<p>BengalMom - I have a 7th grade S, and he is very different from his sister. At the moment, he is not only not the perfectionist that his sister is, but pretty he's much the complete opposite of her in every way. I expect my experience with him to be completely different too. I'm glad you're finding it all exciting and loving it - that gives me hope.</p>
<p>I have so many more qualms (no, let's say different qualms) about S going off to college. I just read another thread this morning about a student who has to take a medical leave from his Ivy League school for video game addiction. We have never-ending problems in our house with video games, and the thought of S going away, totally unsupervised frightens me. But he knows that if he doesn't keep up he will be coming home and attending the local CC and working.</p>
<p>I wish you good luck with both of yours. Your S sounds a bit like mine at that age, but as he gets older (not sure I would use the word "matures" lol) he seems to be waking up a bit.... not that he doesn't try my nerves every single day.</p>
<p>It's a bit scary to think of having an "empty nest", but I remind myself that I have done my job in raising them, and they will be our of my hands (except for tuition :) ) and we can move on to the next phase of our lives, whatever that may be.</p>