Formerly great student slacking off spring semester junior year

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Does your kid have attention issues? Mine does and we only realized it during the pandemic. She doesn’t have the ability to sit on a computer for hours with remote learning and then tackle homework on the computer for another 3-hour block.

That’s not an attention issue. That’s normal. Even grown adults aren’t expected to stare at a screen for 6-7 hours straight and then spend another 2-3 hours on the computer for homework every day. And then when you add in the pressure of junior year and take away everything else that makes it worth it like time with friends, school activities and events, sports, everything that makes them feel human...all they have is that damn screen. Do not fault your kid for the unreasonable expectations.

I have a junior as well so I can relate. And I completely agree with this.

The real issue, I think, is how we as parents, schools and a society have allowed it to come to this for our kids. We are all smiling merrily along, talking about vaccines and "life slowly reopening," and meanwhile, every single freaking day, these kids are missing part of their high school life. These are critical years of development that can never be replaced. We've pretended that their education hasn't suffered - ha. What a joke. More important, they have suffered as young teens who were robbed of one of the last important years under parental and school supervision, but with the expectation that they could experience more independence and self-discovery. That is completely gone.

It's a travesty. Our kids will pay the price for this for some time to come.

I’m the pp. To clarify, we are not all smiling merrily along. The attention issues were layered on top of depression which landed her in the hospital this fall. The year has been catastrophic for us and I certainly don’t expect anyone to be able to sit on the computer and excel for that long. But here’s the really depressing part—she had great grades and scores until she hit a wall. And half the colleges she applied to still wanted those 2Q grades and all the schools that saw them rejected her. There’s really no humanity left in this process and it’s an absolute nightmare. The seniors and juniors that have endured it should have an easier time getting into college not a harder time.

Totally agree with your post, especially the bolded.

They should, but they won’t. And on top of competing with the floods of students who delayed due to deferrals, gap years, and visa issues, they now have to compete with those who had uninterrupted in person learning and those who cheated their way to magical straight As in DL that no one will ever suspect because all schools are test optional. It’s the perfect storm.

A goog time to remind ourselves that the college a kid attends does not dictate the trajectory of their lives.

Correct, but it’s hard to watch your kid losing options and losing hope. A kid that once thought they could choose VT, JMU, or CNU and even try for UVA or WM and now knows that they will have to choose from schools they’ve never heard of...no matter what you tell them, they feel like they’re just dumb, incapable, and lesser than.

My kid is in the exact same position. We've raised the idea of two years of CC, then transferring if he doesn't get into anywhere he's excited about.

For my kid, cc is seen as the ultimate failure. He would literally go to any random u in flyover country before considering it.

[Anonymous]

Same position with the bad grades, depression and wanting to commit suicide. We had to completely shift the concern over bad grades to making her mental health and safety the absolute priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same position with the bad grades, depression and wanting to commit suicide. We had to completely shift the concern over bad grades to making her mental health and safety the absolute priority.

Yes. I hear you, PP. It’s been a nightmare. My DD struggled with anxiety before covid hit. This has been horrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same position with the bad grades, depression and wanting to commit suicide. We had to completely shift the concern over bad grades to making her mental health and safety the absolute priority.

I’m so, so sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same position with the bad grades, depression and wanting to commit suicide. We had to completely shift the concern over bad grades to making her mental health and safety the absolute priority.

I’m so, so sorry.

Thanks to you and the pp 21:42, I appreciate it. hugs.

[Anonymous]

NP here and very sympathetic. Agree it's insane to expect all the screen time as normal and a kid who has trouble with it as being abnormal somehow.

So it may resolve when normalcy comes back, OP. However; the depression advice is good. I think it's a toxic atmosphere that can take a normal kid and make them depressed.

Just in case it's more garden-variety malaise, you mentioned (I'll have to go back and look, but I think you mentioned) that there is nothing to look forward to or connect the grades with the reality.

In general (non-Covid times), there is not much to connect grades to reality as "college" is vague, which one, etc.

So just an idea (that worked with my DD pre-covid) is to make it less abstract by offering a carrot. For my DD, she always wanted to go to Hawaii (we are on the west coast) so I told her if she just held it together, we could go. It provided motivation.

Look, if depression, it may not work, but while you figure out with mental health experts if it is or isn't, see if some kind of tailored carrot will help some.

I think in this very difficult situation, you throw everything you've got and see if anything sticks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son was exactly like this, but it hit earlier - over the winter quarter. It took me a while to realize that this was a manifestation of depression. This is a time in their lives they are supposed to be pulling away and becoming independent and they couldn't do it. Some kids reacted to this by acting out. Mine just shut down.

Academically, the only thing that worked was getting him out of his room and making him sit at the dining room table to work while I was right there doing work myself at the table. One night we stayed up together until 2 am. I went over his schedule every day, checked up on assignments and kept checking with him until they were done.

And honestly, it was horrible. He resented being treated like a kid and I resented having to do it. We argued a lot and I worried about it destroying our relationship. The alternative, however, was doing nothing and letting his grades tank and I wasn't willing to do that given the circumstances and the fact that eventually things would return to normal. My mindset was "just get him through this..."

Things did eventually get back to normal - he's in four days a week now because I advocated hard to get him back in. He is so much happier. He's meeting deadlines and I'm no longer having to monitor it all. His grades have recovered somewhat, but aren't where they would have been otherwise. Our relationship it much better. I took him out to dinner last week and we talked a little bit about the "dark days of winter" and then agreed to never speak of them again.

This year has greatly altered his college options, but we've been arranging in-person tours for the summer to places he can still likely get into. He's so excited about the prospect of leaving home that he has already started his personal statement for applications.

I'm not sure what advice to give you, but I wanted to let you know you're not alone, it's not just your kid and you can do whatever it is you think you need to to help her get through this.

I could have written this exact post -- except my junior son's crisis hit in the fall. NONE of his teachers in the fall trimester alerted me to the problem -- I just found out after we got his grades. I know this has been hard for teachers, but it has been harder for the kids. My son's college options are now narrowed because the school didn't react.

I did the same as you, PP. Sitting at the dining room table. Staying on top of his assignments. Giving a real piece of my mind to that teacher who waited until the end of the winter trimester to load all the grades in at once, with the late penalties. God it has been miserable.

Also spent major money for weekly therapist, psychiatrist, and some zoloft. But it all worked. He is feeling good again and thriving. I no longer have to ask whether the work was done. At least, I hope. I guess we'll see at the end of the term. [/quote

You are blaming the teacher, but it does not sound like you (who was living in the same house) noticed your son was having mental health issues. Don't blame it all on the teachers. This goes beyond grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your kid have attention issues? Mine does and we only realized it during the pandemic. She doesn’t have the ability to sit on a computer for hours with remote learning and then tackle homework on the computer for another 3-hour block.

That’s not an attention issue. That’s normal. Even grown adults aren’t expected to stare at a screen for 6-7 hours straight and then spend another 2-3 hours on the computer for homework every day. And then when you add in the pressure of junior year and take away everything else that makes it worth it like time with friends, school activities and events, sports, everything that makes them feel human...all they have is that damn screen. Do not fault your kid for the unreasonable expectations.

I have a junior as well so I can relate. And I completely agree with this.

The real issue, I think, is how we as parents, schools and a society have allowed it to come to this for our kids. We are all smiling merrily along, talking about vaccines and "life slowly reopening," and meanwhile, every single freaking day, these kids are missing part of their high school life. These are critical years of development that can never be replaced. We've pretended that their education hasn't suffered - ha. What a joke. More important, they have suffered as young teens who were robbed of one of the last important years under parental and school supervision, but with the expectation that they could experience more independence and self-discovery. That is completely gone.

It's a travesty. Our kids will pay the price for this for some time to come.

Sorry, they happen to be growing up during a worldwide pandemic--that has killed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans. Other teens lived through the Civil war or the depression or world wars. It is the real world, not some political plot to sabotage your kids' teen years. Grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your kid have attention issues? Mine does and we only realized it during the pandemic. She doesn’t have the ability to sit on a computer for hours with remote learning and then tackle homework on the computer for another 3-hour block.

That’s not an attention issue. That’s normal. Even grown adults aren’t expected to stare at a screen for 6-7 hours straight and then spend another 2-3 hours on the computer for homework every day. And then when you add in the pressure of junior year and take away everything else that makes it worth it like time with friends, school activities and events, sports, everything that makes them feel human...all they have is that damn screen. Do not fault your kid for the unreasonable expectations.

I have a junior as well so I can relate. And I completely agree with this.

The real issue, I think, is how we as parents, schools and a society have allowed it to come to this for our kids. We are all smiling merrily along, talking about vaccines and "life slowly reopening," and meanwhile, every single freaking day, these kids are missing part of their high school life. These are critical years of development that can never be replaced. We've pretended that their education hasn't suffered - ha. What a joke. More important, they have suffered as young teens who were robbed of one of the last important years under parental and school supervision, but with the expectation that they could experience more independence and self-discovery. That is completely gone.

It's a travesty. Our kids will pay the price for this for some time to come.

Sorry, they happen to be growing up during a worldwide pandemic--that has killed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans. Other teens lived through the Civil war or the depression or world wars. It is the real world, not some political plot to sabotage your kids' teen years. Grow up.

These kids and families are really suffering, minimizing their pain like this is both cruel and a little strange. You cannot suffer simply because it isn’t a civil or world war? Give me a break.

[Anonymous]

DP...no one is minimizing the pain. All the PP was noting is that every generation has its challenges and somehow, we as a people manage to come through it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP...no one is minimizing the pain. All the PP was noting is that every generation has its challenges and somehow, we as a people manage to come through it.

She said "grow up" That's demeaning and minimizing.

[Anonymous]

One year is NOT going to hurt your kid. They will look at 9th and especially 10th closely. Many, many kids are in this situation. My kid is the opposite. Horrible 9th grade (depression). I was told that most colleges look at a complete picture. DO NOT worry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One year is NOT going to hurt your kid. They will look at 9th and especially 10th closely. Many, many kids are in this situation. My kid is the opposite. Horrible 9th grade (depression). I was told that most colleges look at a complete picture. DO NOT worry.

19:49 pp here. Having just gone through this I can tell you that some will look at the complete picture and some won’t. Ivies most definitely won’t. Highly selective private schools, too. I think since Virgina schools have mandates to take a certain percentage in-state, they are more likely to accommodate GPA slip-ups during the pandemic. In the past, 9th grade was more easily ignored as long as there was a track record of significant improvement. We are now talking about a completely different environment with lots of variables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One year is NOT going to hurt your kid. They will look at 9th and especially 10th closely. Many, many kids are in this situation. My kid is the opposite. Horrible 9th grade (depression). I was told that most colleges look at a complete picture. DO NOT worry.

19:49 pp here. Having just gone through this I can tell you that some will look at the complete picture and some won’t. Ivies most definitely won’t. Highly selective private schools, too. I think since Virgina schools have mandates to take a certain percentage in-state, they are more likely to accommodate GPA slip-ups during the pandemic. In the past, 9th grade was more easily ignored as long as there was a track record of significant improvement. We are now talking about a completely different environment with lots of variables.

Thank you. I’m the PP who’s kid had horrible 9th grade at a DC private. Has gone from C in 9th to A in 11th. School was hybrid most of the year and I think she liked the combination. I was under the impression that the state schools didn’t look at the whole student but that private schools did?! She is obviously not applying to Ivy’s. Maybe some private’s like Miami and mostly state schools like UVA, WM. She she totally doomed? You said you just went through it so that’s why I’m asking. Thanks so much!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP...no one is minimizing the pain. All the PP was noting is that every generation has its challenges and somehow, we as a people manage to come through it.

Exactly! I was not saying their trial is nothing in comparison to other generations.

I was saying really hard things happen to the humans on our planet. Prior posts sound like they want to blame someone that this has come along.

It is biology. Pandemics come and go. If anything, policy makers can be blamed for not listening to the viorologists and public health experts who have been warning for decades to prepare for this eventuality. I work for a medical school, and this presentation topic is perennial. We even have a graduate program called "Emerging infectious diseases."

This is a world wide tragedy that will be discussed into the next millenia. It goes far beyond the quality of classes online vs. in person.

Vulnerable kids are hit especially hard when the going gets tough. They have my sympathy. But, we (all humans) are in this together, as we have been for millenia.