I tell him to quit and get back to work. So he does. But it certainly feels “nag-gy.” And he’ll get distracted again later!

He works either at the dining table or our schoolroom table (basement). Very rare he’s in his room. During the day I’m either working (I work 1-2 hours a day) at my desk which is also in the schoolroom or doing various household tasks (laundry, tidying, cleaning, food prep, etc). I feel like I have to babysit his internet use, which no one enjoys. Nothing nefarious at all, but things like watching political debates and linguistics videos—with the occasional Babylon Bee clip thrown in.

Yes-this was the idea of not letting him do the February show. Get off the hamster wheel/treadmill of scrambling and Busy for a couple of months to see if we can establish better habits. We’ve started already with a couple of basic morning routine things, but the distracted nature is one of those things that I’m struggling to determine how to help-tackle.

@8filltheheartYou’re right-the procrastination is not working for him. It makes him stressed and unhappy. I see his primary struggles there as focus (sitting down to work but then getting wrapped up in YouTube videos or making Spotify playlists), & it’s hard for me to know how to improve the situation. I feel like I have to be on his back all the time, which neither of us enjoy. Since much of his work I involves the computer, I can’t just totally take it away. But I wish I could! (Even so, he’ll get distracted by his own thoughts, or drawing. Once I was flipping through his chemistry binder and found the answers to the questions all written out….in French. Which is super cool! But surely made the assignment take way longer. This kid!!!!) Each week we write all his assignments in his planner, breaking them all down, assigning days to them and even times, but the workload almost always takes longer than the time estimates we give. Part of that is that there’s a fair amount of work. And part of that is that he struggles with attentiveness. The siren call of the laptop is so loud. So, so loud.

Hello! I am looking for some group wisdom here & welcome your thoughts— My son is 16 and in 10th grade. This year he’s taking 3 classes through WHA to equal 4.5 credits (geometry, chemistry, and their combined literature/theology/history course). He’s also in French 4 and advanced conversational Spanish. In addition, he participates in a choir (once a week) & works 2 evenings a week at a local retirement home. He LOVES theatre and is in a community theatre production of A Christmas Carol, with multiple roles. Last year he juggled a lot and made straight As, but it felt like a lot and he finished the year exhausted. This year he’s got mostly As with a couple B+s right now…but it *feels* like a struggle as he has developed a vicious cycle of procrastination, scrambling, panic-induced last-minute assignments, etc. Like spending two hours watching presidential primary debates when a geometry assignment is due…you know. Last year when he started with five outsourced classes, my dad was dying, so I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do a lot of habit training and life coaching. He’s surviving, but he’s not thriving, and neither of us are especially happy. A few weeks back we decided that after the holidays he’d cut down to working one evening per week, and we indicated to him that in order to audition for the next show (in February), we’d need to see positive trajectory changes in terms of diligence. Nada! So auditions are this weekend and we’ve told him we don’t think he should audition because we’re not seeing the procrastination improve. He’s either procrastinating or working all the time, and forfeits exercise, fresh air, and hanging out. We are strategizing ways to help him with this issue of poor time management, but for now, it’s where we are….. He is understandably disappointed that he can’t audition for the next show, even to the point of tears. I understand that he loves theatre and it’s a great outlet, and we’ve told him that he can audition for the following show (May, with rehearsals starting in March), but that we think we should dial back for the next few months and focus in on managing coursework. “Theatre is my escape from school”—painful for me to hear from this lifelong auto-didactic who wants to spend his spare time reading all the sacred texts of all the world religions. In other words, I want him to be thriving and doing the things that bring joy, and formal school (& his challenges at managing it) are impediments….. What would you do? -stick with the “cutting back” for a few months to focus on habit-building and related skills -let him do it, hope for the best -drop a class to replace with one less homework-heavy/easier to manage -some combo of the above -other (please specify 😅) This child is borderline brilliant, and his brain is not like mine. My EF skills are so good they’re on steroids. It’s hard for me to understand how he can deep-dive into a topic and learn all about it and process at a high level on metaphysical topics but he can’t, like, manage time. Our goal is to help him flourish. We think cutting back is the next right thing in furtherance of that. But 🤷🏻‍♀️ it’s tough to know what to cut, when, and where.

Same. I applied Early Decision to W&M, got accepted, that was that. My husband applied to FIVE schools which seemed like a lot back then. We just didn’t shop around, and my parents would have laughed me out of the house if I’d suggested anything that wasn’t in VA or an adjacent state! I wonder if it’s because things seem more competitive now, and that makes it all more complicated. IDK but I miss the simpler way.

My son told me (he read this thread 😂) that everyone seems to love Reini! We’ve been lucky to meet 2 of my daughter’s teachers so far. If we get to LINK next year (ow, so expensive) maybe we’ll meet the others! We’ve overall had good experiences with teachers there so far.

That’s a pretty fascinating article. We’re not there yet, so I don’t know. But I agree that the sticker prices these days cause anxiety, and the entire process seems confusing and opaque. I went to William and Mary (in state) and sticker price was $10k/year—all-inclusive. My parents paid about half that, maybe less—so about $15k-20k for all four years. Now it is about $40,000/year. I’ve run NPCs all over the place and at W&M we’d basically pay full price, which is (& I loved that school), ludicrous to me. It’s all over the map. Generally the NPCs come back between $20-$35k as our expected contribution, but they’ve been as low as $8K and as high as $55k, depending on the school. It just seemed a lot *simpler* when I was in school.

Now this is interesting to know!! Alg 2 with Reini was light—this is good to hear. My son took Algebra 1/physics last year and this year it’s Geometry/chemistry and those combos just feel like a LOT because the sciences also involve math. He aced last year, but it just took so. much. time.

I took a cupcake/easy A class in law school called “Accounting for Lawyers” which was taught by a local accountant. It was one of the *most useful* classes I have ever taken! Especially if a student is a cerebral, never-exposed-to-reality, liberal-artsy type (that was me back then!), learning the basics of tax, accounting, and econ is just so helpful.

Seconded! I also feel like economics would have been beneficial to me—not in getting into law school, but just in general understanding of How the World Works. I took almost no science in college and ZERO math (just the way I like it). Majored in philosophy and had no problem getting into law school. A solid grasp on using language (philosophy and English classes) is useful. I think philosophy is particularly appealing because it is so logic-and-language based. It is not about content, it’s about skills, and taking classes that demonstrate that she has honed those skills is probably the most beneficial route…..

I agree with this! (Also am going to contact you about Nova Scotia—!) My son is in 10th grade. He’s in French 4 as well as advanced conversational Spanish (finished Spanish 3 and this is what was next through the place locally where he takes it). French is his first love. He has dabbled heavily in Mandarin, Russian, and other languages over the years and will likely be in a place next year to add another formal language *class* (he’ll be taking AP French and will likely just do more conversational Spanish to keep up skills/vocab—but it’s not his main focus). We were pretty intentional about limiting him to two formal language learning situations at first. I’m glad we did and now he’s at a level in French where he’s able to carry on conversations in French with native speakers, read books in French, watch films and understand it all…you know! It’s neat. So we think he’s got the bandwidth to add another language as a junior. I recommend focusing on 2 at once, but it might be hard to do three really formal classes at once, especially during the first couple years. however—the autodidact approach can really work, so lots of that in another language on her own time can take her far. Podcasts, films, books on tape, etc. My son did this when he was younger and placed into Honors French 2 without ever having actually taken French 1. See if there’s an alliance francaise near you (my son would be horrified that I’m not inserting accents; whatever). We don’t have one here but there’s one an hour away and we’ve been once or twice. Charleston SC (our home-away-from-home) has a super active chapter! Lots of speaking practice there! 🙂

This is a good recommendation; thank you. I checked the FAQs but didn’t see an answer to this question: roughly how long are the videos, are they daily, and roughly how long does each day’s lesson (problems/video/homework) take? I know there’s variation from student to student, but wondering generally. ETA: this really looks like a great choice. I appreciate the simplicity of the syllabus—so straightforward! I feel like he would do well with this approach. The flexibility + structure ✅ We like live classes, but he’s got too many this year, so more flexibility would be good for him.

I am on the hunt for a self-paced Algebra 2 course that will be suitable for a college-bound kid with strong math skills and no desire to pursue STEM in the future. He made an A in Algebra 1 (WHA) and has an A or A- in Geometry (also WHA) right now. We like Wilson Hill a lot (we LOVE his teacher!), but the time commitment is heavier than we’d like, especially as it becomes apparent that he’s definitely not heading into science/math. Next year we plan to do heavy SAT prep & I would like to have an Algebra 2 program with a bit less homework, rigor, and time commitment than what we’ve had so far. However, he works slowly. I am *positive* we have time management challenges and I’m suspicious about ADD (very easily distracted, but when he’s focused on something it’s an INTENSE laser like focus). So I’m torn about “caving” to a less rigorous approach if better time management skills would help (we are working on them, it’s hard, suggestions welcome) but it’s also clear that we want to invest time into other places. We are working on time audits and budgets now, and clearly he’s off the rails: in 6ish hours of “working” off and on during the last two days, he has barely finished the review problems for his test (granted there were many, and I think it’s overkill to do them all, but still). I’m also seeing that the structure of an online program is hard to manage. Get on the internet to check an assignment, resurface an hour later….we’ve all been there. He has a planner where we write assignments and I try to keep it all as “analog” as possible but I feel like there’s too much time in front of a laptop, which is not in and of itself a terrible thing (I work from home, I’m in front of one a lot!), but it’s a struggle. Any Alg 2 recs or BTDT advice welcome!

The Potter’s School French with Madame S is my recommendation!

A Child's History of the World!!! And Shakespeare--not a curriculum, just Shakespeare. By far my favorite "subject" in homeschooling. 😉

This is my first year using it and I actually love LLATL! My daughter is 5th grade and using the purple book--pretty sure that's "on-level" for her. We skip the book studies b/c she has already read those and I don't beat dead horses. The workbook format has been fabulous for me. It's SO easy to teach. We don't do every single activity. I find it to be supremely user-friendly, which I need at this point in my life! I am really, really happy with it. It has been a nice way to bridge our lower elementary school years (in which language arts is very light, and limited to LOTS of reading, some handwriting, and some oral narration) and the middle school years, with a nice gentle approach to grammar for this girl who is probably not developmentally ready for the grammar her brother was tackling at the same age. I seriously considered using it for next year because I do like it so much and feel like it is a "just right" approach for language arts for this age, but life circumstances are moving me in the direction of Less of Me, and so I've signed her up for an online class instead, which I really hope will be a good choice. However, if I weren't juggling living in two states and a father with a serious illness, I would definitely do LLATL next year again before transitioning into something else in 7th or 8th-ish grade. But one of my own educational philosophies is Don't Burn 'Em Out, with Keep It Simple a close second, so a "lite" LA curriculum is probably up my alley! 😉 Everyone is different. Anyhow! I've loved it!

This is great--thank you for sharing. I am ignorant about language education, and would love to know--are flagship programs typically only for critical languages, or are there flagship programs across the US also for French? He will almost certainly be fluent BY college, so he'll want a program with these higher language goals, if he does continue to pursue languages in college. And I'd be shocked if he didn't. He's so intrigued by the CLS program that I showed him!!!! Like, super enthusiastic! "Urdu!" he exclaimed. Ha ha.

This sounds SO neat! Also a great excuse to visit Nova Scotia.... Please do come back here after your daughter attends the program. I know I'm not the only person who would love to hear about how it goes and what you think! Thank you!

This is incredible! It is right up my son’s alley. He’s most interested in Chinese and Arabic (also Thai but that’s not a critical language)…..hoping to get 2+ years of study of one of those under his belt before college. He’s also quite interested in international relations and diplomacy…..

That is a bummer. My sister didn’t get a full ride but she got LOTS of money. I’m sorry to hear that they’re offering fewer full scholarships.

Oh thanks for this! My sweet dad is a gamecock (in fact my parents met in grad school at USC!) & would loooveeee this. 😉 What is CLS? That’s an acronym I don’t readily know, apparently. This is definitely keeping me open to the larger public schools! Are you a SC resident?

We are definitely looking generally! There's certainly no point in contacting professors at this juncture--in fact, I hadn't even thought about that. Of course, I never went on ONE college tour EVER!

Thanks! We have an acquaintance at Community HS! It's such a neat place.... 🙂 My sister is a Roanoke College grad and got excellent aid even though she had middling grades and a not-great-SAT score (of course this was in 2001). I think my son would get in there with no problem, and of course, it's nice and close to home. It's definitely on the list of probable options. My mom went to Mary Washington back in the dark ages--and it's on my mental list, if not my physical one. I didn't realize we can take the Amtrak to Fredericksburg from here! That is a bonus. I will check out the other schools you mention. We are also going to take a look sometime at Dickinson. My BIL is in administration there and they apparently have a super study abroad program. I'm super intrigued by W&M's new "St Andrews/William and Mary" degree (2 years in Williamsburg, 2 years in Scotland!), but so far, my son hasn't shown a ton of interest in W&M. We'll see. I loved it there! It was very much the right fit for me, but he's a different creature. (And much, much smarter than I am. ;)) So many possibilities!

This is really interesting! I'm intrigued by the Bible school..... But Dakar! That is so cool. My son is very interested in Senegal. (He's interested in *everything,* but he was recently talking to me in particular about Senegal.) He loves grammar (all grammar, all languages) and I've often told him he'd be a fabulous English teacher to French speakers! I love hearing about her path...thank you.