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[quote=Anonymous]OP, is your wife a person who would listen more to a third party than she is listening to you?

For instance, if you enlist the help of one of your child's teachers, school counselor, a coach, a family friend or relative to say what you're saying -- is she possibly likelier to hear "He's overscheduled and stressed and is going to push back soon" if it is not coming from you? That's one thing to try. You, yourself, could go to the school counselor (meeting without your son or wife there) and lay it all out and see if the counselor will meet with you and your wife and possibly son along with you.

You are correct that your son is greatly overscheduled, OP. I have a very academic high schooler who is also doing private lessons on two instruments and has another very time-consuming extracurricular (four days a week, sometimes more). If we expected her to do academic prep as well, her head would explode; frankly, homework for her classes is plenty of prep since they are tough classes. And we do not push practicing daily on BOTH instruments -- yes, daily practice is important and would be ideal, but her academic load come first.

And I make it a point to remind her that SHE drive what she does -- I let her know that if she ever wants to take a break from her extracurricular, that is fine with us, and she will get no hassles about it. Same with the instruments. I have a feeling your wife has never told your son that he has any choices. School itself is not a choice, but everything else is.

OP, you and your wife need to talk very seriously about HER goals for your son and why she believe these activities are so important. They clearly are important to her, but what about him? Is she pushing so hard in eighth grade because she wants him to get into TJ or some other school or program? Does she believe that eighth grade will affect his college chances that profoundly? Or was she, herself, raised in a family or culture where a child this age was simply expected to fill every moment and be academically excellent as well as playing instruments, etc.? (That is not a reason to burn out a kid in the next generation).

Is your son having actual academic problems with writing etc. or are the extra classes just to make an already good student do better and better and better, in her eyes? If he is not needing extra classes to fix an academic problem, why is mom pushing them?

Can she be at all objective about her own experiences and reasons for pressing your son in this way? Or would she just say, "He's smart, he needs to be pushed, he needs to get into (specific program/HS/college)" without being able to articulate why she, herself, is so invested in this?

He is more than old enough to express his own preferences and to be allowed to say no to some things just because he wants to say no. That is appropriate at his age. OP, if your wife does not back down and let him drop some things, he is going to rebel either outright or by staying with his activities but intentionally doing worse at them.

Counseling for your wife, or family counseling, might help, if she can be self-aware about how she is the one driving things when he should be making more choices for himself.

If she continues on this path, not only will he rebel, but he will possibly end up distanced from his brother (who disturbs the studying that mom so values) and he will be one extremely stressed high schooler--that's a recipe for disaster and all her pushing will have backfired if that happens.

I'm writing this as a parent of a very busy kid myself. OP, your son needs to be allowed to drop some things without ANY blowback, comments, or upset from your wife. If he's a kid who wants to please mom, and she's a parent who would make him feel small for "giving up," you have a bigger problem on your hands than mere overscheduling; you have a really bad dynamic.

You have to be the one to step in, enlist help from outside like the school counselor, and say, it's time to ramp back and give son some control over his activities.[/quote]

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