I was a theatre kid and an athlete. Equal amts of drama and substance using in those two groups. A lot of drama in costumes but a LOT of drama from the super egos of the good athletes.

My kids are on sports teams, in band and in theatre. Equal amounts of drama and substance using in those groups.

People here have so many biases.

Anonymous wrote:Theater kids are the biggest drinkers of them all. At least they were when I was in school. Sports kids tend to get high. I keep advising my teens to make friends with nerdy kids who are more likely to be sincere but that's probably just not true.

All human beings are different. They have different characters and different interests. And they mature and change at different rates. Maybe your kid is a loner and that's why they can't find the imaginary good, wholesome kids to be friends with -- but that will change, too. Life is long.

Disagree; in my experience the theater kids tend to smoke weed/ vape THC. They also include tons of LGTBQIA+ kids.

And of course: there is always more drama with the drama kids.

Anonymous wrote:We are at a conservative Catholic school for this reason, even though we are not super conservative. Lots of clean cut kids, a few partiers but it seems pretty benign.

Are you serious?? The Catholic private school kids are the worse!! My kid has multiple friend groups and the kids who have the fake IDs, who drink like crazy, vape, and with parents who serve alcohol at parties are predominantly the Catholic school kids.

We are at a conservative Catholic school for this reason, even though we are not super conservative. Lots of clean cut kids, a few partiers but it seems pretty benign.

Am I the only one bugged by OP's reference to "wholesome" kids?

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Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

It is regardless of your personal opinion on it. Colleges don't care how old their athletes are. It's also more common the stronger the high school is in sports.

BTW, that means most graduate high school as 19 year olds vs. 18 year olds.

It is stupid to redshirt some poor little kid so he’ll be the big kid in tee ball. He ends up not being very good at sports so it ends up being a poor choice.

The talented athletes who aren’t quite there at graduation, maybe need to mature a little go to a prep school for a year on scholarship and then on to college. This makes a whole lot more sense.

Most common thing to do is repeat 8th grade, not start later in K.

Again, it’s usually the most talented athletes recruited to a sports private that allow the kids to repeat 8th grade at the private.

That’s makes sense but it’s not redshirting. It’s transferring to another school and repeating a grade because he’s not quite ready for the next grade but he has great potential. That’s smart.

The parents who wait a year for kindergarten so they’ll be the big kid in peewee football are idiots.

That’s the definition of redshirting.

Actually, redshirting (if borrowed from college enrollment) applies usually to freshman year and is analogous to K.

Repeating 8th or 9th when changing schools has been given a more elegant description. Better to bury the blind ambition under. The word you are looking for is reclassing.

Happens at boarding schools to as much as 1/3 of the student body. Often, but not always, the boys.

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Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

It is regardless of your personal opinion on it. Colleges don't care how old their athletes are. It's also more common the stronger the high school is in sports.

BTW, that means most graduate high school as 19 year olds vs. 18 year olds.

It is stupid to redshirt some poor little kid so he’ll be the big kid in tee ball. He ends up not being very good at sports so it ends up being a poor choice.

The talented athletes who aren’t quite there at graduation, maybe need to mature a little go to a prep school for a year on scholarship and then on to college. This makes a whole lot more sense.

Most common thing to do is repeat 8th grade, not start later in K.

Again, it’s usually the most talented athletes recruited to a sports private that allow the kids to repeat 8th grade at the private.

That’s makes sense but it’s not redshirting. It’s transferring to another school and repeating a grade because he’s not quite ready for the next grade but he has great potential. That’s smart.

The parents who wait a year for kindergarten so they’ll be the big kid in peewee football are idiots.

That’s the definition of redshirting.

OP, he's about to enter high school? He needs to be at try outs. Trying out for a Fall Sport. To give him a group. This starts now. Certainly by early August. Do your homework and find out which fall sports have tryouts, and when

No matter what else he does, what other ECs he does

Anonymous wrote:My 15-year-old DS is in flux. He's about to enter HS.
Kids he grew up with in elementary and middle seemed to have splintered into two camps -- kids who are sneaking out, vaping, defacing property (seriously, two kids he knows well were just arraigned in court for this), or else have super niche interests like D&D, which don't appeal to my kid.

I am not saying my child is an angel but he's really not interested in staying out til all hours and vaping (and I'd like to think we've dissuaded him from this anyway), but he's also not into the things that the non-party kids enjoy. The result is that he's struggling to find kids who are on his wavelength and he ends up spending a lot lot of time when he's not at sports practice hanging out alone.

Can anyone else relate? Does this improve with age?

It helps immensely not to box every teen into either the bad or good category, and you cant rely on certain activities (sports, theater, band, art, etc.) as indicators of character. There are lots of sh***y kids and substance abusers in sports and theater, sorry. A better indicator of character and normalness mainstreamness is grades. Good luck.

I am not saying my child is an angel but he's really not interested in staying out til all hours and vaping (and I'd like to think we've dissuaded him from this anyway), but he's also not into the things that the non-party kids enjoy. The result is that he's struggling to find kids who are on his wavelength and he ends up spending a lot lot of time when he's not at sports practice hanging out alone.

I would not work myself up about this. He's going to make connections with kids at high school. The world is not filled with just two types of kids (partiers and kids into D&D), there is a whole universe in between.

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Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

It is regardless of your personal opinion on it. Colleges don't care how old their athletes are. It's also more common the stronger the high school is in sports.

BTW, that means most graduate high school as 19 year olds vs. 18 year olds.

It is stupid to redshirt some poor little kid so he’ll be the big kid in tee ball. He ends up not being very good at sports so it ends up being a poor choice.

The talented athletes who aren’t quite there at graduation, maybe need to mature a little go to a prep school for a year on scholarship and then on to college. This makes a whole lot more sense.

Talented athletes aren’t given a scholarship to go to prep school except maybe in hockey where that seems to be the standard.

Talented athletes in all other sports are recruited direct to college (or direct to pros for baseball or soccer).

It’s mainly the people still indulging the D1 dream that do a 5th year…and they are paying full freight.

Almost nobody gets a scholarship to IMG at $90k/year.

Maybe I’m going too far back but the 5th year paid prep school was a thing. I know hockey players and lacrosse players who did it. The hockey players went to D1 and D3 schools and the one lacrosse player I know went to D1.

I don’t think I’d want to have a child currently trying to make it in sports. Too much big business in it and too much pushing kids too early. Plus I’ve known some damaged people who got cut from their professional sport after 3 years give or take and they are lost.

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Anonymous wrote:Why is your 15 year old starting high school? My 15 year old is going into junior year. Did you hold him back two years?

Huh? It's pretty common to be 12 in 6th grade, 13 in 7th and 14 in 8th. Most turn 15 in 9th but not at all uncommon to have an August birthday.

Also, it's super common to redshirt athletes.

Not sure why anyone is fixating on the age here.

Um, no it's not. It's so weird to infantile your kids and have them graduating high school 2 years after they turn adults

It is regardless of your personal opinion on it. Colleges don't care how old their athletes are. It's also more common the stronger the high school is in sports.

BTW, that means most graduate high school as 19 year olds vs. 18 year olds.

It is stupid to redshirt some poor little kid so he’ll be the big kid in tee ball. He ends up not being very good at sports so it ends up being a poor choice.

The talented athletes who aren’t quite there at graduation, maybe need to mature a little go to a prep school for a year on scholarship and then on to college. This makes a whole lot more sense.

Most common thing to do is repeat 8th grade, not start later in K.

Again, it’s usually the most talented athletes recruited to a sports private that allow the kids to repeat 8th grade at the private.

That’s makes sense but it’s not redshirting. It’s transferring to another school and repeating a grade because he’s not quite ready for the next grade but he has great potential. That’s smart.

The parents who wait a year for kindergarten so they’ll be the big kid in peewee football are idiots.

Hey, OP. Your son sounds a lot like my rising junior.

He's very social - a huge extrovert - but not very interested in drinking, partying, and getting into trouble. He also loves sports.

His friend group has shifted and changed since the end of 8th grade. Some in that group splintered off into more drinking/drugs/partying while some disappeared into niche interests, as you put it, and became less social. So the friend group shrunk and grew and evolved. Some of those in the current group have been friends since middle school, but new kids have been added. My son's idea of a a great night with friends this summer has been hanging out at someone's swim club (playing pickleball, pool basketball, etc) and then heading to someone's house to watch a movie. He has a group of 10-12 friends but a smaller group of 2-3 boys that he can really talk to about big things. About half the boys in this group are excellent students and the other half are good students. Most play a sport although they aren't really the stars of the basketball or football team - these guys are wrestlers, cross country runners, tennis players, and a basketball player or baseball player or two as well.

The advice I would give to your son is to start off high school being really open to lots of experiences and people. And my advice to you is to facilitate new friends/groups as much as possible. If he's doing a group project in a class -- offer to host them for pizza one night while they work and see if the schoolwork bleeds into a trip to ice cream or something. Push him to find the pickup basketball games. I have found in high school that rec basketball becomes a really big thing for the boys - tons of them do it and have a total blast. Offer to take him and a friend or two to King's Dominion in the fall. Host the fantasy football draft party.

I also agree with other posters that these types of kids are often very busy. A summer job lifeguarding or fall/winter basketball/flag football refereeing can introduce him to other kids too.

IMO, new friendships in the later teen years (and adulthood) are borne out of shared experience. My son became good friends with some kids through a class that had a huge project that they worked on together for months, sports teams, fantasy football, and his job. Push your son to do some things like that and he will find his people.

Good luck!

I would look for a little house.

On a prairie.

Anonymous wrote:Theater kids are the biggest drinkers of them all. At least they were when I was in school. Sports kids tend to get high. I keep advising my teens to make friends with nerdy kids who are more likely to be sincere but that's probably just not true.

All human beings are different. They have different characters and different interests. And they mature and change at different rates. Maybe your kid is a loner and that's why they can't find the imaginary good, wholesome kids to be friends with -- but that will change, too. Life is long.

How recently were you in HS?