How do kids at schools with 4+ hours of HW per night have time to get everything done?

[Anonymous]

A lot of them just sleep less, which is a problem because chronic sleep deprivation is bad for everyone, but it's really not great for adolescents with developing brains. We think it's not a big deal if kids get less than 7-8 hours of sleep a night, but it's not healthy.

[Anonymous]

OP - it also depends on which classes your child takes. At our school there's not a choice for English/History and language is at whatever level you have reached....but Math and Science can vary greatly on difficulty and time required.

[Anonymous]

I went to a big three in the nineties and for me the answer was that I did not get enough sleep. Averaged six hours a night which is not healthy for teen

[Anonymous]

So it sounds like the bottom line is that kids are grinding away into wee hours of the night and becoming sleep deprived but still only getting into the same colleges that their counterpart public school kids would get into?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a straight A student at a Big3. She will get home from school and sports at 8pm and work until 11pm or midnight--no phone time, no messing around on the internet. Or she'll set her alarm for 4amor 5am and work 2 hours until 7am when she gets ready for school.

It's honestly weird for a kid to do this. My other kids are nothing like this and I'm not either. But this is the type of kid who thrives at these schools and there are many of them that just do it without a thought. There is a decent percentage of REALLY driven kids.

My kid is not quite a straight A student but pretty close.

Usually goes to sleep by 10 each night when not in sports season, does not wake up early, does not spend ALL weekend doing homework. It isn't like this for ALL of the students.

+1
Lots of parents exaggerate like it is cool to have a kid overwhelmed with homework. If mine had that much we would take out some honors classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleep, family time, time with friends, chores, ECs, etc?

- Short drive to school (private), so time not wasted there
- No job, focus is on sports and studies
- Not many chores other than picking up after themselves (I was the same, we had a daily maid who did our laundry growing up and I am now perfectly capable of keeping a great house, it's not hard to learn)
- Close friends who play sports plus do other activities
- Planning of schedule so as to maximize free time at school, etc.
- Family dinners, breakfasts, and my husband and I being flexible with our work to be able to drive them to and from sports or spend time when they're free

#1 is the highlighted along with what is HIGH level family support. They do nothing but school, family&friends, etc. They dont have daily or weekly chores, arent responsible for spending money and/or taking care of siblings, they never worry about money or enough gas or clothes or food.

And for the PP here - are you stating that you keep a clean home along with a FT job and no outsourcing whatsoever? Its not that cleaning is hard to learn it is having to do it ALL by yourself. People who come from these type of families typically dont suddenly get the legs taken out from under them- they go to college and never have a job unless they WANT extra money or do it for their resume/internships, they go to med/grad school after having entire summers at an "internship" or lowly paid lab job/summer intensive where they study for the GRE or MCAT (paid for by parents) while living at home and getting taken on vacations, they get their living expenses paid for including housing, their residency is supplemented by parental support/housing/grocery delivery, etc.

[Anonymous]

My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleep, family time, time with friends, chores, ECs, etc?

- Short drive to school (private), so time not wasted there
- No job, focus is on sports and studies
- Not many chores other than picking up after themselves (I was the same, we had a daily maid who did our laundry growing up and I am now perfectly capable of keeping a great house, it's not hard to learn)
- Close friends who play sports plus do other activities
- Planning of schedule so as to maximize free time at school, etc.
- Family dinners, breakfasts, and my husband and I being flexible with our work to be able to drive them to and from sports or spend time when they're free

#1 is the highlighted along with what is HIGH level family support. They do nothing but school, family&friends, etc. They dont have daily or weekly chores, arent responsible for spending money and/or taking care of siblings, they never worry about money or enough gas or clothes or food.

And for the PP here - are you stating that you keep a clean home along with a FT job and no outsourcing whatsoever? Its not that cleaning is hard to learn it is having to do it ALL by yourself. People who come from these type of families typically dont suddenly get the legs taken out from under them- they go to college and never have a job unless they WANT extra money or do it for their resume/internships, they go to med/grad school after having entire summers at an "internship" or lowly paid lab job/summer intensive where they study for the GRE or MCAT (paid for by parents) while living at home and getting taken on vacations, they get their living expenses paid for including housing, their residency is supplemented by parental support/housing/grocery delivery, etc.

NP. I would be surprised if someone who grew up with a daily maid has NO help now, but i guess anything is possible. My family: we outsource nothing. We mow our own lawn, do own cleaning, get groceries at the store and cook, and we both have full time (plus) jobs. It is a grind and our house, modest Potomac, can be a disaster at times. Sometimes I really regret this route. We do this so DC can go to private school. Her only real chore is to walk the dog. She also has insane executive function. The kid who turns down a play date to get her project done a week ahead of time. She is also obsessive about 9 hours of sleep a night. In MS now; We will see if this lasts.

[Anonymous]

I did this in a public high school in the 90s. As others have said, i sacrificed sleep in a big way. I did sports/ clubs, talked to my friends on the phone, and usually started my homework at like 9 or 10pm. I also figured out where I could cut corners (eg, ensure top result on big test, ignore homework that doesn’t get checked). Basically for four years I slept from 1 or later until 6:45am. On the weekends I spent time with family and partied a lot. I still sorta live like this, actually. I’d like a long vacation, or nap, at some point.

I did go to a top (HYP) college, so there’s that. I also don’t think I suffered burnout, per se. The lack of sleep was probably not good though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

See how it goes. DD is a rising junior at a “big 3” and is a nearly straight A student and three sport athlete. She studies two hours a night, gets 8 hours of sleep and has lots of friends. She does another four to six hours on Sundays.

I think the best thing we did for her was teach her time management in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Is this thread for real? Damn....

[Anonymous]

Wow. Teens should not be this exhausted or stressed or busy. Whatever happened to lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling while listening to music and pondering your identity? It seems to me that downtime like this is essential to growth and development of an inner life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleep, family time, time with friends, chores, ECs, etc?

- Short drive to school (private), so time not wasted there
- No job, focus is on sports and studies
- Not many chores other than picking up after themselves (I was the same, we had a daily maid who did our laundry growing up and I am now perfectly capable of keeping a great house, it's not hard to learn)
- Close friends who play sports plus do other activities
- Planning of schedule so as to maximize free time at school, etc.
- Family dinners, breakfasts, and my husband and I being flexible with our work to be able to drive them to and from sports or spend time when they're free

#1 is the highlighted along with what is HIGH level family support. They do nothing but school, family&friends, etc. They dont have daily or weekly chores, arent responsible for spending money and/or taking care of siblings, they never worry about money or enough gas or clothes or food.

And for the PP here - are you stating that you keep a clean home along with a FT job and no outsourcing whatsoever? Its not that cleaning is hard to learn it is having to do it ALL by yourself. People who come from these type of families typically dont suddenly get the legs taken out from under them- they go to college and never have a job unless they WANT extra money or do it for their resume/internships, they go to med/grad school after having entire summers at an "internship" or lowly paid lab job/summer intensive where they study for the GRE or MCAT (paid for by parents) while living at home and getting taken on vacations, they get their living expenses paid for including housing, their residency is supplemented by parental support/housing/grocery delivery, etc.

DP. Don't many people do this? I don't think it's particularly hard for people who didn't contribute to housework as kids to learn. Once you've learned how to do the chores, all you need is time management skills and self-discipline.

Also, you seem to have a lot of knowledge about the experiences of economically privileged people. How do you know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

Or, he might be super organized and figure out how to make it work, they way thousands of other kids before him.

There are plenty of kids who play varsity sports (practice from 3:30-6:00) AND theater (practice from 7:00-9:00) who make it work. There is no reason your kid can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

Or, he might be super organized and figure out how to make it work, they way thousands of other kids before him.

There are plenty of kids who play varsity sports (practice from 3:30-6:00) AND theater (practice from 7:00-9:00) who make it work. There is no reason your kid can't.

NP “make it work” usually means sleep deprivation, which is definitely not good in the long term.