honors/AP teachers at our school nearly over-sell the time required to encourage kids on Day 1 to consider taking the less rigorous class instead.

If her health is really being impacted, then change things right away. Or I would really consider figuring out how to help her control stress and also how to make wise choices on how to allocate her time. Stress management is a critical life skill … and having to run to cope could be signs of an issue …

Her ECs need to balance with her academics.

Family time could be a matter of unreasonable expectations or her insistence on studying on a Saturday night instead of going to grandma’s. I would say having dinner together every night and a few hours each weekend day and mandatory attendance at all of grandma’s birthdays is reasonable, if you expect more, these are HSers … so get used to it. Kids with active academic and EC lives do not have a lot of time to hang out with their parents or siblings, again quality time … TV watching is not spending time with mom.

Most kids who go to the Ivies or top schools will work really hard in HS and have limited free time. Most of these kids are well adjusted slightly high energy kids who still kiss mom on the way to the bus and go to granny’s 80th and get 7 hours of sleep a night. You can also adjust her schedule if you feel that getting into the top school not her goal in life. I understand how competitive the UCs can be from several sources … but there are other paths and no reason to kill yourself if she is happier anyway at a less competitive school (or schools, and think specifics since you are on CC).

If SHE is really competitive … then she and your family may have to kick it up and make some sacrifices. If you opt out of the harder classes, well, others will be in UCB, UCLA, UCR. Other kids are taking 11 APs with mostly As.

But make those grandma parties, no one lives forever and family is important. If grandma is young and vibrant enjoy her company now … or enjoy g-grandma now… Party counts as family time for that day, so back to the room if that is what she wants / needs for rest of Sat.

Hear! Hear! Schools and colleges do a huge disservice by letting students get into an academic program with which they can’t cope. I am very happy to note that your school limits that option. In my kid’s school, the department decides who can get into which level of course, based on prior years’ performance. There’s no arguing with them. They also limit 9th graders to 5 academic courses max, and the rest to 6 academic courses max. That way, no kid becomes over-committed relative to their academic abilities.

I’m not sure what you would want the school to do. All they can do is suggest your daughter change classes, or perhaps, drop her sport. I’m not sure what the teachers could change. You’ve said so yourself–there’s not a lot of busy work, and the teachers can’t stop having tests/quizzes or papers. Unless your daughter isn’t as efficient with studying or homework as you think she is, then I don’t see what could change besides your daughter making different choices that give her a more manageable workload, although I don’t think 3-4 hours of homework is an unusual amount. Is she using her study hall effectively? That is an extra “free” hour in her day and is a godsend, as many kids don’t get them.

Her teachers said a half-hour of homework for each class, right? That’s 2.5 hours of homework right there, and it’s not unreasonable for students to have to do more if they are studying for a test or working on a paper or project. You can have her talk to her teachers to ask if what she is doing sounds like more time than expected, but I can’t see them changing the amount of the coursework given. If you’re daughter is doing more than expected, perhaps they could give tips of what she could do better.

This is still a choice. She chose to do a more time-intensive sport, as opposed to PE. There’s nothing wrong with that choice, but in my opinion, this doesn’t seem like an issue of taking these classes vs. going to a grandparent’s birthday party. It’s whether she has the time to do both high-level academics and a sport. It’s hard to be an athlete and still take mainly honors/AP classes, where the workload and expectations are higher, and she has to decide if it’s worth it to do both. She might decide that it is, but it’s still a choice. It sucks that she has to choose, but there are only so many hours in a day. These choices happen all the time.

Are there other honors/AP kids in your daughter’s classes who are also in a sport? How are they doing with the amount of work? In my experience, the kids who take mainly honors/AP classes tend to be in the same classes with each other and follow generally the same schedules. Do you know any other parents at the school you could talk to? If nothing else, having someone who “gets it” to vent to can be nice.

What grade is she in? Taking two APs in your sophomore year can be challenging–remember these are supposed to be on par with college level classes! Is this the norm for students at her school? Honors/AP classes is designed for high-achieving students (like your daughter), sure, but a nearly full load of honors/AP classes isn’t necessarily designed for an athlete for exactly this reason. It can be hard to juggle both.

S’s hs did not allow freshman to take APs. He still ended up taking 8.5 APs (.5 was AP govt). He was a 4 year athlete, including a varsity captain. He did lots of ECs. But for S the key was that he made a decision as hs sophomore that he wasn’t going to crazy and obsess with trying to get into the most selective colleges. He had 4 or 5 colleges in mind that he felt he would be happy at. As he wanted a great overall hs experience, he ended up only taking 4 academic courses during junior year (AP Eng, AP Physics, APUSH, and H precalc) and 4 academic courses during senior year (AP Eng, AP Chem, AP Calc, AP Govt/H Econ). I would also note he took a DE fine arts req in summer after soph year. So did he work hard at times, yes, but not so much that he ran short of sleep or was stressed out. He had a great hs life and ended up being accepted at his number one college choice.