Sleep Deprivation and High Achieving Student
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Anonymous
| Parent of rising HS sophomore. DD and I were both exhausted all the time last year. DD many nights only slept 6-7 hours. Academically she's doing wonderful but I don't know how we will survive another 3 years. Any tips? |
Anonymous
| Why are you exhausted? |
Anonymous
| We? |
Anonymous
| He should do all of his sleeping during this summer break. It’s when teachers are expected to get all their rest, have babies, get cancer treatments, and care for parents with dementia. Three months is enough time to handle your biological needs if you plan ahead. |
Anonymous
| You and your DD need to decide what is more important to her: having a balanced life with less course load, less horror or AP classes, less EC activities; or streessout with loaded AP classes, EC. Two years later, your DD will be able to apply the colleges that fit her. |
Anonymous
Wut? |
Anonymous
Sarcasm |
Anonymous
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If she is only sleeping 6-7 hours a night, she is only achieving those grades at a major disruption in her life. Not all classes are for all students. If she is working that much, she is just not ready for the rigor of those classes. Some kids get it and can do it in normal time. A feel bad for the kids who want to stay at the top, no matter what and sacrifice their health and mental well being to do so.
Deep down OP, you know it is too much. It is your job as a parent to make sure your child is happy and healthy. This does not sound like she is. Only 10% of all colleges are competitive. Stop to race to nowhere. Let your daughter live a normal life. |
Anonymous
| Compare to some kids in MCPS, that’s a lot. |
Anonymous
| How much phone/screen time interrupts her hw time? |
Anonymous
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OP, from what you wrote we can't tell how bad things are. We get that you think things need to change.
We don't know what school or program your DD attends. Every student needs different amounts of sleep and so on. For us, both of our kids had more work and slept less as sophomores than they did as freshmen. As juniors we turned back the class difficulty a little but mostly we forced them to develop focus. Focus can be improved by locking up phones for certain hours, by making them do homework at the dining room table and by getting them to start all work the day it is assigned and doing a fraction of the each day until it is due. |
Anonymous
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Let me guess - RMIB? Oh wait. RMIB students get less than 6-7 hours a night on a school day. Must be some other program!
Here's what you do for her- - cut down on non-essential socialization and make sure that sleep becomes a priority. - get her in the habit of not check her social media account when doing homework. Even a quick peek takes 15 minutes especially when all the peers are messaging each other while doing homework - Nap after school for 30 minutes. - Pare down ECs and social obligations. - Make sure she is getting top notch nutrition as well as some exercise every day. Mom and dad should not remain awake with their HS DC at night - even as a show of support to them. You cannot have all family members be sleep deprived. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Studying is a skill. Your daughter needs to get better at this skill.
The first step is study early, don't just do the homework, and study often. There are 100s of websites that can help. https://knowledgeplus.nejm.org/blog/spaced-repetition-the-most-effective-way-to-learn/ There is no website that can get your DD to believe that studying with better methods will produce better grades than studying longer. That is where you come in OP. Good luck |
Anonymous
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"Study in chunked sessions: Your ability to retain information diminishes after about 25-30 minutes, so break it up into multiple, smaller sessions."
Just don't do anything fun/social media based between the sessions if you hope to get back to work soon. |