<p>The current school year(Junior Year) has been particularly challenging for my son, and it has been having adverse affects on all aspects of his life(As far as I can tell).</p>
<p>Is this common amoung Juniors? How was your son/daughter during their Junior Year?</p>
<p>My son’s junior year was the toughest. Things should get better as the year goes on</p>
<p>My daughter and I are living the same life that you and your son are, Decisions.</p>
<p>Junior year is the worst.</p>
<p>Yes, there is a lot of pressure to perform in Jr. year.</p>
<p>Ditto, junior year was the most difficult for my two older sons. More AP classes, state testing, the math, ACT, SAT, varsity sports…yuck of a year.</p>
<p>And pray he doesn’t hit the junior year slump. Then it will be even worse.</p>
<p>As I recall, Junior year was kind of depressing around our home – a classmate (former girlfriend, in fact) died, the courses were a real slog, and there were a whole bunch of minor disappointments a la death of a thousand cuts. I’m probably remembering it worse than it was.</p>
<p>Junior-senior summer, on the other hand, was fantastic. My son always seemed to make personal quantum leaps over the summers, and that summer in particular was a huge boost in confidence and independence for him.</p>
<p>Hang in there. It gets better. :)</p>
<p>My D stayed up all night one night last week finishing something for APUSH. I just thought she had procrastinated, but everyone seems to have stayed up until at least 4 am, and many others stayed up all night. She gets no sleep, yet her grades are still lower than in previous years.</p>
<p>At our house, sophomore year was the worst. Not sure why, but grades slipped from first year and a couple of classes didn’t click. Jr. year has been a significant improvement - grades are back up, enjoying EC’s; but I share missypie’s concern about sleep. My D is up until all hours finishing projects, studying, etc. and I worry that she won’t be able to keep up that pace. Especially when she’s involved with theater Tech Week (which includes staying at school until 10:30 every night for two weeks) several times a semester. She doesn’t do anything halfway, which is good (mostly) but the pace is crazy. I think she’s motivated to go full steam to be in the best shape she can be for college apps next year. But last year was just a slog.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention: My son went through “senioritis” in his junior year. Finished strong in senior year, but went through a phase in junior year where he just didn’t want to do anything. Thankfully he snapped out of it quickly after a meeting with a teacher who cared a lot.</p>
<p>As I just posted in the 3.0-3.3 parents thread, my son hit rock bottom in the first half of his junior year. He couldn’t get organized, couldn’t motivate himself, wasn’t sleeping well, and had seemingly lost all confidence in himself as a student. Sometime over the winter, something clicked, a few very timely good things happened to him, and in the second half of the year he found his way out of the slump. He’s been on an upswing ever since. </p>
<p>I think the only advice I can give, looking back, is to try as hard as you can not to broadcast any disappointment and anxiety you may be feeling. He’s almost certainly disappointed and anxious enough for the both of you. All you can do is listen a lot and take every possible opportunity to remind him that you believe he can make things better.</p>
<p>A major bane of our existence is the continuation of “craft” projects. Admittedly, some of the most time consuming stuff is due to drill team. But last week for pre-AP Physics, D had to make and paint a foam-board life sized tomb stone for a dead physicist, to which she attached a report on the guy. The report was done soon enough, but she was up till all hours cutting out, painting and decorating the %@$% tomb stone. For an AP English project, the paper itself was done days in advance, but the teacher let it be known that a good paper would only get them a C - he wanted them to compete with each other on presentation factors - fancy fonts, fancy paper, lots of pictures and graphics…so again, up until 3 am with all the fluff, when the actual paper was finished 4 days earlier.</p>
<p>Junior year has been tough so far. D has a heavy course load, the school changed scheduling systems (from block scheduling to year long rotating schedules) - all of this has led to a couple of stressful months so far. She had it easy all these years - now, she’s finding out she has to really study. She’s been up late studying - working hard on papers/projects etc in addition to running cross country. Adds up to one tired kid. And as missypie mentioned, the grades are not the best either! She’s stressed out about that - and asked me one day - “if I am feeling this stressed out this year, how on earth am I going to manage senior year?”. No answer to that one - we’ll find out soon enough…</p>
<p>missypie–tell me about it. Craft projects are my #1 pet peeve. You’d think the kids were still in kindergarten or something. The projects rarely, if ever, seem to have any educational value; I think their purpose is to make the teachers feel like they’re being creative and “fun.” To me fun would be seeing our kids get a full night’s sleep a little more often, not watching them stay up all night making classroom decorations.</p>
<p>Yes, Jr year is lots of pressure, but you can help your kid by being supportive of his/her plans for a fun summer between junior/senior year where some of that activity might be rewarded, whether by a combination of college visits, seeing relatives/friends, exploring college-related activities but in a low-pressure way.</p>
<p>The end of junior year for S was a nightmare. He was juggling two sports, prepping for the SAT, had girlfriend issues, rebellious towards both parents (never a problem before), got influenced by “friends” who wanted him to “party” with him, etc. It seemed like every day was tense with some kind of struggle or problem.</p>
<p>It was a really bad time and he didn’t care about his schoolwork from beginning to May to the end of the school year. We watched as his grades dropped and nothing we said mattered. The comments about the importance of junior year and not letting up fell on deaf ears.</p>
<p>Luckily, he came out of his funk in the summer, had a great summer, and senior year is much better. It was almost like for a period of time, he was a different person, but now he’s back. I hope the same for your son. </p>
<p>My advice is to hold on and be watching for that light at the end of the tunnel. We all go through funks and rough patches, but it is very hard to watch our children go through them and seem unable to help them. We did our best and waited and eventually he came through it.</p>
<p>This makes me sad, because my Junior year of high school was my best. I look back fondly on all the things I was involved in, my friends, and all the fun I had. I went on success in my field and I didn’t take the ACT more than once, didn’t have AP classes, didn’t do ECs for a college application. I never felt the pressure students experience now.</p>
<p>S2 is a senior and by far Junior year was the hardest for him, same for his friends. He had great success - one semester he even had all A+'s - but it was a real grind for him. I have never had to push him because he manages his life fine by himself. </p>
<p>Senior year the challenge is that he is ready to be in college NOW. And even though he has harder classes this year, they are subjects that interest him and I think he has learned how to adjust his learning to the rigor of his AP classes better than he did last year.</p>
<p>The craft projects drive me out of my mind :(</p>
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<p>Amen! You’d think that with an 8th grader and a junior, we’d be done buying markers, glue, glitter, poster board, etc. But no!!! I think we go through more of that stuff now than when they were in elementary school! (But I will say that D is really good at that stuff…how else could she get a 98 in an AP class and a 1 on the corresponding AP exam?) </p>
<p>Is this why people send their kids to private school?</p>
<p>Ditto here. DS studies, studies, studies. Not complaining that he is so in to it; we just do not want him to burn out. What has helped him the most has been talking to seniors who carried a similar load junior year and knowing it does get better and it does pay off. As long as he knows he is not alone, he is ok. What he is missing most now is sleep - thank goodness for the weekends!</p>