Reply to Disastrous Freshman Year

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm confused. After a year, surely you have an idea of if your son's load was too much, or if some courses require too much of him?

Can you mentally go through the courses he took this past year and break them out into categories? Which classes did he like, which didn't he like? Which courses did he put effort into, and how much? Was your perception that the effort he was putting in was effective? It's not at all uncommon for 9th grade to be an adjustment year. I'm confused that apparently neither you nor your son know, for example, if advanced history was too challenging, or if he doesn't like the subject matter enough to be willing to put in extra work, or if he struggled with figuring out how to study or manage his time to get enough time for studying.

If math is a subject he struggled with, I'd plan on spending some time shoring up concepts over the summer. Math builds on itself too much, you can't let a weakness go and hope it gets fixed next time it's discovered.

Other than that, is there anything he thinks he needs to work on? Vocab review for foreign language? Read a book and then chat with you about main characters or concepts? Watch some science videos to make sense of something that stumped him about this year's course?

For next year, you should make a plan for more regular checkins. That after an entire academic year you're not sure why it didn't go as expected is a red flag. Check in early, and often. Even if you're not getting regular grades back, ask your son how a class is going. Does he feel like he's on the right track? Does he need some help figuring out how to study? Would he like you to help him set a schedule so he can get all his work done? After each grading period, next year, figure out what worked and what didn't. In preparation for that, spend some time this summer sorting things out. Does he have a place where he does homework? Is it organized? Does he have access to things he needs?

There are some kids who can do all this stuff on their own and rock it. Other kids need a bit more explicit guidance. It can be really, really hard when you were of the former type and your kid is of the latter type.[/quote]

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