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[quote=Anonymous]New poster (magnet mom) here.

I also recognized your post.  It was a constant struggle at our house.  I wanted my child to take care of herself (and have a life outside school).  My kid just wanted to take the most challenging classes. Finally, during senior year, facing major burnout, we convinced them to take a study hall.  It made a big difference because not only did they have time to do some homework, but there was one less class to assign work.

On the plus side, now at college, my child feels a lot less stress.  The classes are about the same level, but there are fewer of them and less time spent in classes.

Don't feel guilty about whatever coping strategies your family needs to adopt.  My child was basically choreless as well.  If you really want to, you can give them chores over the summer.  Basically, I just wanted mine to have a restful vacation.  I didn't drive them to school on a regular basis, but I did on occasion when it would make their life easier.  Most of the time, they did homework on the bus.

I think the pp's advice to go to bed yourself was excellent.  I stayed up a few times for "support", accomplishing nothing.

Try to ignore the criticism.  Magnet programs are so much more intense than the regular high school program that most people can't comprehend what these kids are facing.  They're basically taking 8 college level classes, when a full schedule for a typical college student is 5.  This translates to about 24 credit hours.  I think the recommendation in college is to allow 2-3 hours of homework/study per credit hour.  This would mean about 48-72 hours of homework for the kids. Add the time kids are in school, about another 35 hours.  Add about another 10 hours for getting to and from the magnet.  If there are 168 hours in a week, you've already accounted for 93-117 of them.  This leaves 51-75 hours (7.3-10.7 hrs/day) for sleeping, eating, hygiene, family obligations, extracurricular activities, socializing, etc.  Something, somewhere, has to give.

I think you're doing a great job.  You can try and encourage balance, but if you have a magnet kid, they're probably driven to seek out challenge.  As my kid progressed through the program, they learned that maybe taking the hardest course in EVERY subject wasn't actually what they wanted to do and were more open to ways to lighten the load. [/quote]

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