"He is always working on multiple projects simultaneously, with one or two in the background in his brain or his computer while starting or finishing another. ’ - Very good habit, multitasking is a key to success. D. used to write her papers in her head during her very long sport practices and then she would just type them at home. She continued at college to go over material in her head while walking from class to class and this was a great habit in medical school when she walked to her school. There are ways to use time efficiently and have some time for R&R and good night sleep.
Sometimes, when it’s this far into the year (particularly junior year) the only thing you really can do is say “I know it’s horrible right now. But you’ve got this. And this is as hard as it gets. It will be better next semester.”
My son and a couple of his friends were hideously over-extended last year because that’s the kind of kids they are. They sailed through busy freshman and sophomore years, but junior year it got real and by mid-spring semester they were all completely frazzled, to the point of taking the occasional day off just to catch up on work and completely dropping out of their social lives. Telling them it was okay to feel overwhelmed (no, other people are not handling this any better than you are, you just don’t see them having melt downs because they do it privately) and that it would feel better soon sounds like so much psychobabble, but it really did help.
My DD occasionally does some of her homework in school, but certainly not the bulk of it, and that is not the norm. In many cases, it’s just not possible because she doesn’t have her textbooks with her (and don’t say she should just carry them … her backpack already weighs well in excess of what it should, with 7 notebooks to transport + her gym bag for track). And oh by the way her physics homework is online; so unless she’s sitting at a computer in the library, she can’t work on that. Plus, she quite frankly needs to be paying attention in most of her classes; usually when she talks about doing homework at school, it’s because they had a sub and the in-class work didn’t take as long as predicted, or she’s doing it after finishing work in her “regular” classes. Study hall? Nope, don’t have them here. Breaks? Once a week … and that is usually time to go take care of errands (e.g., drop off this form or go see that teacher) or make up a missed quiz from leaving school for a meet. She has 30 minutes for lunch; she does do some work there occasionally. I’m glad some kids manage to do a lot in school; I’ve never seen how it is possible with the way our school day runs when you have multiple AP classes where the work is fairly intense and requires some sustained concentration over a period of time. She gets home from track at 5:00 PM. Her goal is to be in bed by 10:00 PM. Most nights she makes it; sometimes she even has some time to kick back a little. But when she has multiple tests or projects all hitting at the same time, then there is only so much to be done.
Mine did not have an option of doing the bulk of homework at home on the weekdays. She had a daily sport practice that took over 3 hours / day / 6 times a week. Lots of out of town meets that lasted 2 - 4 days. She would come home at about 10pm and crush. The History and AP English LIt. was done a lot at home, but others were done at school. It depends on school a lot. At tiny private HS with teachers who are much more available, it was not that hard to do. She never ever did her homework during classes, simply not possible.
My daughter became a master of squeezing in homework or reading time whenever and wherever she could. Half hour school bus ride? She read. If a substitute teacher ran out of busy work, she pulled out homework or problems from another class. Did she complete homework at school? I don’t think that was possible but she probably knocked off an hour off her homework time while at school. If she had her EC meeting at 6pm, she would stay after school, do her work in the school library between 2:30 and 5pm (when she would get dinner) - that’s 2 1/2 hours right there. Then when she came home at 8:30, she had about 1 or 2 hours left to do. She was usually in bed by 10 or 10:30pm I think she stayed up beyond midnight once a year during her time in high school. For awhile, she would come home from school, eat a snack and then go straight to the public library to study. She got a lot of work done there.
That said, she was fine with getting a B. As a high school freshman, she made the conscious decision that her sleep and health trumped grades (not really something a Chinese-American ‘Tiger’ Mom wants to hear but, in fact, what choice did I have? By 10th grade, I realized she made the better decision). In other words, for many students, something has to give: time, grades or his health. My child chose health. Now, there are consequences to this decision. She is NOT at a top X college but then again, I’m not so sure she would have gone to a top X college anyway. Maybe if she had pushed hard, she could have made better grades and gained admission to top X school. Eh. That still doesn’t mean she would have chosen these schools (she viewed the stressed out, sleep-deprived higher achieving classmates as vaguely nuts and she didn’t want to attend a college filled with them). I suspect many CC students wouldn’t find this a satisfactory solution (getting a B)
She didn’t find 11th grade that stressful. But we had front-loaded the SAT/ACT exams and she did not try to take many AP classes (I think she took three: AP World, Lang and Bio, the rest of her classes were Honors). She was stressed when she got the results of her October ACT and SAT exams. So, I made her take a step back and said, “no exams until June”. We spent the winter composing her college list based on her first semester junior GPA and her test scores. It was a fun exercise. We attended a CTCL presentation and she truly liked that. Through that, she found some interesting schools - not well known but they were good for her. She focused on schoolwork until March. Then she started her practice tests for the ACT (I had her choose one exam to retake) but I kept it to one practice section test a week. She never took the entire practice exam on a single day and she only did the entire exam a few times in a single week. It really was about pacing and not trying to do everything all at once.
The school did its part to reduce stress. The entire school has a single hour-long lunch period. That gives every student time to decompress during the middle of the school day. They can do homework, meet with teachers or make up a quiz if necessary but they can also play Cards of Humanity or just chill with their friends. Sometimes, the kids would do homework together during that time.
Trying to help teenagers change their routines and mindset is hard because they won’t listen to all of your advice. But you can still try to suggest some small things that can make a big difference:
Things seem difficult because he’s putting in the effort to do well (this presumes that he’s been doing well prior to the previous semester).
Don’t talk about college with friends. It becomes the only conversation topic after a while and he may not like people gossiping about his applications. He’s free to make a Facebook bragging post once he chooses which school he’s attending.
For every 50 minutes of work, take 10 minute breaks.
Your son needs to sleep and eat. This has been addressed in previous posts.
He needs to have some time where he doesn’t think about college or school work at all. Try for at least one hour. Planning at outing with friends on weekends is also an option.
One hour of R$R is not enough. I would say that the most of the evening should be non-academic activity, that refreshes brain very well, it makes them much more productive at academically related work.