<p>We’re two working parents with an “almost-only”. Her brother and sister are grown. I work PT, though, so that helps.</p>
<p>D decided today to add yet another form of dance to her repertoire-tap. She’s never met a form of dance she hasn’t wanted to try. So far we have scheduled this summer-working at a vacation Bible school the week after school gets out as a volunteer at the church where I work. The following week we start a 6-week summer camp there and she’ll work there too. She loves kids and wants to be a teacher. She started last summer with them and works 2 afternoons there during school.</p>
<p>The last week of July she’s going to an academic camp in Eastern WA for gifted kids. It’s really affordable and at a college-she loved it last summer. You don’t need to test in and other than being one of the only black kids there she had a blast. The weekend after that she goes to a church camp for teens in Portland. </p>
<p>In the evenings she’s taking classes in Latin dance and Zumba, possibly yoga too, plus a class in iphone photography and apparently tap. We go to a lot of community center classes and non-credit community college things (there are 5 or 6 within 20 minutes of our house). All together they’ll be cheaper than it costs to drive her to school! </p>
<p>The last weeks before school we’ll all take it easy-if we can get her to sit still long enough!</p>
<p>That sounds like a great plan, Ssea!</p>
<p>We’re traveling this summer so Spyboy will miss most of his normal summer activities.
He would’ve been: working at a summer 4-H camp
preparing for & attending/competing at county fair
playing flag football
preparing for & attending/competing at state fair</p>
<p>This summer he’ll just have enough time for a soccer camp and tryouts.</p>
<p>Hi curiousjane-</p>
<p>I might have already posted our summer schedule, but if I left out details I can repost!</p>
<p>Sailing camp for 3 weeks
Away computer camp for 3 weeks
Vacation travel with family for two weeks
Chess camp for one week
Two weeks of downtime as bookends to the summer. </p>
<p>He may need that time to do his summer homework. </p>
<p>I agree that for us lots of downtime is not good for our kids. They tend to use all their time playing computer games and then they get crabby. </p>
<p>On another note, we just had our end of middle school conference with teacher recommendations. What stood out for me was the recommendation to start narrowing his interests. </p>
<p>I mentioned on another thread that this son has many many interests- over the course of the last year he has been involved in the following-</p>
<p>Piano, violin in school orchestra, picked up trumpet and flute in band this year, robotics team, science Olympiad team, sailing team, indoor soccer team. He is doing baseball now.
Theoretically he likes computer programming and electronic tinkering but he hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to do so during the school year outside of science and robotic teams. </p>
<p>He asked if he could start fencing. </p>
<p>I told him no- but today I was having second thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t squelch his desire to try new things?</p>
<p>Any advice on guiding him?</p>
<p>Novi,</p>
<p>I can’t give you advice, because my kid is the same way. He’s got a long list too, and has just signed up for parkour classes, wants me to find him a dance class, and has told me he’s joining the crew team next year. At this point, I feel like he clearly needs to keep exploring, and that he’ll figure out his path over time.</p>
<p>One thing I do find for him is that there are some themes that are emerging. For example, he has expressed a clear desire to do things where he’s supporting part of something big, whether that’s being second string linesman on a winning football team, working behind the scenes on a political campaign or an election day polling place, or organizing his school’s stage crew. </p>
<p>So, I keep saying yes, but I do worry that when football goes from 3 days a week to 5, and when play practice starts running until 11 instead of 9, he’s going to be overwhelmed.</p>
<p>I don’t think they need to narrow things down this early-if at all. Mine is the same way. The constant is dance and working with kids, but she’s always looking for new things to add, like the iphone photo course she just found. Eventually she’ll need to cut back on something, but our motto is that as long as it doesn’t get in the way of school and we can afford it, it’s a go.</p>
<p>I have two much older kids and many nieces and nephews and every single one of them still keeps some kind of tie-in to stuff they liked to do as kids. Look at the things that make your kids happy, that they can do for hours at a time, that they could skip “fun” stuff to do instead. That’s where the “passions” are, what they might focus on as they narrow their interests. My 8th grader will probably always dance somewhere in some genre-i think that will feature prominently on her college apps. But I’m not going to deliberately narrow anything down for her.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback.
I think he said that fencing is a club sport so he could do it during the school day. I will tell him that I will let him make the decision- if it conflicts with something else he wants to do, he will have to choose. </p>
<p>I don’t know where he got the idea to try fencing!</p>
<p>Narrowing the focus for Spyboy isn’t the issue – it’s widening his horizons. He’s very happy doing the very few ec’s he’s involved in. His older sister is the opposite. She’s already plotting out all of the clubs and activities she thinks he needs to be involved in next year :)</p>
<p>Agent,</p>
<p>I’m curious about Spykid’s involvement in 4-H and the county fair. You said he’d compete if he was home. What event? That sounds like a cool EC.</p>
<p>A poster here had regularly recommended Cal Newport’s book on being a high school super star so I got it on my kindle and read some this morning. It’s a good book so far and I would second the recommendation. </p>
<p>The first few chapters are on being “interesting” which is his new way of packaging the passion concept. His thesis is that you should allow yourself lots of unstructured free time and then use that time to explore interests. When you find something that clicks, pursue it. </p>
<p>I was thinking about how this might relate to the activities our kids are drawn to and I think that whether our kids are doing multiple new things or deeply involved in a single interest, it could all be part of this spectrum of finding what clicks, what lights your fire. And I think I also conclude again that this needs to be child driven - the parental direction can only take this discovery process so far. </p>
<p>So as long as my kid is having fun and really pursuing activities in an interesting snd organic way, I will encourage him. And as for your son who is into 4h and a more limited set of activities, if he’s already found his passion, I guess that is wonderful, most kids are not so lucky!</p>
<p>Novi,</p>
<p>I think you have a great way of looking at it. CuriousKid is one of those kids with tons of interests, and he’s really clear that he doesn’t want to do any one thing a lot, he wants a little of everything. For example, he’s excited about playing football in the fall, but thinks that going to football camp to get ready would be “too much”. He’d rather take dance classes all summer and figure that will get him in shape, and carry over into his footwork on the line. I could push him, and insist that he choose and pretend that it’s his “passion” but I think that would backfire. Both for college admissions, as I think that in the end it would be obvious that this was forced, but more importantly for life, as I think that his think he wouldn’t have a sense of what’s important to him.</p>
<p>I think it’s quite possible that during high school my kid will decide that one of his many activities or classes is the most important thing, and take it to the next level. I have no idea which one it would be. I think it’s equally possible that he’ll stay the Renaissance Dude that he is and build an adult life in which he has a several things going on. His youth football coaches were guys like this. They had day jobs with good pay and flexible hours, and used their free time to coach youth football in the fall, and do something else in other seasons.</p>
<p>Jane, My H’s best friend is a lot like your son-and now at 45 guess what-he is STILL all over the place doing a bunch of different things! And he is STILL adding new interests. He’s got a family now and a business or two to run, so he’s got to be certain places at certain times, but he’s still the same guy H knew as an all-over-the-place, never-stopped-talking tween.</p>
<p>Looking at my own kids, it’s pretty clear that if you try to force an interest AT a kid, they won’t engage, but if you try to LIMIT one they care about, you’re setting up for a real conflict. I truly don’t believe colleges should look for single-minded perfection in a few carefully chosen EC’s. They should be looking for sincere interest, not mile-wide, inch-deep lists. I’ll keep doing what I can to keep D involved in all of her EC’s unless they start getting in the way of school.</p>
<p>I just came back from a tutoring session with a family I really respect. Both parents work at demanding, professional, interesting jobs, but they seem to keep their hours manageable so that one is home whenever the kids are home. They also seem to have many hobbies, while I was there mom was off on a trip with her girlfriends, Dad was working in the garden, and the kids were getting ready for practice with the neighborhood swim team. On other days Dad’s working on an antique car he’s restoring, mom’s sewing something, and they’re planning a trip to the ski hill. </p>
<p>I’m definitely one of those people with a passion. Supporting, and working with young kids with disabilities is at the core of my identity, and in one way or another it’s what I’ve done every day of my adult life, and a fair amount of my adolescence too. But I don’t think that’s the only way, or a better way, than looking at life as a sampler platter to choose from.</p>
<p>I deleted a sentence I should have left in. If YOU are the one choosing the single-minded pursuit, that’s fine. I think the trouble begins when the parents choose FOR the kids. My D, for all her “must try every form of dance ever invented” and participation in several things at her church, volunteering, etc. is single-minded about teaching low-income minority kids. If that’s not what she ends up doing for a living I would be shocked. But it’s HER drive. I think colleges would see the difference from that, or yours, from someone who was packaged into something by their parents to look good on apps.</p>
<p>When I first read this part:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I thought “I couldn’t agree less”, until I realized that by “YOU” you meant the kids. In that case I mean “I couldn’t agree more”.</p>
<p>LOL-right, Jane. BTW, I think our kids would get along great. They’d never have time to actually SEE each other, but they’d understand why!</p>
<p>I think they would too, although your daughter sounds much more driven than my absent minded kid. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be out here touring schools and we can get them together. You can’t really raise a child who wants to go to an HBCU and leave Howard off your list.</p>
<p>The summer is starting to come together for CuriousKid.</p>
<p>Today he found out that he got chosen for a part time volunteer position at the Smithsonian. He’s also waiting to hear on Wednesday whether he got picked for a volunteer program through our local county court. Those are both about 8 hours a month, so very very part time.</p>
<p>At this point he’ll have:</p>
<p>All summer: Parkour classes at the gym, volunteering at the places above, allergy shots</p>
<p>6 weeks of “tech internship” with a local theater groups summer youth musical programs.</p>
<p>3 weeks of math summer school (he’s missed a huge amount of school this year due to a concussion, allergies, and some nasty medication side effects that took a while to sort out, so he’s retaking the second semester of Algebra to make sure he’s on track) </p>
<p>3 days of football camp with the HS team</p>
<p>2 weeks of 2 a day practice/try outs for football</p>
<p>Except for one crazy week when he’s got football camp Sunday - Tuesday, the first week of summer school Tuesday - Friday, and the performance for the musical Thursday - Saturday, he’ll have about 4 or 5 hours of activity each day, which seems about right.</p>
<p>Can you guys help me settle a question with my son?</p>
<p>Our district requires 70 hours of service learning. Students can start earning these hours in middle school, and they are absurdly generous. Once CuriousKid got 5 hours for “interviewing someone about their experiences during World War 2”, or, in other words, talking to his own Grandma. They also give a lot of credit for things they do inside of school, such as working on the school TV show or stage managing a school play. The result is that my kid, and about half of his classmates, will graduate middle school with all their hours done without any real effort. This is despite the fact that he never turned in any of the forms from the two things he did that I’d actually consider volunteering, his environmental service group, or working on election days at the polls. </p>
<p>Because of the lax rules, most of the things my son will do this summer will also count. He could easily finish the summer with 150 more hours. Those hours would show up on his report card. He, however, seems to feel strongly that there is no need to bother filling out the forms or turning them in. He sees this as a waste of time since he’s “done”. I, on the other hand, feel like there may come a point when he wishes he had credit for the hours, and he should just spend the 5 minutes filling out the darn form, and the 10 minutes walking to the office and dropping it in the slot.</p>
<p>To be perfectly clear, these are things he’d do regardless of the credit, because they are things that he likes and because I prefer him to be busy. Is he right that counting up the hours is pointless?</p>
<p>For service hours-</p>
<p>It may be helpful to have him look at a copy of the common app. They ask for hours spent on various extracurriculars. You can choose which EC to list but does he know now which EC are going to be important enough to list? </p>
<p>I think that would be the primary reason to keep track of hours. I would say summer before high school should count for common app purposes. </p>
<p>Whether he needs to hand it in for credit is a different issue, but does he have a better way to keep track?</p>
<p>If not, he may as well take your advice.</p>