Beyond proud of d25 at her first dance solo of the season. There were about 20 dancers in her age group and they only placed the top 5 (which she wasnt) but her growth in confidence has been incredible!
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I hear ya. Mine was particularly short tempered and irrational this morning!
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She tried but her score is 50 points under so will take it again but I’m thinking she will take the ACt this time .
We have family there. Luckily all are safe. Heartbreaking.
We are in a semester system and it has block finals, like 2 classes per day and 2 hour final exam periods and done by noon. This is a big, scary experience for my freshman! I’ve heard so much about “FINALS!!” We had tests in high school and final exams in May, but this is basically pre-college. Hopefully, this will help transition to college.
How is everyone else doing with finals approaching?
Her only C is in Spanish 3. She’s behind being part online for a bit in past levels. She doesn’t learn great online. But as they count 8th grade Spanish for her and she isn’t going for competitive schools, I will let this be her last year of foreign language for now.
Spanish 3 in 9th grade is amazing, though! That’s an achievement itself and great to be done so early in high school with language. DD25’s Mandarin final is like 5 things: an oral assessment one day, a written test another, a video project, and some other things I forget! It is a lot.
I think DD25 will get one B, in English, which, as a former English major, kills me. She is probably better than I was in 9th grade, but the standards are so much higher for kids these days.
My kid’s school also has finals both semesters, but this year many of them are projects. Dunno, maybe this is kept over from being virtual? So DD only has two, maybe three true finals. We shall see how it goes. The bio teacher is known for asking obscure questions that haven’t really been covered in class. Final is 18% of the semester grade, so she’s already done some math and scenario building.
D25 says she wants to be a police officer. I really don’t want her to because of several factors. I have friends who are police officers and I respect the heck out of them. I just don’t think its a great choice for my daughters brain, emotions, and personality. We shall see if she changes her mind.
Shes thinking of looking into the local police cadets organization here to find out more.
Sounds like your daughter has a direction to look into at least. There’s a lot of careers in and around law enforcement without being an officer. She may very well change her mind and decide beat work doesn’t appeal to her but maybe forensics does or something else. My friends husband started out as an officer, which he loved but because of family pressure for prestige he could either have gone for FBI or law school. He chose prosecutor, still gets law enforcement but isn’t kicking in doors. On a side note his family really hoped after law school he’d have chosen a better paying law field but they had to be satisfied since he did what they wanted lol
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Hi. I’m new here. My S25 is my only. Having spent my entire career in higher ed, I’m having a hard time ratcheting back my anxiety about the college admission process. I know he’ll end up in the right place, but it’s hard not to get sucked into some anxiety about everything. Finals are this week and then he (and I!) will have earned a a nice rest for a few weeks. Overall it’s been a good first semester of high school, but the grades aren’t quite where I had hoped they would be. He’s a super smart kid but his ADHD has made the organizational aspects of high school a real challenge for him so far. I feel like I’ve been micromanaging, and I’m hoping to dial that back as he moves forward. I keep trying to remind myself that he’s a happy, kind, funny kid, and in the end that’s more important than perfect grades. He’ll find his way.
Hope the end of the semester goes well for everyone’s students!
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Wow, it sounds like you are describing my S25, to a T! I will say I am grateful he has an older sister who is a freshman in college now because I’m better equipped to see him through the process. I had lots of anxiety with my first. So many unknowns, felt pressure to get into “good” schools, good test scores, straight A’s etc, etc. I learned that I stressed too much, and D21 stressed too much. There was not enough balance in her life. it was too full of rigor, stress, panic studying, and no sleep. I vowed after watching her go through that, that I would handle high school differently for my son. He too has ADHD, and I too have been micromanaging him this first semester. Good news is he’s making huge strides and learning to keep track of his assignments. He’s still figuring out how to study effectively, but I’m hoping that will continue to improve. One thing we have already decided is he will only be applying to schools that are either test blind, or test optional. That alone is going to be massive amounts of stress off his back. We’ve decided as a family to put mental health and happiness first. Here’s to kids finding their way!
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This was my son in high school, too. There was such progress and growth over the four years, although sometimes it felt like steps backward mixed in with steps forward. It was a much harder process for me than it is now with his younger sister who does not have ADHD…I was not only helping him actually manage it but also (even more) focused on trying to guide him on how to manage it himself. There were some meltdowns!
And even though there was a lot of progress, I still had concerns about how college was going to go for him - we dug deep to identify colleges where we thought he would be able to manage the workload, continue to develop skills and grow, be engaged, and be happy. The start of his first college semester included some challenges - not realizing how to manage the assignment submissions and deadlines in a system he wasn’t accustomed to, for example. But as that first semester draws to a close, it seems to be going really well so far…finding his way, indeed. Hopefully you can look back in a few years and say the same!
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So relatable! Definitely steps forward, then a step backwards. Feels like a hamster wheel some days. Overall though I’ve seen tremendous growth in one semester. I’m really proud of him, and happy for him that he’s becoming more independent with his schoolwork.
I’m so glad your son had a successful first semester in college. I can’t wait to see where my son winds up. At least I know there is a place for him, because there absolutely will be 
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Semester’s over! I expect that the child did well enough gradewise, but by the end of it I’m not quite certain everything was good mentally or emotionally. High school is hard enough, pandemic high school is worse.
(At least the last day was yesterday, so there was no need here to be stressed out about the rumors of school violence scheduled for today whirling around TikTok.)
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Happy New Year, everybody! Here’s to hoping the coming semester is good for all your kids, whether it starts Monday like it does for mine, or on a more sane date.
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Happy new year. The semester is off to a start but with omicron, I’m not sure. We stayed off some activities this week just to reduce exposure.
Our semester finals are next week. We start around Sept 1st and end mid June.
D25 is getting caught up after missing 4 days of school and a few tests.
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Our semester finals are next week too but due to massive amounts of kids being absent due to Omicron many teachers are forgoing exams. It’s a sad state of affairs at our school. Too many are absent and there’s not way to keep them afloat and have things be equal for everyone. My son has had many tests canceled with no warning and this means no opportunities to make the final push to up his grades. So many teachers out too. It’s just a mess and I can’t even get stressed about final first semester grades anymore. I’m just leaving it be.
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Our semester ended with winter break—we’re in Alaska, but oddly enough use the calendar that’s more common in the South, with an August start date and a May end date.
On the way in to school this morning, C25 talked about how many students are out due to covid—there were only 6(!) present in one class of 20some yesterday, apparently. (That one was an outlier, the other classes were high teens to twenty.) Traffic to the school has been notably lighter than usual this week, too.
Most of the teachers are still present, so that’s keeping it going. But yeah, we all expect everything going remote for two weeks sometime soon here.
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