Too many classes for my son?

[Anonymous]

DS is a grade 8 student. My wife is driving DS crazy by insisting him to do all these every week: play two music instruments (one for a band) even though he is at best modestly interested, go to an English writing class, a math enrichment class, an exam preparation class, and a tennis lesson. All this is on top of his regular school classes.

DS often has to stay up late (past 11 pm) in order to finish his regular school homework, sometimes he has to delay dinner until 9 pm because of the classes.

I asked wife to drop one musical instrument since he rarely practices it and actually has zero interest in it, but she won't even consider my suggestion. What is more, since DS cannot handle all the classes, wife asked me to help him but it has been counter-productive since he just needs time to digest the class material. I realized that spool feeding my son is not produce the expected results.

What are your opinion?

[Anonymous]

You need to put your foot down.
Talk to your son, present a united front and scrap half the stuff. You son needs to choose one activity he really likes, and then he needs to put effort into a couple of activities that are "good for him".

I speak from experience. My son was overscheduled at one point and he was miserable, we were stressed out and disappointed with his grades, it was a bad situation all around.

Now we've learned out lesson, and prioritized certain extras. It kills me he can't participate in Science Olympiad or learn Latin, but at the end of the day, I want my son to be successful in what he does.

[Anonymous]

Dear Lord, how many activities, and all of them apart from tennis, music or academic? Where is she from? I am just kidding about where is she from, but that is way too much. Why does he need prep class and writing class and math class if he is that good of a student? You know those are for kids who struggle in school, right? I think she means well, and might be some overcompensation on her part to make sure he gets to the best college and have the best future he can have, but this much is too much even for generally insanely competitive DC area.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I agree that wife needs to prioritize but I am worried about forming a united front with DS against wife as it could backfire in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I agree that wife needs to prioritize but I am worried about forming a united front with DS against wife as it could backfire in the future.

Then you need to sit down with your wife, go for lunch without DS, and try to nicely explain your point of view, and then come to DS as a united front with DW. Or decide which ones he will be dropping and allow her to be the good guy and she can tell DS that he can drop 3 activities and he decides which ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I agree that wife needs to prioritize but I am worried about forming a united front with DS against wife as it could backfire in the future.

As in, they will present a united front against you?
You have to get the message across somehow, OP. It would be nice for the interested party in question to actually have a say in what he does!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear Lord, how many activities, and all of them apart from tennis, music or academic? Where is she from? I am just kidding about where is she from, but that is way too much. Why does he need prep class and writing class and math class if he is that good of a student? You know those are for kids who struggle in school, right? I think she means well, and might be some overcompensation on her part to make sure he gets to the best college and have the best future he can have, but this much is too much even for generally insanely competitive DC area.

DS is a straight A student in a good school.

[Anonymous]

suggest that he pick the one or two of the top activities that he excels at or truly needs and the rest attend them on an as time permits basis with no expectation that he will make it to each class every week.

[Anonymous]

I am the op. Talked to DW this morning and she firmly said NO to everything I suggested, even to a suggestion to suspend a musical instrument lesson temporarily.

Last night everyone were driven crazy by this, since my son demanded my other son to leave their shared study room claiming he was making too much noise.

[Anonymous]

Your DW sounds totally unreasonable. What do you think is her reason for doing this? Is it cultural?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the op. Talked to DW this morning and she firmly said NO to everything I suggested, even to a suggestion to suspend a musical instrument lesson temporarily.

Last night everyone were driven crazy by this, since my son demanded my other son to leave their shared study room claiming he was making too much noise.

Why does she get to decide unilaterally, OP? You need to show a little backbone here. Keep bringing up the subject until you convince her. You should have an equal voice in the marriage.

[Anonymous]

Drop one of the instruments. Choose between either the exam prep OR the writing class/math enrichment.

[Anonymous]

Oh my lord, grow a pair already! What is going to end up happening, if you don't take a stand now, is that your son will be miserable and fail at something spectacularly simply because he is too stressed out and overwhelmed. How do you think your wife will react then? AND the icing on the cake will be that your son resents you both for forcing him to do a million things he's not interested in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the op. Talked to DW this morning and she firmly said NO to everything I suggested, even to a suggestion to suspend a musical instrument lesson temporarily.

Last night everyone were driven crazy by this, since my son demanded my other son to leave their shared study room claiming he was making too much noise.

Okay, you tried talking. Now you act.

Skip a few classes this week and next. Just don't go. She will be pissed, but this where you start putting your foot down. You are the parent too. One of the benefits of having 2 parents is that you have checks on one person going overboard.

[Anonymous]

What kind of exam prep does an already highly successful 8th grader need? That seems nuts. I can't imagine how much worse it will be for him in HS if you don't put your foot down now. Just tell your wife that her effed up priorities are making the whole family miserable and maybe she'll take a step back and get a grip.