Woohoo! First day of school. My usually “chill” D is chatting it up with her friends in the neighborhood about school supplies. Good luck to everyone and their kids as they start their freshman year!
My daughter’s school started almost two weeks ago, and I’m already concerned at how stressed out she is. Her course load is somewhat “normal” for her school -
Advanced English,
Algebra II-Trig,
Spanish II,
Biology,
PE,
Health (to turn into World History after 1st quarter),
Drama.
Biology, Health and PE are “standard/required” for all freshmen, no choice there. Spanish II is offered to all kids who took two years of Spanish in middle school, and because DD spent a month in Spain this summer, the class is actually easy for her (according to her, most of her friends requested a transfer back to Spanish I because their middle school classes weren’t up to par). Algebra II-Trig is ok so far, though daughter is convinced math is not her forte and for some reason scared that she may fall behind at some point. She’s taking supplemental math class and is aware of tutoring help available at school, but this fear in her is not going away. Advanced English is her biggest concern at the moment - the teacher is fantastic and my daughter knows she’ll learn a lot in that class, but that teacher is also a very tough grader and known to give very few if any A’s for her class (and the work load is intensive, too). Drama is an “optional elective” and many kids in daughter’s HS actually take only 6 classes. This was one class I convinced her to try out hoping it would give her more self-confidence, but it sounds like she is not enjoying it at all - especially the improv part they are doing right now. She is convinced she looks “stupid” and others “must be making fun of her behind her back”. My husband only thinks of drama class as training for theater/film career, doesn’t want to recognize the life skills the class might offer to everyone else, and is unfortunately very vocal about it with our daughter. To my surprise, when he suggested to drop the class since it’s optional, daughter said it’s ok, she doesn’t hate it that much and would rather keep it, especially since the next session will be about stage make-up.
She’s not an athletic kid and doesn’t want to try for any of the school sports. Interested in debate team and mock trial, but they will start only after club fair in September. An outside art class is 2 hours a week and while she wants to continue with it, I don’t see it as a passion - even during the summer, she never picks up the brush between classes. I suggested she explore some other things, but she’s convinced she won’t have time or energy for anything else.
Last night she burst into tears that she won’t be able to “do it all” and get all A’s. This wasn’t a full-blown nervous breakdown, but she was genuinely distressed. I tried to be supportive, told her that I am certain she will be fine academically if she puts in the effort, and even if she gets a B in English, it won’t be the end of her life, but she’ll get so much out of that class it will help her tremendously in the future.
But in the back of my mind thinking of many kids I know who indeed do a lot more and seem happy, fulfilled and not overly tired. In other words, I assumed she shouldn’t be as stressed out - at least at the moment. She claims there is nothing wrong going on to make her that stressed out/upset. What do you guys think?
My older daughter has an “I can’t do it all full blown meltdown” about every 2 months. But later, when pressed she refuses to drop anything.
I would say if she is going to do debate/mock trial, maybe she doesn’t really need drama because she’ll get the skills from those activities? But if Drama doesn’t add homework and she doesn’t have after school sports, she may not really gain any time/stress release from dropping.
The one thing I am adamant on with my older daughter, who is more prone to emotional breakdowns of that sort is sleep. If school and EC’s are getting so that she isn’t getting a solid 8 hours, I can see the effect on her emotional and physical health and I MAKE her cut back.
Vicki, thanks for your insight. The reason I thought drama would be different is that it goes beyond public speaking. I think my daughter is comfortable with her “smart/confident” persona she tries to project, but she is afraid to appear “silly” in others’ eyes. For example, for improv they had to do a skit where one kid had to do something - not necessarily outrageous - on the bus stop, to make the other uncomfortable and leave. These and other exercises just threw my daughter into a spin 
Btw, one reason she likes having an extra period (I think) is that few kids at her school (living in our area) have early morning classes and so the bus is not crowded. She may deny it, but I know she hates crowds, possibly because of the same fear of “looking silly”.
I’d like for my daughter to get enough sleep, but if she goes to bed before 10, she insists that she wakes up on her own at 11 and can’t sleep until 1 AM anyway. So while I know she needs more sleep, I gave in to 8 hours on weekday and 12 hours on weekend schedule.
@VickiSoCal, thanks for the reminder about sleep. It really is important. Last night, D and I prepared lunches for the next couple of days. She said, “This is fun!” It was fun quality time for the both of us.
@typiCAmom the Drama class sounds like a good thing for your daughter to continue. I was a very reserved and “serious” kid, and took Drama in my Sophomore year. It really helped me come out of my shell.
DD is already experiencing stress, too, and this is only her second week of school. Her Algebra II Honors and English 9 Honors classes are giving her hours and hours of homework. She comes home right after golf practice each day around 4:30, and heads straight to homework. She takes a quick break for dinner, and then is up for hours. Last night I had to persuade her to go to bed at midnight, but she was upset that she wasn’t yet finished with her Alg II homework. - so she got up at 5 am today to finish her Alg II homework.
She told me that none of her friends get more than 6 hours a week of sleep a night, and that I shouldn’t be concerned. But I can tell that the loss of sleep is already affecting her. She is a little more grumpy than usual (she’s normally pretty happy), and she just seems to drag. I’m hoping that this is just an adjustment period and that she will eventually find her stride and the homework will take less time.
It is also important that they do as much as they can “ahead” on the weekends. Most high school classes (math and science are often the exception) are set up so that they can look ahead and budget to limit weeknight work. Of course, some kids will always wait until he night before. My older daughter even started asking for vocab words on Fridays vs Mondays in one class so she could do her flashcards on Sunday.
@VickiSoCal thanks for the suggestions! 
No problem D17 is my high stress kid who will push herself until she breaks down.
D20 doesn’t give a rip.
Each has their challenges!
Lack of sleep will really impact a child’s emotional state and their ability to concentrate. I was never able to pull any late nighters when I was in school. I think both of my kids, D17 and S20, inherit that from me. They both needs to go to bed before 11. D17 gets up early. D17 almost has a breakdown right before she took the Jan’16 SAT test. She only had 2 weeks to prepare and was giving all she has. That included several nights into mid night (this never happened before). She was not her normal self. But luckily it only lasted 2 weeks. S20 not only need to go to bed early but also gets up as late as he can… S had never spent more than 10-15 minutes in middle school on his home works. He is going to a magnet HS and will take a pretty heavy class load. I intent to watch his HS transition closely, mostly to ensure his sleeping needs.
Our school starts the day after labor day. S20 had this last week to spend on his video games… then games over :))
Thanks to everyone who replied earlier. I have another question which is someone tied into the original one.
This year my daughter decided to give another try to formal guitar lessons since “trying it out” on her own was not going anywhere. I thought we finally found the teacher she likes, but he lives about 40 minutes away. The first lesson was in-person, but yesterday they tried one via skype and it was a disaster - difficult to find an angle where the teacher would see both hands, etc. I offered to drive her on weekends if she truly wants to pursue this. But that got her thinking, does she really want to spend 2.5 hours instead of 45 minutes for the lessons (not to mention the practice) hours in between. I know the dust will eventually settle and she will have more time for EC’s, though two things she wants to do - debate and mock trial - haven’t started yet and we don’t know what her full load is going to look like.
This is probably a useless pre-face to my next issue that I discovered after we had this conversation on time commitments, etc., and swiftly moved to planning her course-load for the rest of HS. Our benchmark for the moment is UCLA - within budget, with a great department for the major she is interested in, in CA but far enough from home, etc. etc. We found this statistics: https://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/stat.htm and of course the first thing that caught her attention is 75% for admits have an average of 4.58 weighted/uncapped GPA (or is it a minimum?).
I only recently learned that UC system only looks at 10 and 11 grades when calculating GPA. Until then, I was genuine in saying “once you get to high school, your grades start to matter, so you can no longer afford to forget about your homework, forget it at home, etc” I have no idea if it’s only UC or all the other universities as well - does anyone know? If none of the universities look at 9 grade grades, do you think I should share this with my daughter? This would certainly take off pressure since it is much easier to get a higher GPA if you do not count 9th grade where none are Honors/AP. But it might also make her too relaxed, not necessarily in terms of effort to keep her grades at A level, but more in terms of being organized and turning in all the HW in time, etc.
And second implication - how much does UCLA (and other colleges) care about weighted GPA vs. unweighted? Assuming a student gets 4.0 unweighted, adding an extra “regular” 4-point elective class in any given year brings down one’s GPA. My concern is for next year, once my daughter figures it out, she may choose to take a CC class that she doesn’t like instead of a school-offered elective she might like just for the sake of that extra point given for cc classes.
Thanks in advance and hope it’s not too confusing!
@typiCAmom I’m not too familiar with the UC’s but I do know that Cal Poly SLO DOES look at freshman grades. Not sure if SLO has your daughter’s desired major, but there is a lot of overlap of kids applying to both UCLA and Cal Poly. So your daughter may wish to keep up her freshman grades if she thinks there is a chance of eventually applying to SLO.
I cannot speak to CA schools, but I can say that the calculation of GPA varies widely across colleges. Some recalculate based upon their own formula some use what the school provides but look at at in context of that HS, etc.
My S16 applied and got into UCB, UCLA, and UCI with Regents and Honors program. This one I know very well. Your UC GPA is 10th and 11th. However, your 9th grade grades are still visible to the admission staff. The more selective the UC school is, the more they will look at your transcript and all that goes with it, and the less selective the UC, the more they count on statistics and straight GPA.UCLA is selective. While her GPA will be from 10th and 11th, a low 9th grade year, might push her out because they simply have so many people applying.
As for weighted vs unweighted, the UCs cap the number of semesters of that extra point at 8. So even if your child took a multitude of APs and CCs, it won’t hurt to do some electives.She will only be able to use 8 extra points.
Now to go back to those 9th grade grades. In the end, even after getting into fancy shmancy UCB and UCLA, my son chose a CTCL school and they did look at 9th grade grades. They also mattered significantly for scholarships, of which he received many at other schools. Aiming for UCLA as a freshman is fine, but interests change over time and you never know where she will want to go in the end…also, it has a lower acceptance rate so…
I say, keep the importance of good grades a thing, but I would lay off the idea of falling in love with a college so early. It is not wise to start stressing now. There will be plenty of time for stress down the road. Trust me on that one.
I personally would take a crying, overwhelmed 9th grader quite seriously. Mental health and physical well-being are far more important than classes on a high school transcript. No 14 yo should be spending so much time on homework that they are reduced to 6 hrs of sleep.
To start understanding the issue, I would have her doing all of her homework in my presence. Is it really taking that much time or is there a poor time management problem?
If it is not a time management problem, does one subject require a disproportionate amt of time? Is their a lack of understanding causing homework to take so long? Or does facing the elephant cause her to shut down and she doesn’t know how to be more productive by only focusing on one bite at a time?
I would also be concerned that when health turns into world history that the homework issue is probably going to intensify (unless your school is unusual and health is as difficult as a history class).
I don’t have kids in ps, but I am currently teaching my 6th 9th grader. She needs her pure down time, her fun time, her pleasure reading time, her introspective time…she would end up severely depressed if she could not have time for life outside of school. I would guard her mental health over any class rigor.
If 6 hrs of sleep is all your dd is able to get per night bc of only focusing on homework, in my mind it means either your school has a serious busywork homework problem or there is an underlying issue that needs addressing.
I would suggest to keep high grades even if the 9th grade is not looked at. I don’t believe it is that easy for kids to switch into diligent mode only when needed. It is habit that keep them consistently performing.
There is a culture at some schools that develops where sleep deprivation is normal and kids who don’t participate are viewed as weak. I’ve been told on c.c. that if your kid can’t hack that, too bad.
It is not healthy or normal. 13/14 year olds are still growing, physically, and mentally. Listen to your gut and do what you know is right for your kids. Don’t buy in to the fear they will fall behind if they are not taking 60 bajillion AP classes.
Thanks everyone. I mentioned it tonight that UC doesn’t count the 9th grade grades, but pointed out she might be interested in other colleges, and she assured me this info won’t change anything and she is not planning to slack off anyway. According to my daughter, it doesn’t make any sense for her to take regular classes like US History instead of APUSH or Spanish IV instead of AP Spanish because regular classes are “so boring they are actually harder than AP classes, for the sheer effort of staying awake”. From what I read, UCB and UCLA are the only ones out of the UC system who don’t cap AP/Honors classes . I personally would like her to take whatever classes she likes, especially electives, without thinking how it might impact her GPA and yes, selfishly I’d rather she take school classes instead of their equivalents in city college - partially, because I can’t figure out transportation, and also because I think she’d be more comfortable with her peers. Thanks again!
I am reading through the Parents of 2017 thread for nostalgia (having just launched DS16) and saw this post about activities resumes. Our HS encouraged DS to start this in 9th or 10th and he did not do a great job of it so doing the resume was painful. He actually had awards that could not remember what they were for! I highly recommend you do as this poster describes now rather than later. My DD has already started hers.
Activities resume: I sent my D this and told her to pick a format from the samples at the bottom of the article. I think any would work. Once she picks one I’ll help her create the formating in word or google docs so she can add her details easily. http://www.riversidemo.com/recreation/page/harts-helpful-hint-top-ten-dont-dos-college-application-resume
Onething that seems to have changed with commonapp is that they no longer delete all apps at the end of each year. So you are allowed to start the app even now for year 2020 so you can keep track of activities.