<p>I said “falling grades,” not “failing grades.” Your grades are falling, and you don’t seem to have a problem with that. Your parents do. </p>
<p>You’re asking a lot from them. They want you to keep up your grades. I don’t think they’re asking too much.</p>
<p>There has to be a balance… I get that to get into the schools you did, you had to have worked your butt off for at least three years (probably always actually) and now you’ve taken a step back. But here’s a tip… don’t just sit there playing video games. It’s ok to have more time off and hang out with friends, but you have to do so with a little balance and THEN your parents will be convinced you can handle the rigor of college work and the time management needed to be successful next year. </p>
<p>What other poster’s have said is true… there are a lot of kids who go off to school thinking oh, I’ve got this, and then end up on probation or worse during the transition to college. I don’t think you’ll forget how to study, but you will forget how long it takes you to do things and you won’t be as good at managing your time.</p>
<p>So here’s some advice… instead of playing video games, how about picking up an interesting book and doing some reading. It looks a little less sluglike from a parent perspective. I get your feeling a little restless, but bad habits become habits for a reason. Step away from the remote/controller… take off the headset and show them you still have the passions that got you into those schools in the first place.</p>
<p>I am not suggesting you have to get straight A’s, but you can’t look like you’ve checked out either. Engage and understand that deciding to send you to school is a gift from your parents and not something you’re entitled to because of birthright. Your parents don’t owe you. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Yes, it’s your life, but … there’s a little give and take here. And you just need to accept that, in order to take so much, you have to give a little to.</p>
<p>And too… if you have younger siblings… be a role model. They’ve looked up to you for a long time now, don’t disappoint or make it seem like they too can have the same college choices as you have when all they will remember is how you sat around and used your opposable thumbs for a year.</p>
<p>I learned to take a tough line with senioritis after older S got it – big time fall of senior year – after being accepted to his first choice college and safety. He scraped through senior year with passing final grades, but had gotten some D quarterly grades. He went to his safety with a virtually full scholarship and flunked out.</p>
<p>Consequently, we warned younger S that if he got senioritis, we would not pay for college until he had gone to college for a year on his own dime and had gotten acceptable grades. This son, too, got senioritis so bad that we didn’t know until a week before graduation whether he’d graduate. That was when he got it together to hand in his overdue assignments.</p>
<p>S spent a year living at home and paying rent with Americorps, and then went – on his own dime – to his first choice college. He is a junior with about a 3.5 average there.</p>
<p>So, as you can tell, I fully agree with your parents’ hard line.</p>
<p>There is an interesting arc to the spring of the high school senior year. Guys in particular tend to act like Gods. They can be surly, entitled, brazen and arrogant. This continues all the way until graduation Day/graduation party. Then 48 hours later reality hits – you are just another unemployed teenager. You just went from top of the heap senior to bottom of the list freshman. </p>
<p>Please take a moment to understand how odious it is to live with someone very smart and acting lazy. This excellent piece was written by Doris Burville of Olympia WA:</p>
<p>"Go home! Hang the storm windows, paint the woodwork, rake the lawn, shovel the walk, wash the car, learn to cook, scrub some floors, repair the sink, build a boat, get a job.</p>
<p>Help the minister, priest, or rabbi, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Visit the sick, assist the poor, study your lessons.</p>
<p>And when you are through, read a book. </p>
<p>Your parents do not owe you entertainment. Your city or village does not owe you recreational facilities. The world does not owe you a living. </p>
<p>You owe the world something. </p>
<p>You owe it your time and energy and your talents so that no one will be at war or in poverty or sick or lonely again.</p>
<p>In plain, simple words, GROW UP. Quit being a crybaby. Get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone and start acting like an adult. </p>
<p>You are supposed to be mature enough to accept some of the responsibility your parents have carried for years. They have nursed, protected, helped, appealed, begged, excused, tolerated and denied themselves so that you could have every benefit. </p>
<p>This they have done gladly, for you are their dearest treasure. But now you have no right to expect them to bow to every whim and fancy just because selfish ego, instead of common sense, dominates your personality, thinking and requests. </p>
<p>In heaven’s name, grow up and go home."</p>
<p>Go, Doris.</p>
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<p>If you failed gym at the end of the fall term won’t you have to make up the gym, which means you will probably be doubling up?</p>
<p>But if you don’t pass gym, you will not graduate and spend your summer taking gym.</p>
<p>OP - You are asking for parent’s advice. In bold print: “Why do parents care about senioritis?”.</p>
<p>However, it seems to me that when you read something that makes you uncomfortable, you feel the need to tell us that we are “all jealous because our child didn’t get into these caliber schools”. This is immature.</p>
<p>You asked for our advice. Not to only write something if we agree with you.</p>
<p>umm… my kid did get into some great schools. And he knew he was really going to have to work hard in college. And I will admit that we did allow him a little more breathing room senior year, especially second semester. But then, he had already proven that he knew how to manage his time and was still getting straight A’s. And believe me, he played a heck of a lot more video games senior year than he ever did junior year. But he also didn’t have nearly the schedule he had junior year. He SHOULD have been getting straight A’s, especially based on what he had taken in the past. and so… we pretty much let go. Seems to me that with slipping grades and a slipping attitude… you’re parents are right to be on your case a little bit.</p>
<p>My daughter has been fighting senioritus for a little while now. I also teach IB seniors and all of them have senioritus. As much as I understand their mindset, I also know they need to buckle up and pull themselves through. </p>
<p>Last, every year I always notice that my more mature students keep up their high standards even though they are also fighting senioritus. Maybe your parents are now questioning if you are mature enough to go to an expensive high-end school.</p>
<p>I agree with proud_mom. More mature students do better as it gets closer to the end of senior year.</p>
<p>My child, a senior in HS, is saying that she hates school all the time but she still maintains all A’s. I even suggested that she takes a mental health day off this year and she is considering it…</p>
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<p>Something to look forward to - not sure I can stand much more of the ‘surly, entitled, brazen and arrogant’ attitude but at least he’s keeping his grades up (I hope).</p>
<p>Do you suppose they act this way in attempt to prove that they don’t need you any more? Whatever the reason, as much as I love him, I can’t wait to get him out of the house. Senior year is not for the faint of heart. :)</p>
<p>because they are working hard to be able to support your dreams/opportunities and they expect the same from you?</p>
<p>because they know that what you sew, so shall you reap (recs and stats for internships)</p>
<p>because you should be becoming a mature, responsible individual as you prepare to to go to college, but you are behaving like a self absorbed adolescent?</p>
<p>~mafool (who is not pulling any punches)</p>
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<p>nicely said.</p>
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<p>My sister once told me, and it’s proven to be true twice over, that this is nature’s way of helping parents to let go. By the time fall of freshman year rolls around, you’re pretty much resigned to telling them, don’t let the screen door hit you in the butt on your way out!</p>
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HAHAHA! Love it. And getting truer by the day…</p>
<p>Sorry, but I think the OP sounds like a spoiled brat who doesn’t care about the huge expense his parents are willing to take on for him. Maybe 2 years at community college would instill a bit of humility. Just my 2 cents!</p>
<p>Just setting the record straight. Please spell it with an “i”, not a “u”. </p>
<p>Senioritis is an affliction, named like those other afflictions- bronchitis, gastroenteritis, dermatitis.</p>
<p>And nipplitis :)</p>
<p>snotitis? entitleitis? Goditsgrandtobemeitis? They do all sound like afflictions. . .</p>
<p>senioritusyep,</p>
<p>Wow. You come into the Parent’s Forum. You post about how your parents are being unreasonable about your slacking off. Then you make some snarky comments about how parents should feel regret or maybe even guilt about all the nagging they do and now YOU feel insulted?!? Talk about clueless.</p>
<p>Not that you’ll listen…</p>
<p>I don’t care if it’s senioritis or senioritus, as a made-up word the spelling is irrelevant. I don’t care about the very small chance that you’ll be rescinded. I don’t care about your study habits or the risk that you may not be able to turn it back on once you start college. I don’t care that your parents are going to be spending their hard earned dollars on an education for their seemingly indifferent child, (N.B., Someday you will learn that parenting is the constant battle of hope versus evidence; we parents want to believe, it’s what we do.).</p>
<p>There’s only one reason to fight senioritis and it’s the simplest and most boring of all reasons. You fight it because the truly successful people in this life finish what they start. You finish it not because you’re going to learn something pivotal in the last three months, you won’t. You finish it not because you want to be valedictorian, that is ultimately forgettable. You finish it because no one is proud of doing a job 80% of the way. You finish it because you don’t want to give anyone the opportunity to say you quit. You finish it precisely because no one’s watching. As you sit in class slacking off I guarantee you that some of your future classmates are putting in the work, in boring, meaningless “fill in the coloring book” classes. They’ll be able to say, “yeah, I graduated with a 4.0”. What will your answer be? “Well, I could have but I didn’t feel like it”. Impressive.</p>
<p>You’re going to get to MIT or CalTech or wherever you’re really going, and those kids are going to eat your lunch in class. Not because they’re smarter, but because they’re willing to do what it takes even if it seems boring or pointless. Instead of complaining they’ll find a way to get it done. But not you. You’ll give yourself an excuse not to do the extra credit or attend the review sessions. You failed GYM for God’s sake, but it wasn’t your fault, it was the teacher not understanding you, it was the jocks picking on the nerd. It couldn’t possibly have been you copping a superior attitude and dismissing a class that is passable with the smallest amount of effort. No, “It’s gym. I’m not going to be an engineer; why should I care?”</p>
<p>Let me break some unpleasant news to you, life is full of meaningless scut work. The best jobs I’ve ever had I was lucky to spend 30% of my time doing the things that intrigued me. The rest of the time was spent doing administrative minutiae or attending endless meetings trying to explain to all the 60-70-and-80%ers who hadn’t done all their detail work, why a given approach was the strongest. You’ll be shocked how easy it will be to identify the ones who get things done; unless of course you stay in the majority who’ll complain about their bosses not appreciating them or envying the guy in the other cubicle who got the promotion and the bigger bonus.</p>
<p>You know, I’m wrong. There’s nothing wrong with senioritis. Slack off. You’re probably smart enough and talented enough to be a good engineer, just don’t be surprised when you don’t turn out to be a great one.</p>
<p>I’m fairly certain you’re going to ignore everything written in this thread so I’ll just leave you with, good luck, you’re going to need it.</p>
<p>Excellent post Vinceh. It’s something that every parent should commit to memory because it doesn’t just apply to senioritis.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, what would you have done differently in retrospect? Could the senioritis be thwarted?</p>
<p>What I would have done differently would have been to make it clear to older S that he get reasonable grades senior year or else we would not be sending him to college immediately after high school.</p>
<p>H and I also wouldn’t have met for a teacher conference fall of senior year when after being accepted to 2 colleges, S was carrying D quarter grades in 2 classes. S didn’t even bother to show up to that conference, saying he didn’t realize he was supposed to be there! One of the teachers said that S had said in class that he didn’t need to do homework because, “I’ve been accepted to college.”</p>
<p>Older S may have continued his downward spiral just as a few years later younger S did senior year. However, we would not have sent older S to a college a thousand miles away. If older S had gone to college, he would have done so completely by using his own resources, and that may have meant that he would have taken his college experience more seriously. He also may have spent another year or two or three at home – working and paying rent or going to community college, and that would have allowed him to mature more.</p>