That’s awful. I’m definitely not for anything causing more stress! It’s hard enough

Enough. You win. I’m a control freak. My dd learned to open her lock the first day of 9th grade which was the first day she stepped foot in any kind of school whatsoever. I have been surprised by the number of her friends who are the kids who are in all APs etc leaders of the school who I have in my car complaining about carrying their stuff around all day because they can not open their lockers because they do not know how to work the combination locks. I find this curious. If it was my dd I would be pretty insistent that she was capable of learning to open her locker as she would have an easily solvable problem. But it would certainly be her problem at the end of the day. I would tell her that I thought she was being silly because she could totally open a lock. I just posted because I found it curious that I have noticed this issue. Smart kids defeated by combination locks and unwilling to learn/ask for help. Sometimes we just post on things we are musing on. This isn’t my issue. My daughter is an aggressive question asker. I get that we have a different opinion on the issue!

That’s an angle for sure. I’ve launched 3 kids and this one is highly independent. I’m comfortable with my parenting choice that would encourage her to learn to use a combination lock if she felt it was too hard.

Right. I’m specifically talking about kids that say they can’t open the lock. I was the kind of kid that would have been really anxious about every little thing and struggled with a combination lock in a social situation and if it was socially acceptable to lug stuff around all the time I would have done that. But it doesn’t mean opening the lock might not have been a good idea. I’m glad I learned how to do it and even as an anxious kid I overcame it. So I guess it pains me to see so many kids saying they can’t open a lock. But I get that I’m the weird one. I haven’t accused their parents of neglect or anything.

Well, yes. But I certainly would also point out to her “hey you can do this. It isn’t that hard.”

Just because she is a strong woman and I don’t want her defeated by a combination lock I guess.

I do realize I said I would march into the school and teach my dd how to use her locker but I really wouldn’t do that. I am guilty of speaking in hyperbole and I am pretty sure I might have told my dd that and she would have thought hey my mom thinks I need to learn how to use a combination lock maybe I should do that. I would have to call the school to get access and I am way too lazy and wimpy to do that. But I will own being involved enough in my teen’s life to point out the folly in carrying multiple huge heavy bags around every day when there is a simple solution. Yep I am that mom. I might even point out that she is being ridiculous. I have made a point in training my kids to ask questions and ask for help and I don’t regret that.

My daughter has so much stuff to carry even with a locker sometimes if she has some extra thing that requires some additional change of clothes she does have a teacher she can ask to stash stuff and she has a relationship with the librarian and she stashes stuff there so surely other kids have those work arounds. It’s just you actually have access to a locker and the lock is the only thing standing in your way…hmmm. The upside is that her friends that don’t use her lockers have offered her theirs. I’ve discouraged that just because things get complicated. She was going to start using a boyfriend’s locker that was on another side of the school and I pointed out the issue that would be when they broke up. A week later she was glad she hadn’t started that. Haha. So many life lessons in high school.

Yeah I understand. I wholly admit I’m going to be irrational if my dd insists opening a combination lock is just too dang hard. Of course I’m not actually dealing with this issue because she figured it out.

These reasons make sense. Not using it because it is too hard to learn how is what I find perplexing.

You would think! When we were at the open house and speaking with the guidance counselor about transitioning from homeschooling the counselor offered to let dd come in over the summer to wander around the empty school and master her locker before the first day. We didn’t take her up on the offer but it seems something that is important to know.

If your kids are in school do they have access to a locker? Do they use it? My dd goes to a small high school and has a locker that she will keep all four years. So she only needs to learn the combination one time and she is good. She was homeschooled before high school and being able to open a combination lock was something we practiced. I am dumbfounded by how many of her smart and competent peers have forfeited locker use because they can’t open the lock and don’t want to ask for help or learn. Some have actual malfunctioning lockers that get stuck but they could ask and be reassigned another one or have it fixed. Others just think opening a lock is too hard. They just resign themselves to carrying their stuff all the time. These kids do have some books though not for every class. They also carry duffel bags with clothes to change for after school activities. They probably just don’t wear a coat most days rather than worry about carrying it. It’s not usually too cold to run into the school without a coat. If it was my dd it would drive me nuts that she didn’t use her locker she had access to. She uses hers all the time and it is useful. I would be very frustrated if she wouldn’t just learn the combination or ask for help. I’m pretty sure I would demand she learn to use it or I would march into school and teach her in embarrassing fashion. But I realize I am an old school hard mom about some things. I thought it was just one little friend with anxiety she had that wouldn’t learn to use her locker but through driving lots of kids around and listening in I realized some of the most stellar kids in the 10th grade at this private school won’t learn to use their lockers. For the record it is a tiny school and they are not too far away from their classes. In the nineties the biggest burnouts in the school could manage their lockers. Lol. Thoughts?

At my dd’s school you can still call the front office and have them get a message to your kid if it is important. If a kid had as many messages as it seems like your ds does I am sure my dd’s school would just let him keep his phone. Her school is very accommodating to any one with any kind of extenuating need. Of course your child would have to be discrete about phone use as well to make it work.

I have always rolled my eyes at the parents who felt their kids always needed their phones with them in case of emergency. Yes the kids with medical needs that necessitate it but really I never understood why my kid needed her phone at all times. At my dd’s school they put their phones in pockets at the back of the room. They have specific number pockets so the teacher can glance and see who hasn’t put their phone up. So they have them between classes and at lunch but during class they are to be up in the pockets. I have had no problem with this and thought parents who complained that their child needed constant access to their phones were being dramatic. But I was wrong. My dd had a shooting incident at her school about a month ago. It didn’t involve students but someone was shot in the parking lot of her school during the day. School went on hard lockdown and it was chaos. The kids and teachers believed they had a school shooter for about ten minutes. After that time teachers received word it was a community event outside the school and they were safe. They had to stay in lockdown for several hours and it was scary but they knew they didn’t have an active shooter in the school. Except for the few students that found themselves in random places during lockdown that they were not with teachers and did not have their phones. Kids that had been in the bathroom, etc. A friend of my dd’s had run an errand for another teacher and was all alone in an empty classroom when the lockdown was called. He threw the lock and followed procedures but he was alone for a long time with no teacher walkie talkie and no phone so no way of getting updates so he had no idea what was happening. Poor kid! So yeah maybe kids do need to be allowed to carry their phone on them. I just didn’t see the need until it happened to my kid. She went into hiding without her phone but at least they got updates on the teacher walkie talkie and the teacher had her phone and as soon as it was safe to come out of hiding she let the kids get their phones. Some teachers did not allow their kids to get their phones as soon as my dd was allowed hers. So I was totally on board with the no phones during class policy. Now I think they should be able to keep them on their person if they want as long as they aren’t using them. With so many things I wish they would actually deal with the offense/offenders than make blanket policies that don’t work or punish the wrong people.

At my dd’s school they work problems on individual white boards in class and the teacher walks around or they hold up their white board when they are done and the teacher can see who knows and who doesn’t. Last year they did have to go to the board and work problems. I can see how people would complain about that though and how it could fall out of practice. Everything just seems so complicated now.

The lines certainly are murky. However the students and culture has also changed. Students are very bold and feel very entitled. Dh has taught the same online cc course for over 20 years so he has seen the change. When students cheat and he busts them they usually turn it back on him. They have to cheat because he is a bad teacher. Or they have to cheat because they can’t afford the textbook or because they have too many assignments. So yeah maybe they did cheat but it isn’t their fault.

You are reacting like a mom who feels her daughter is being blamed for a breakup and it is normal to be offended. But I’m telling you- take the high road here because while it is normal for you to feel that way this is one of those things that you vent here or vent to a friend but if you get into it with the mom or on FB or demand the post be taken down or try to explain to members of this organization then you look like the crazy person. Let the other mom own the crazy. No one needs to explain a teen breakup.

Oh I would hate that. But I think you do nothing. I think everyone on the outside will know this is a teen thing and no one is really committing to long term family. I know from the mom side how much this hurts (I have four children who have all dated as teens) but everyone on the outside is going to see this mom as overreacting and oversharing and being inappropriate. I think if you take the high road and say nothing you look better and no one is judging your teen. If I was on the outside I wouldn’t be judging either teen but I would be judging the mom for oversharing and being over involved.

I am a really cautious person who probably always followed rules to an unreasonable degree so anytime I did anything like that is was definitely stupidity. City kid who didn’t understand nature, etc. When I moved to the south I thought all the thunderstorm warnings we would get were silly. I was like uh it is a thunderstorm…big whoop. Then I had a tree dropped through my house and I got it. But my experience with thunderstorms just wasn’t that powerful. Limited life experience and all that. But in my foo there was a definite disrespect for authority/nothing bad is going to happen attitude. The craziest thing I remember is an amusement park we frequented as a kid was closing and there was a big roller coaster there my dad loved and my little sister was too small to ride it. The last day the park was open we went and my dad was relentless in pressuring this teenager to let my sister who was much too small ride the coaster. Eventually my dad won and my sister rode and she didn’t fly out and she lived to tell about it and it is one of my dad’s proudest stories. She lived. My dad got his way. He won the day. I think a lot of things go that way.

I guess I’m comfortable with some schools being test optional and some not. I don’t like the idea of all or nothing. I understand that the tests don’t reflect how well some really hard working smart students who don’t test particularly well will do in college. But I’m really glad our state schools use testing for scholarships. At my dd’s school 1/4 of the class is on the A honor roll and another 1/4 is on the A/B honor roll. They don’t rank students. My dd’s 3rd quarter report card has six 100s and two 99s in mostly AP/honors classes. Some of her classmates will have all low nineties that they have availed themselves of all kinds of teacher mercy and extra credit to get. When they apply to college their transcript will look exactly the same- all As. There has to be a way to differentiate because there is a difference in caliber of the two students that seems fair to recognize. Sure enough when they do testing my dd does test much higher than student B with the lower numerical grades. Student B will probably be successful in college and I have no problem with some colleges putting her on equal footing with my dd. But I am glad my dd can apply to some colleges that recognize that her ACT is 12 points higher and that actually isn’t just a fluke of testing.

Thanks for all the input. As I mentioned my dd doesn’t really know what she wants to do. My dd was accepted to a competitive summer program that is biology and statistics focused and I saw a picture of last year’s class and it looked like about 75% girls. We will see what her experience is this year. I will say that she was accepted while a highly qualified boy from her class was not so I am glad this program didn’t choose the boy over her in an effort to even things out. She is in 10th grade now so I am going to look for some ways for her to get exposure to some careers over the next year.

That’s a good list. I always have to insist on updating tech/backpacks because my kids insist they don’t need to update and then three weeks in we have a crisis. Good shoes for walking? Also agree on scheduling any appointments because it just gets hard. But you already have that. You have everything on my list. Hopefully you also have agreeable kids who won’t roll their eyes at all your suggestions because my kids are all like mom is being crazy and then they don’t know where to park.

I used to do a ton of baking cookies and other treats and used it regularly for pizza dough and a couple times a year for cinnamon rolls. I don't do much anymore at all. Cinnamon rolls a couple times a year and the odd batch of cookies now and then. However, I still feel like I would just miss it horribly if I didn't have it. So, I guess I don't know if I would justify the inital investment now but I do feel like when mine dies I will replace it now that I am used to having it, even if it seems frivolous. I just wouldn't be without it now, I don't think. So I guess that doesn't really answer your question but I'm not giving up my stand mixer until my baking days are totally over I don't think.

I have kids who were not clear enough on their goals to have productive departmental visits. Even our college visits were very general in nature and not super informative. Just a general sense kind of thing. I think we got most of our info from websites and our own research and honestly, our lists were very short based on cost, so it wasn’t like we were comparing lots of schools. However, it all worked out! All three boys were happy at college and graduated on time with degrees etc. So, not to discount your desire to visit the departments - I think that makes sense for some kids and I wish mine were a little further along at that point. But I wouldn’t read too much into it or get too upset about it not happening as planned. Just another data point for anyone reading along.

My kids never did well meeting friends with dual enrollment and they did a lot of both community college and the local private university that had alot of de students. I know others report better luck with that but my boys were 0 for 3 on de for social outlet. We had a small youth church group that was ok for a few buddies. Part time jobs in places that employ a lot of kids can be a potential meeting ground but also give a sense of agency of working towards something, saving money, etc. My 3rd son became the frozen manager of the local grocery store during Covid shutdown and it filled his hours in a really productive working toward the future way that while not a substitute for a rich social life, is better than just feeling stuck. He was glad to leave that job and head off to college. I think almost everyone is saying yeah it stinks but you gotta do what you gotta do and sometimes you do have to move and it is what it is. But some compassion and if there are any ways you can go the extra effort to facilitate things being easier that is appropriate too. And they are teens so they might even make you pay a bit with a bad attitude. One of mine did while one suffered in silence. It doesn’t mean you were wrong to do what was best for the family.