@amsunshine, D took the PSAT this month because her whole class took it. I didn’t talk to her about it at all other than to tell her this will give her a baseline for future PSATs and the SAT. She said she didn’t finish the math portion in time. There will be things for her to work on.
VickySoCal: silly me! yes, I did mean the musical. I don’t know why I assumed you meant the college :-S
lilmom: It’s funny you mention that about the math. My dd said that she felt the no-calculator portion had so many tedious calculations that it was difficult for her to finish in time. We shall see what happens in December, I suppose.
Can someone please share more about Model UN - what it involves and its time commitment?
I convinced my daughter to join Mock Trial and a Debate Club this year, just to try it out. The first night of Mock Trial she was sure she wants to quit - felt totally lost. I think she is enjoying it now, but trying not to show it. She was chosen as a prosecution attorney in JV, but the school’s team overall seems pretty weak and the coach is not interested in JV team at all (according to my daughter). Time commitment is 4 hours a week, not bad, IMHO, and again, I hope she enjoys it a lot more than she shows (at least there are no complaints, which in her case says a lot). The debate club is not competing this year and doesn’t sound like they are doing anything interesting during weekly lunch meetings. I don’t think our school’s Model UN club is strong, either, but I hope it could be enjoyable just like Mock Trial, even though there are no prospects to get to state level or beyond. But first I thought I’d figure out for myself what it is and how much time is involved.
Our school’s model UN club meets for one to one and a half hours after school one day a week. Kids sign up for whichever weekend events they want to do. DS usually does one one day event or a two day weekend event a month. The two day events usually involve $ for travel and hotel in addition to the registration fee. The registration fee usually includes a meal. The club does one big trip a year but this will be the first year DS will be participating in their big trip. This year they are flying to a national event in DC, last year I think they went to NY. My son also wanted me to add that you need to do a four hours of research for each event (which I have now been corrected and should have been calling the events “conferences”). Both DS20 and DS18 are active in Model UN.
@3scoutsmom, thanks, that’s very helpful. I forgot to add for others who are interested that Mock Trial also involves additional “prep time” in writing up examination/cross-examination questions for those acting as attorneys. Btw, one unexpected (but very pleasant) aspect of Mock Trial for me personally is that my daughter now asks me from time to time to practice with her as a witness she needs to examine. And I’ve got to hear “Mom, you are so much better than witnesses we have on our team!” 
“The most interesting thing for us, was the college that he is at now, Reed, actually [couldn’t] care less about ECs.”
Reed says 20% of admission criteria is based on “Involvement, such as extracurriculars and community service.”
http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/spring2008/features/many_apply/5.html
@vonlost will they really preferred his grades and essays then and that article if from 2008!
Never mind!
There are always exceptions. There’s a saying at Reed: If you change anything, you’ve changed everything.
@vonlost If you are watching what is currently going down on campus, with the freshman Hum course then you will see that saying in action.
Haven’t posted here in quite a while. Hope all of your 2020 kiddos are doing well! D20 has been super busy with HS. In addition to the myriad of extracurriculars that she had already planned on being involved in, she joined the drama club and now has a part in a play that will be running for 3 weekends. Turns out she loves drama and the kids in the drama club - great! The golf season is over and she’s glad she tried it. Honors Algebra 2 has been much harder than she expected and she is struggling to keep a B - she’s hoping to bring it up to an A by semester end. She’s never had a B before and she’s determined to bring her grade up. She’s a perfectionist and tends to run herself ragged. Thanks to the warnings from other CC parents, I’m trying to make sure that she doesn’t stress herself out too much. High school should be fun as well as challenging:)
Oh my goodness, life has been busy here. Fellow parents who warned that high school can be a whole new ball of wax were understating the situation!
Oldest has struggled to fully acclimate to high school thus far. Feels like every class is a struggle, and we are having daily/weekly pep talk/argument regarding the need to change input if you want to change output. Every time I feel like I have this parenting thing down - it seems like the rules of the game change. You would think that after 15 years I would realize this, but I guess I need to relearn this lesson each time as well.
It is hard to watch your child struggle and figure out when to push and when to give them space to fix/resolve their own challenges. On my good days I think this will help me when the next ones get to high school and on the bad ones…well, I wonder which of my parenting mistakes are to blame for the situation we are in at present - X_X.
Spending time trying to remember to be grateful for the blessings we have and to stay strong through our challenges. My daily mantra has become, “This too shall pass”.
@beebee3 I understand the adjustment thing all too well. DS20 was homeschooled until this year and even though he watched his brother and sister transition from homeschool to high school, it’s still harder than he thought it would be. He’s having to work much harder in pre AP Chem and AP Human Geo but AP comp sci, the class he was the most concerned about in the beginning, has been a breeze. I think it’s helped our kids that they know they can always ask for a tutor if they think they need it and they know if we think they need it it won’t be optional;-)
Just be forewarned that there’s and huge adjustment freshmen year of college too, I’ve got a double whammy with both a college freshmen and high school freshmen!
@3scoutsmom - thanks for the words of encouragement. Oldest has a full school schedule (no study halls, and several days a week only 1/2 lunches due to sectional practices in music) and is taking 3 classes outside of school as well (in addition to being a member of a youth orchestra and prepping for music competitions). We knew this year was going to be difficult with everything that was coming at the same time, but it hits like a dump truck.
Though, writing that all out is the first time I thought out the entirety of Oldest’s schedule this fall. Maybe O’s doing better than I thought now I write out everything O is doing. It is the adjustment that is hitting hardest. O has never really had to work all that hard to do very well, and I think it has been a wake up call to realize that As aren’t just going to appear without serious effort in every class. Part of what we are dealing with is the fallout of what happens if you don’t have a plan for success in classes that are harder than you thought they would be (hello Honors Biology when science last year was a easy A).
We homeschooled until 8th grade, and we homeschooled to mastery of a subject without hard deadlines. So, having to buckle down on someone else’s schedule is probably the hardest part of this adjustment. With homeschooling, O might have spent a couple of intense weeks working on math and then taken a break to really practice music for several weeks before moving back to math. Now, trying to make up a deficit in Bio when you have to keep all the other pieces up in the air in an elaborate juggling act feels like we are all in danger of getting hit by the chainsaw flying around.
Add in 2 other children with competing needs and activities and it has been a recipe for all of us treading water and looking forward to Thanksgiving break. Again, thanks for the kind words and for helping me realize the real load of what O is trying to accomplish. And I am writing in my journal to expect this year to come back with a vengeance in the first year of college. Thanks for the heads up on that treat coming my way.
First marking period officially finished this past week. I felt DS had found his rhythm and finally adjusted. We will find out when the system re-opens after teachers enter all their final grades and comments.
Does anyone feel that they miss their kids already even though it will be another 45 months till they need to leave for college? On Halloween, D refused to go trick-or-treating with us and her little brother (totally expected and normal, I know), and it hit me hard that soon enough she will be on her own and most likely far away. I knew for a long time that she will go to a far-away college (99% likelihood), but somehow it felt distant and not acutely painful like it feels now. I try my best to give her space (which 13-year old wants to talk to mom instead of friends in her spare time?), but want to wrap her up and not let her go. An unexpected side-effect - I start fantasizing about her staying in the area - either changing her current opinion on our state flagship (too radical/hippy in her opinion) with a more or less realistic chance of admission, or getting admitted to an elite private in our area, which I long ago prepared myself is unrealistic, or attending a lower-tier college in the area. Maybe it’s a strange election shell-shock effect - I thought the chance of my daughter staying close to home while going to college was as high as possibility of Clinton losing, i.e. close to none, but now I remind myself nothing in this world is for sure. Still, I feel like the door that was previously shut is now wide open and my dreams of her nearby are now eating away my inner peace, especially since I still understand how improbably that scenario is. I keep telling myself that she will be happier away from home anyway, and it will help her grow more independent and self-reliant, but self-persuasion doesn’t work very well 
@typiCAmom I completely understand what you are saying. DD20 will be my 2nd time through this and all I can say is it does get better. Yes, you feel her growing away from you and it is sad, but it is also what both of you have been/will be working towards. DS16 is now away at college but not so far that we cannot go visit for a weekend and we do text almost daily. Savor this time with your DD now. Enjoy her high school milestones and achievements. Make a list of reaches, matches and likelies with a mix of distances from home because you never know what they will pick, until they do.
@typiCAmom It actually may be post election shell shock effect. Every single parent that I knew, who had a college freshman either got a call or called them the day of or the day after. I would not be surprised if these feelings come and go over the next week or two and repeat in Jan. (I don’t want to get political but this was the reality of what I saw.)
S20 is my 2nd. I have an S16 and I have a final picture of him as he turned at smiled before entering security to fly away to school. I sat down and sobbed. A family member had to get my and feed me fattening comfort food. He had gone early to pre-orientation and I had the benefit of flying up about a week later to see him, and I realized how happy and settled he was. I came home very happy we had made the choice to send him away to the right school. But the day I sent him away was one of the worst days of my life. But it passed quickly.
And I was one of those moms who called the day after the election where my very calm son told me that statistically this was expected, and gave me lots of advice on how to handle things. It was very odd, but somehow we switched places for awhile. This is what happens when your kid is smarter than you.
The first week of summer 2017 is officially booked! Registration opened yesterday for DD’s long time summer camp. She is in for the program and week she wanted and I have many good Mom points in the bank because I remembered. They opened registration earlier this year to encourage grandparents, parents, etc to “give the gift of camp” this year. I think that is a great idea, but it means the rest of us have to remember to register early or risk missing out on first choice program or week. DD left for school with a smile on her face.
Rant Alert:
I wish that those with “enrichment opportunities” for our DC would give parents more info before they get our DC excited about attending! I am being forced to make big decisions about committing time and $s to summer 2018 by mid January 2017 because of multiple “enrichment opportunities” being marketed directly to my child. Some are more enriching than others. Let’s be honest, some are more marketing than enrichment. Some are quite expensive. All require planning how to fit it all together. Whatever happened to enrichment via the menial summer job or volunteer position in your community? Why do my child and I have to figure out what she will want 18 months in advance?!?
This is so different from the fun of booking her usual summer camp.
I think I am done. Thanks for listening.