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When Fun Becomes Work or What am I going to do?


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My dd has been geared toward majoring in Biochem for a couple of years now and has always been science oriented. However, and this could be just because she's 14, now that she's realizing how much work high school science is going to be, etc, she doesn't want to major in anything. Of course, she still has to do all of the courses we've planned on as they are practically written in stone ;).

 

So, in the words of the page in one of our family favourites (not exactly literature) King Bidgood's in the Bathtub "Oh, who knows what to do?"

 

Any words of hope, comfort, encouragement are welcome, as are sage words of advice on this matter.

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My oldest dd just pinned down her major and she is starting her senior yr. I am surprised, because I thought it would be art. She is taking a different path.

 

The younger who starts high school this yr. does not have one, she has always designed fashion and written books. But, she will not pick a major. Sometimes, it is the high school or college courses that will decide their path.

 

I just try and support them down the path and make sure they dont veer.

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In the summer before my eldest started 9th grade, I asked her if she imagined that she would attend college. She said, "Yes." (Had she answered "No", I'm not sure what I would have done!) Given her answer, I asked her to find six colleges that sounded interesting.

 

I gave her a few books to look through to help her out with this. As I recall they were:

 

Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different by Donald Asher

 

Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges by Loren Pope

 

and a mega tome along the lines of this one Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009

 

Then I had her write to each one asking what the requirements were for admission and if they had specific recommendations for homeschoolers. One could of course do this all online; however, she loved to get mail.

 

The whole purpose of this exercise was to get her to see what colleges in general were looking for in incoming students. This way she could see that four years of English, three or four years of math (including Algebra), three years of lab science, etc., were requirements for what she needed to do if she hoped to attend college. That took me out of the bad guy role of saying, "I need you to do this or that"; instead it became "Colleges are looking for ...."

 

Ah, I remember King Bidgood's in the Bathtub! That was a fun book.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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My dd has been geared toward majoring in Biochem for a couple of years now and has always been science oriented. However, and this could be just because she's 14, now that she's realizing how much work high school science is going to be, etc, she doesn't want to major in anything. Of course, she still has to do all of the courses we've planned on as they are practically written in stone ;).

 

So, in the words of the page in one of our family favourites (not exactly literature) King Bidgood's in the Bathtub "Oh, who knows what to do?"

 

Any words of hope, comfort, encouragement are welcome, as are sage words of advice on this matter.

 

I think it's perfectly normal for kids to be a bit disgruntled when they bump up against the reality of the hard work involved in their dream careers, :tongue_smilie:.

 

Let's face it, when a 10 or 12 yr old thinks of a career, it's the idealized, Hollywood version. When they discover the hard work involved, they may lose interest in that particular field for a while, in the vain hope that the hard work is an exception, and some other career awaits them, one that's intriguing and high-paid and easy.

 

If she has a true love for science, she may consider it again once she realizes that, darn it, just about every fulfilling career requires hard work (along with quite a few of the ones that are not fulfilling in the least).

 

Or, she may discover that science is truly not for her, and that's fine as well. She can still take a hard science class this year!

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In the summer before my eldest started 9th grade, I asked her if she imagined that she would attend college. She said, "Yes." (Had she answered "No", I'm not sure what I would have done!) Given her answer, I asked her to find six colleges that sounded interesting.

 

I gave her a few books to look through to help her out with this. As I recall they were:

 

Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different by Donald Asher

 

Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges by Loren Pope

 

and a mega tome along the lines of this one Fiske Guide to Colleges 2009

 

 

Ah, I remember King Bidgood's in the Bathtub! That was a fun book.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Thanks for the links, and glad someone else likes that book. I also really liked Silly Sally and a few others of Audrey Wood's. books. We never bought any for ourselves, but took the library ones out many times. I don't recall hearing about the Cool Colleges book before. Of course, she probably won't want to write letters, either, but perhaps she will if she can do it in the place of something she loathes.

 

I think it's perfectly normal for kids to be a bit disgruntled when they bump up against the reality of the hard work involved in their dream careers, :tongue_smilie:.

 

Let's face it, when a 10 or 12 yr old thinks of a career, it's the idealized, Hollywood version. When they discover the hard work involved, they may lose interest in that particular field for a while, in the vain hope that the hard work is an exception, and some other career awaits them, one that's intriguing and high-paid and easy.

 

If she has a true love for science, she may consider it again once she realizes that, darn it, just about every fulfilling career requires hard work (along with quite a few of the ones that are not fulfilling in the least).

 

Or, she may discover that science is truly not for her, and that's fine as well. She can still take a hard science class this year!

 

 

Thanks. I agree about the Hollywood version of a career. I think that was around the age when I was going to go live in the wilderness in some Canadian inlet and have 12 kids. That is, when I didn't want to become a famous actress. I really had my feet on the ground, didn't I? But I went to ps and did my work there, whereas dd has always been a lollygagger, even when in ps. Someday, though, she ought to learn how to work hard, right? If she can work hard at swimming? She can't be one of those who only ever works hard at one thing, because there are no professional swim jobs out there that I'm aware of.

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