schoolwork

KeeperCommander wrote:

FriscoSoccer2004 wrote:

KeeperCommander wrote:I would not take the advice of anyone telling you to take less AP classes or back off so your kid doesn’t need uppers to get through life.  After all, when soccer ends it will be the education that persists with them.  Those burdening AP classes will help get them into top colleges.  These long days and study habits will help get them prepared for life.  Let them tell you when enough is enough.  The coach tells you to back off on school so they can do more soccer, that would be a problem.  
Grades and soccer might get them into a school that allows them a great education and a shot at something really important.  Beyond soccer.  That is what the DA should be.

Funny you say this because the 1st point the counselor made in the freshman orientation was to make sure to sit down with your child and review their class request card for next year if they are taking all AP and PAP think long and hard about that because the number one mistake they see is kids over committing themselves with school load beyond what they are equipped to handle.  In addition they had a few recommendations such as go talk to each of their current subject teachers and get their input on their next class etc.  Ultimately they said they strongly discourage students from taking advance level in every subject especially their freshman year, as they put it, simply because they do need to sleep too.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say I half heartedly agree with you. I say that but now I will say this. We are on a soccer forum where everyone here expects their kid to get a scholarship so they practice every chance they get. But we don’t apply those same principles to academics? That’s stupid.
That being said my DD wants to go to Stanford. AP classes it is any chance she can.

100% behind you KC that the emphasis should always be on academics over soccer.  However, I will caution you or any parent about academics the same way I would caution you or any parent about soccer.  Just like some kids are cut out for DA or ECNL, while some kids aren't, some kids are cut out for Stanford or Princeton, while some kids aren't.  The key for any parent is to balance enthusiasm and encouragement with a healthy dose of objectivity.  To be hell-bent on a specific destination at the expense of the journey and your kid's health and happiness, it bad thing no matter what path you're on.

My main point without trying to over emphasize that kids should be pushed is if you push them in soccer and not academics you are slowly killing your kid as an adult. Being over worked is not good at anything.

College coachs and scouts look for the total package just because you can play on the field grades and your ability to keep your academic requirements is more important. Many of the scholarships are based on certain grade requirements. Don't short change your education that is a mistake. Soccer should be worked as secondary and should never be the top priority. Be well rounded and school stays w you forever.

FriscoSoccer2004 wrote:

KeeperCommander wrote:I would not take the advice of anyone telling you to take less AP classes or back off so your kid doesn’t need uppers to get through life.  After all, when soccer ends it will be the education that persists with them.  Those burdening AP classes will help get them into top colleges.  These long days and study habits will help get them prepared for life.  Let them tell you when enough is enough.  The coach tells you to back off on school so they can do more soccer, that would be a problem.  
Grades and soccer might get them into a school that allows them a great education and a shot at something really important.  Beyond soccer.  That is what the DA should be.

Funny you say this because the 1st point the counselor made in the freshman orientation was to make sure to sit down with your child and review their class request card for next year if they are taking all AP and PAP think long and hard about that because the number one mistake they see is kids over committing themselves with school load beyond what they are equipped to handle.  In addition they had a few recommendations such as go talk to each of their current subject teachers and get their input on their next class etc.  Ultimately they said they strongly discourage students from taking advance level in every subject especially their freshman year, as they put it, simply because they do need to sleep too.

So did this counselor ask what your DD wants to do with her life before giving this advice?

2 of ours played LHGCL, ECNL, Premier League, HS and did 12-15 hrs of homework a week for their load of AP classes and seemed to manage.

DeltaTauChi wrote:

SickofStupidity wrote:

FriscoSoccer2004 wrote:

KeeperCommander wrote:I would not take the advice of anyone telling you to take less AP classes or back off so your kid doesn’t need uppers to get through life.  After all, when soccer ends it will be the education that persists with them.  Those burdening AP classes will help get them into top colleges.  These long days and study habits will help get them prepared for life.  Let them tell you when enough is enough.  The coach tells you to back off on school so they can do more soccer, that would be a problem.  
Grades and soccer might get them into a school that allows them a great education and a shot at something really important.  Beyond soccer.  That is what the DA should be.

Funny you say this because the 1st point the counselor made in the freshman orientation was to make sure to sit down with your child and review their class request card for next year if they are taking all AP and PAP think long and hard about that because the number one mistake they see is kids over committing themselves with school load beyond what they are equipped to handle.  In addition they had a few recommendations such as go talk to each of their current subject teachers and get their input on their next class etc.  Ultimately they said they strongly discourage students from taking advance level in every subject especially their freshman year, as they put it, simply because they do need to sleep too.

so our counselor made the same point - kids doing 3 or 4 activities and taking all AP classes, so you should re-think taking all AP classes

ummm, what happened to re-thinking doing 3 or 4 activities?

Everybody's got to figure out what the right balance is for their kids, but if your middle school or high school kid is averaging more than 3-4 hours of homework per night, you'll have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid, and that the extra honors or AP class is doing them more good than harm.

By the same token, if your teenager struggles to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night due to the combination of activities and homework keeping them up past 10-11 pm on a regular basis, you'll also have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid and you shouldn't be looking at cutting back on one, the other, or both.


 

BS alert.

Let them chase their dreams and take on as much as they can handle.

One of mine did everything you are advising against.  

Did not seem to do her any harm as they now call her Doctor xxxxx.

Lefty wrote:

DeltaTauChi wrote:

SickofStupidity wrote:

FriscoSoccer2004 wrote:

KeeperCommander wrote:I would not take the advice of anyone telling you to take less AP classes or back off so your kid doesn’t need uppers to get through life.  After all, when soccer ends it will be the education that persists with them.  Those burdening AP classes will help get them into top colleges.  These long days and study habits will help get them prepared for life.  Let them tell you when enough is enough.  The coach tells you to back off on school so they can do more soccer, that would be a problem.  
Grades and soccer might get them into a school that allows them a great education and a shot at something really important.  Beyond soccer.  That is what the DA should be.

Funny you say this because the 1st point the counselor made in the freshman orientation was to make sure to sit down with your child and review their class request card for next year if they are taking all AP and PAP think long and hard about that because the number one mistake they see is kids over committing themselves with school load beyond what they are equipped to handle.  In addition they had a few recommendations such as go talk to each of their current subject teachers and get their input on their next class etc.  Ultimately they said they strongly discourage students from taking advance level in every subject especially their freshman year, as they put it, simply because they do need to sleep too.

so our counselor made the same point - kids doing 3 or 4 activities and taking all AP classes, so you should re-think taking all AP classes

ummm, what happened to re-thinking doing 3 or 4 activities?

Everybody's got to figure out what the right balance is for their kids, but if your middle school or high school kid is averaging more than 3-4 hours of homework per night, you'll have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid, and that the extra honors or AP class is doing them more good than harm.

By the same token, if your teenager struggles to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night due to the combination of activities and homework keeping them up past 10-11 pm on a regular basis, you'll also have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid and you shouldn't be looking at cutting back on one, the other, or both.


 

BS alert.

Let them chase their dreams and take on as much as they can handle.

One of mine did everything you are advising against.  

Did not seem to do her any harm as they now call her Doctor xxxxx.

Some kids can handle it.  Many can't.  

You made my point for me when you said up above that your kids did 12-15 hours of homework to keep up with their AP class load.  That's ~2 hours of homework per day (including weekends).  Totally fair and healthy amount IMO.  Congrats to Doctor DD and more power to her. I'm sure she's made you proud.

Unfortunately, I see too many kids being pushed too hard by unobjective parents with unrealistic expectations, whether that's in select sports, academics, or both. It's a shame really, and probably a big reason why there's so many miserable people on this forum.

DeltaTauChi wrote:

Lefty wrote:

DeltaTauChi wrote:

SickofStupidity wrote:

FriscoSoccer2004 wrote:

KeeperCommander wrote:I would not take the advice of anyone telling you to take less AP classes or back off so your kid doesn’t need uppers to get through life.  After all, when soccer ends it will be the education that persists with them.  Those burdening AP classes will help get them into top colleges.  These long days and study habits will help get them prepared for life.  Let them tell you when enough is enough.  The coach tells you to back off on school so they can do more soccer, that would be a problem.  
Grades and soccer might get them into a school that allows them a great education and a shot at something really important.  Beyond soccer.  That is what the DA should be.

Funny you say this because the 1st point the counselor made in the freshman orientation was to make sure to sit down with your child and review their class request card for next year if they are taking all AP and PAP think long and hard about that because the number one mistake they see is kids over committing themselves with school load beyond what they are equipped to handle.  In addition they had a few recommendations such as go talk to each of their current subject teachers and get their input on their next class etc.  Ultimately they said they strongly discourage students from taking advance level in every subject especially their freshman year, as they put it, simply because they do need to sleep too.

so our counselor made the same point - kids doing 3 or 4 activities and taking all AP classes, so you should re-think taking all AP classes

ummm, what happened to re-thinking doing 3 or 4 activities?

Everybody's got to figure out what the right balance is for their kids, but if your middle school or high school kid is averaging more than 3-4 hours of homework per night, you'll have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid, and that the extra honors or AP class is doing them more good than harm.

By the same token, if your teenager struggles to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night due to the combination of activities and homework keeping them up past 10-11 pm on a regular basis, you'll also have a tough time convincing me that's healthy for your kid and you shouldn't be looking at cutting back on one, the other, or both.


 

BS alert.

Let them chase their dreams and take on as much as they can handle.

One of mine did everything you are advising against.  

Did not seem to do her any harm as they now call her Doctor xxxxx.

Some kids can handle it.  Many can't.  

You made my point for me when you said up above that your kids did 12-15 hours of homework to keep up with their AP class load.  That's ~2 hours of homework per day (including weekends).  Totally fair and healthy amount IMO.  Congrats to Doctor DD and more power to her.  I'm sure she's made you proud.

Unfortunately, I see too many kids being pushed too hard by unobjective parents with unrealistic expectations, whether that's in select sports, academics, or both.  It's a shame really, and probably a big reason why there's so many miserable people on this forum.

Lefty if your callin BS on me passing on what Frisco ISD counseling team presented last week in freshman roundup That seems a bit silly. From personal experience I have a senior that plays hockey and does very well in school.  He works his rear off and takes mostly advanced classes.  But even he had to learn the hard way as a freshman that he has his limits as he overcommitted himself at the time doing travel hockey and a huge advance placement load to the point he ended up with mono and missed months of school.  Eventually he wisely picked academics over athletics and now plays school hockey and still has a huge load of classes but he has gotten much better at managing his time which will serve him well as he moves on to college next year.

All that to agree with DeltaTauChi every kid is different and each will have their own threshold.  The sooner they master time management the better off they will Be with a large course load.

Also congrats on the Dr DD Lefty, very well done by her and her parents!

To the original poster, 6-7hrs per week is probably on the low side of estimates for time needed for studying in high school but if your talking middle school that might be about right...

Double    to both DTX and Frisco2004 for the last two posts ... spot on!

And kudos to lulu for initiating a real, consequential conversation --

You can always go back to school. You can't always go back to soccer.

Big Ern wrote:Double    to both DTX and Frisco2004 for the last two posts ... spot on!

And kudos to lulu for initiating a real, consequential conversation --

This post is . . .

BigE approved as a consequential conversation.

I want to chime in with our experience
I have a 10th grader who plays year round club soccer (D1/national premier league/plenty of travel) and is a part time DA academy player (wants school sports, but practices with DA year round)
He also plays a school varsity sport per season (4 - xcountry, football, soccer, track/field)
Takes all PreAp Or Ap classes with straight As (5.0 weighted GPA)
He even has time to work about 9-10 hrs a week for his own gas & spending money

Yes, he has homework/studying to do but not anything crazy! An hour a night I guess...sometimes weekend projects. And he does weekly SAT prep

These comments kind of made me wonder, i didn’t think this was unusual or anything - he’s happy and gets plenty of sleep

goscore! wrote:I want to chime in with our experience
I have a 10th grader who plays year round club soccer (D1/national premier league/plenty of travel) and is a part time DA academy player (wants school sports, but practices with DA year round)
He also plays a school varsity sport per season (4 - xcountry, football, soccer, track/field)
Takes all PreAp Or Ap classes with straight As (5.0 weighted GPA)
He even has time to work about 9-10 hrs a week for his own gas & spending money

Yes, he has homework/studying to do but not anything crazy! An hour a night I guess...sometimes weekend projects. And he does weekly SAT prep

These comments kind of made me wonder, i didn’t think this was unusual or anything - he’s happy and gets plenty of sleep

Are you visiting from China?

Foxysoccermom wrote:

goscore! wrote:I want to chime in with our experience
I have a 10th grader who plays year round club soccer (D1/national premier league/plenty of travel) and is a part time DA academy player (wants school sports, but practices with DA year round)
He also plays a school varsity sport per season (4 - xcountry, football, soccer, track/field)
Takes all PreAp Or Ap classes with straight As (5.0 weighted GPA)
He even has time to work about 9-10 hrs a week for his own gas & spending money

Yes, he has homework/studying to do but not anything crazy! An hour a night I guess...sometimes weekend projects. And he does weekly SAT prep

These comments kind of made me wonder, i didn’t think this was unusual or anything - he’s happy and gets plenty of sleep

Are you visiting from China?

He's a Stepford Child

nope, plain ol lazy American here
I may be starting to feel a little badly because I was just telling him yesterday, he was too lopsided (athletics) & he’s got to get in an academic club
He’s already reached out to the NHS & HOSA to express his “interest”
(Nah, it passed, I feel fine)

I know his grades are great but I am surprised others cannot find the time.
Do your kids spend time watching TV/video games, or going out with friends instead?

If you can pay to play you can probably afford the IVY league schools. Money is politics it goes hand in hand.

Multiple varsity school sports, music, select soccer with additional training ..... all well and good until junior year.  Now one school sport, club soccer with little to no additional training, music and 4 AP courses plus 1 PAP and 1 just because she was interested.  Easily 6-8 hours of homework per night and this kid is brilliant (little to no TV watching). These are all choices she made and we support.   We will definitely use her experiences to guide little sister who is smart as a whip but takes a little longer to work the same problems.

Soccer is for FUN.  Unfortunately school has gotten hyper competitive and it is all about top 10%. And there is no way you are going to be top 10% without pretty hefty load of AP courses.  If your kid happy at a small college where they can play soccer then you have it made; decent load at school and as much soccer as they want and good to go.  When the DD looking at top tier universities it would behoove her to load up on academics and scale back on extracurricular activities as needed.

goscore! wrote:nope, plain ol lazy American here
I may be starting to feel a little badly because I was just telling him yesterday, he was too lopsided (athletics) & he’s got to get in an academic club
He’s already reached out to the NHS & HOSA to express his “interest”
(Nah, it passed, I feel fine)

I know his grades are great but I am surprised others cannot find the time.
Do your kids spend time watching TV/video games, or going out with friends instead?

Yes apparently my new punishment will be to suspend the Netflix account! If it wasn't for tattle tale little sister I might not of found out.

goscore! wrote:nope, plain ol lazy American here
I may be starting to feel a little badly because I was just telling him yesterday, he was too lopsided (athletics) & he’s got to get in an academic club
He’s already reached out to the NHS & HOSA to express his “interest”
(Nah, it passed, I feel fine)

I know his grades are great but I am surprised others cannot find the time.
Do your kids spend time watching TV/video games, or going out with friends instead?

Congratulations ! You have a great kid !

What kind of colleges he would be interested in? Ivy?

Well thank you still 2 more years to go, hopefully it all continues smoothly

The only 2 things he’s sure about are: out of Texas, not too cold
The only thing I’m concerned about is money

I’m thinking along the lines of Stanford,
Air F O R C E Academy, Duke...
he’s thinking Clemson or even some coastal state schools -
So we aren’t even in the same ballpark !??? We’ll explore more this summer and hopefully talk to some coaches next fall

goscore! wrote:Well thank you still 2 more years to go, hopefully it all continues smoothly

The only 2 things he’s sure about are: out of Texas, not too cold
The only thing I’m concerned about is money

I’m thinking along the lines of Stanford,
Air F O R C E Academy, Duke...
he’s thinking Clemson or even some coastal state schools -
So we aren’t even in the same ballpark !??? We’ll explore more this summer and hopefully talk to some coaches next fall

Sounds like some fun discussions coming as the two priorities seem to be in conflict unless you can both decide on AF Academy.

I find some of the above amazing and really hard to believe.  Average school day is from 7:30-3:30.  If you are playing a seasonal sport, that's 3:30-5:30, including practice, shower, travel.  Add two hours of soccer every night and at best, you're already at 8:00 pm.  Haven't factored in dinner, travel home from soccer and yet folks are saying their kids still do 2-3 hours of homework a night (all AP of course, because no one takes anything less than AP) and yet the kid still manages to get 8-9 hours of sleep every night, is happy, healthy, content and of course, straight A's.  Talk about BS - my meter just exploded.

One of my dd did not play sports. She was all about academics and clubs at school. I was blown away at what it took for her to be top 5% in her class. No idea how my soccer kid will be able to do it. The amount of work these AP classes takes is unimaginable.

dreadpirateroberts wrote:One of my dd did not play sports. She was all about academics and clubs at school. I was blown away at what it took for her to be top 5% in her class. No idea how my soccer kid will be able to do it. The amount of work these AP classes takes is unimaginable.  

I hear you...butt pirate.... if she wants it she'll do it.

If it doesn't work out they can go flip burgers at MCDs or even better become a club coach. Theres always opportunities there w coaches that get the ax.

Remember no child left behind. Theres always a.second chance.