How does your HS student balance school (high GPA and AP classes) and HS sports?
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Anonymous
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DD will be starting HS next year. She currently plays recreational basketball (winter) and lacrosse (spring). She does taekwondo year-round and has a strong interest in wanting to run track. I told her we wouldn't do rec league track and she had to wait for HS. Track meets take all day! Well, her local HS basketball team is highly competitive so I doubt she will make the team. That leaves lacrosse and track. They conflict in the spring so she will need to choose 1. I suspect she will pick track. Depending on how demanding track is she will have to make a decision about taekwondo.
My question is it looks like track meets every day from 3-6:30/7 pm and has a lot of meets, even in the week. How does your HS student balance school and sports, especially if they take a few AP courses (I know freshman either take 1 or no AP classes, but I'm thinking long term). My child is smart but also has ADHD so it takes her longer to do school work than a neurotypical child so I'd love to hear from everyone but especially from people who have 2e kids with ADHD. I'm looking for their strategies. Study on way to games? Do homework in the mornings too? What? To give you a sense of the type of classes she will need to take in HS, she is a math person. She wants to go to college for computer science so needs to take a decent amount of advanced math and science. She will take Algebra II Honors in 9th. HS was so much easier in the 90s. I don't recall being overloaded and I played several sports. So I can't just reflect on my own experience to answer my own question. |
Anonymous
| They have to accept that weekends mean homework, especially on long term assignments and assigned reading. My 9th grader chooses to do homework on Fridays and Sundays and keeps Saturdays free. |
Anonymous
| OP here - if this is relevant my child is in public school. FCPS. Had no desire to apply to TJ so just run of the mill public school. |
Anonymous
Absolutely a given (did that in MS) but how does your child manage during the week? MS was easy because it got out at 2 pm and then rec league sports and taekwondo start late (6:30 pm was earliest) so she had 4.5 hours to get homework done each day. Very management. HS won't give her that time. I guess she may have 7 - 10 to do it, maybe. Then of course I worry about eating and sleeping enough. |
Anonymous
| "very manageable" - sorry about typo |
Anonymous
| My son uses the time in the car or on the bus (pre-covid) to review notes, study, or read chapters. |
Anonymous
| Have your DD utilize study hall for homework, not chill time. |
Anonymous
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My kids do not have AHD, but they had no real difficulty juggling club and school sports with a rigorous academic schedule at our MoCo public. One of them did club soccer and school track and cross country, and took 11 or 12 APs including lots of high level math and science ones. Keep in mind that if your DD is a math person, math and math based science classes will likely be relatively easy for them, and likely less work than some of the history and literature classes. Agree with others that lots of weekend homework is a given in this scenario.
IME, kids who enjoy sports at any level in HS have an easier time handling their academic load and enjoying their lives than those who don’t. The physical and social outlet is really a positive and an antidote to stress, assuming the kid doesn’t end up on a dysfunctional team. |
Anonymous
I second this. My only caveat is that the reading was hard for my DD to keep up with. We had to help her stay on top of it. DD is reading this. She said don't take AP World History either. |
Anonymous
| My experience with an ADHD teen is that participation in sports is critical to his well being. I consider it to be part of his ADHD treatment plan. The structure forces him to use the free time available to take care of school in a focused way, whereas when he isn’t busy he starts to procrastinate. I would let her steer the ship on the sports unless grades start to slip! She may not be able to articulate how it helps her feel better. My son is almost buzzy if he doesn’t get enough exercise. |
Anonymous
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How are her grades and how much agony does it take for them -- and I don't just mean her, I mean agony/inconvenience/stress for the family. Once she's a senior, those very difficult classes (at least at the level of AP Calc BC, a B is ok) In lower math classes, a B will cause her trouble. She is more likely to be squeezed out of the most advanced math classes, the ones she needs. So what does it take for her to generally get As in math/science? I'd say for every 2 B's on other classes, she needs to drop back a level of difficulty in one of those classes.
Re: EC's. Some kids need the activity. If she isn't getting her work done, or going to bed later than 1pm, she's stretched too thin. |
Anonymous
| I have a 10th grader with ADHD. He doesn't play sports in HS. He did a sport outside of school but he quit before he started HS. He just turned 16 so he is looking for a PT job. He couldn't have handled anything more than the one after-school club he has done for the last few years. He regularly has 3+ hours of homework. |
Anonymous
| My very smart kid really struggled with grades because of the demands from his sports. He was often wiped out when trying to finish projects/homework after events. A lot of the kids in his high school cheat. It is a serious thing for the top ranked kids. |
Anonymous
| I know this isn't a new thing for some, but I just have say how bad I feel for kids with this much homework. |
Anonymous
| OP, this is what many high school students face. And some do theater in addition to sports and academics. You use the time you have, you learn to work efficiently and it is what it is. |