@1LuckyBrave,
You’re welcome.
My children just worked hard academically. Three hours of homework per night wasn’t unusual. Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard.
Although they got very good grades, neither had an unweighted GPA of 4.0. It just wasn’t a goal. They just did their best. They were more interested in learning what they wanted to learn, not the grades they got. Of course, when you’re learning what you want to learn, grades of A seem to come more readily. By their sophomore year, each one had pretty much wrested control of their respective curriculum away from the school administration.and shaped their own path forward. They fulfilled certain school curricular requirements, then did what they wanted to do.
They didn’t do much prep for the SAT. My younger son went to a class on Saturdays for a few weeks, but his practice test scores kept declining, so he told me he thought it messed with his own test-taking system, and I didn’t make him go after that. Both my sons did very well on the SAT. They studied a bit for AP and SAT II exams, but mostly, they just did their work.
“I was yearning to find an answer on how to fight against the struggle. In addition,…”
Like the commercial says, “Just do it.”
Both my sons are pretty much academically-inclined. They had no really spectacular extracurriculars, they weren’t in sports. Non-academic activities often revolved around academic activities for them. They enjoyed things like quiz bowl, chess club, math club, science club. They tutored other students. They served the school by helping to lead academic events for local middle schools held at the high school.
Neither of my sons had an extremely active social life. No time! But they had friends, went to events that they enjoyed. My older son dated a college girl his junior year of high school, and found time for that.