OK, from the bottom up. @thumper1 Yes, 5-7 hours of homework every day, but like I said she has her phone with her at all times, so who knows how much she is texting while doing work. She doesn’t complain about how much she has so I think she enjoys doing work and interacting with her friends on an off through the evening - but yes, she is sitting at her work station pretty much all night. At her age, the only thing she would rather be doing is texting her friends, so, if since she’s not complaining (and she would be if she wasn’t happy believe me) then I generally don’t worry. Last year was stressful for her, but this year is much better. No study halls at her school. I asked about that when she was having a rough time in AP World history this year. Was told no. She moved to an Honors class and that solved the problem. She comes home from school and cooks herself something to eat as soon as she walks in the door - she’s 95 lbs and needs constant fuel. Then she’ll graze throughout the evening. Don’t judge, but we don’t have a lot of sit down dinners. She gets home at 2:30 and needs to eat right away. My other daughter goes to another school and gets home at 4:00 and she wants something to eat right away too. So, they are on different schedules, especially during sports seasons, and pretty much prepare dinner for themselves - and they like it that way because they get to eat what they like. But yes, she has 3 hours less time in the pm during her sports season.
@mjrube94 Yes, she has taken three years of Spanish thank goodness! (one year counted from MS).
@LuckyCharms913 Yes, actually she and her sister are qualified soccer referees (she doesn’t play soccer but is a sports fan and knows all the stats and rules for all major sports) , but have never put that to use. Like I have mentioned, for the past four years, they’ve been doing sports pretty much full time even during the summer, so jobs have been difficult. But she chose not to do AAU sports in the summer this year, so that might be a possibility. I’ll have her check with her coach to see if he has any ideas for doing sports oriented volunteering.
@compmom Yes, we actually have three adopted children, one much older, and it is very common for a large percentage of those who came from difficult background to have learning problems (and spending 9 months in an orphanage is definitely a difficult background - you’d be surprised how many of their teachers don’t understand the implications of their early lives). At the beginning of each year, I write a note to all their new teachers and explain their circumstances and their issues. That helps somewhat especially with D2 - her teachers have been very understanding when I explain how long it takes for her to get her work done - they all have offered to give her extra time if she needs it - and she’s only needed to do that less than a handful of times. With D1, who goes to a private school, they haven’t been so understanding and she’s the one I’m certain has ADHD, a neurologist confirmed it, but I knew the first week we had her that she was hyperactive. We tried treating D2 last spring during her stressful junior year (the first time I really thought she needed it ) and she ended up in the ER at 2am after a horrible reaction to the very first dose of the med. So she will go untreated. Her college is very understanding about these types of issues so I have told her to be proactive if she starts experiencing any problems after she starts in the fall. I feel they will do their best to help her succeed. I will look into getting D1 tested this summer - because I have definitely had that thought in the back of my mind. She wants to take the hardest classes because she is competitive and her grades are a big source of her self esteem. I definitely do not push her - in fact, I’ve tried to get her to scale back, but she wants to be academically successful. And next year, she WILL have three regular level courses so hopefully that will give her a break - but yes, generally, there is a huge gap in the abilities in the regular classes vs the Honors/AP courses - and re the types of students in those classes so that’s another reason she wants to be in the higher level classes. She is shy and feels most comfortable with her close peers. Now about those schools you mentioned - Bates, Bowdoin, etc. I know she’s a good student, but I just really don’t think there’s a chance in he#$ that she would get admitted to any of those types of schools (Except a Goucher type school possibly). My older daughter with much better stats, EC’s etc, with a private school education (at a highly ranked school) was rejected by all the very selective colleges she applied to, so I’m not going to have D2 waste her time with anything less than a 40% or so admit rate. I don’t think those rigorous colleges would be a good fit for her anyway with her reading deficiencies. It would be way too stressful. But thank you for thinking that she was of that caliber! And I have the feeling that she is going to follow one or more of her friends to college, which will most likely be an in-state public. And finally, she seems pretty content and happy with her life. She has a lot of good friends - she and her sister don’t go hang out with their friends constantly like I did when I was young, which I think is kind of strange, but she is perfectly happy lounging on the couch in her free time (on the weekends) texting and snatchatting them all the while. She also gets together with them every two or three weeks or so, goes to football games and her bestie spends the night fairly often. So I don’t know what a normal teenaged life is like these days, but from what I see, it isn’t constantly hanging out with their peers. I think part of the explanation might be that we live in a area with very heavy and dangerous traffic and our older daughter didn’t get her driver’s license until she was 18 (and most of her friends still don’t have licenses and they are graduating next week!) D2 is a young one for her class and won’t turn 16 until July, but can’t get her license for a few months after that (you have to wait for 9 months after you get your permit here). So having to count on Mom and Dad to drive you around kind of restricted their social lives. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and assistance.
@Parentof2014grad I think you have a point. My daughter has always learned things at her own pace and I forgot about that until last night. She met milestones later than her sister, but she always met them eventually. Her first grade teacher was concerned because she wasn’t reading at grade level, and then in third grade, she caught up. It was in 7th grade that she really started to shine and has been making straight A’s since then. I held her sister back in Kindergarten (the hyper one who also had amblyopia) because her birthday was one day short of the cut off day anyway - very young. So she went thru school as the oldest in her class and did well. I often wish I would’ve done the same with D2 since she is still young for her class with a July Birthday. But she was calm and able to focus - and I’m a bad mother - she was also a terror, so I needed to get her into full day school for my sanity, so she has gone through school as one of the youngest in her class. Again, hindsight is 20/20, you do your best. I really feel that she will, like you said, mature at her own pace. And compared to my education and accomplishments - with her skills and knowledge, she now is so far ahead of where I was at her age and probably even when I was half-way through college (except for reading - I read 4 or 5 books a week, but that was back in the days before cable TV and Iphones). So yeah, I shouldn’t be worried at all about this child.
Just trying not to wind up being mentioned in the “most annoying thread” thread 