Anyone else with a high schooler NOT liking brick and mortar school much?

[Catherine]

I have a 16 yo sophomore who is not very happy. He's not miserable, exactly, but he's finding school to be taking up all of his time, he feels "like I'm in prison," and the competitive aspect is wearing him out.

 

The backstory is this: his older brother attending this same school for ninth grade and then elected to leave and finish high school home schooled. It was not a great experience for me: he is 2e, bright but with ADD or whatever you'd call major issues with executive function, and he was difficult (impossible?) for me to teach. He ended up doing mostly CC and other college courses, graduated last year and is now actually doing pretty well in college. But I was NOT up for another go-round with a kid who has issues he is not very willing to work on, boredom+mediocre performance, so I've strongly encouraged DS2 to stay in school.

 

The school is a good math\science magnet. It sends kids to top schools and Ivies every year and has produced a number of Intel finalists, etc. That is part of the issue: ds is bright, but he is in a pretty competitive pool of kids, and the workload is overwhelming to him at times. That plus that fact that it's a public school and very much of the "sink or swim" mindset. Ds 2 does not have major, diagnosable LDs but he definitely has executive function issues similar to his brother and is finding it overwhelming at times to just keep track of everything. He's also not very willing to accept any help from me, in the form of reminders, assistance with learning study skills, etc. I'm worried that he is just not happy. Not any great thoughts here but I guess I'm just wondering if there's anyone else out there in a similar situation. Plus now also worrying about youngest who I cannot see functioning in this environment. I don't know WHAT we will do when he's HS age.

[AK_Mom4]

Yes. DS17 was homeschooled 5th thru 8th grade, but went back to public for high school. He is miserable, bored and hates it. He wishes very much he could pull out and homeschool now. Last year, his older sister homeschooled herself for her senior year so she could have more time to concentrate on her music. He wants very much to do the same thing next year.

 

The problem? DS is not an easy kid to work with and I am not looking forward to butting heads with him on a regular basis. DD11 is SOOOO easy compared to my older kids that I have been spolied this year. I already know she won't be going to public high school except maybe to take a band class.

 

But the truth is that I said EXACTLY the same thing about his older sister and her senior year was an amazing success. She did great and headed off to college with academic scholarships to study music. I think I need to just bite the bullet and look at what it is going to take to pull DS17 next year.

[dbmamaz]

ugg. sympathy and fear

 

my daughter was in public school from 1st through 10th and liked it until high school. She was totally miserable and her grades were dropping. She jokingly asked me about homeschooling, but dh didnt support it, plus she and I were barely speaking. I worked with the school to give her credit for community college classes, and she did most of the rest of her credits there. she was willing to work a lot harder for the community college than for the high school.

 

my current teen was diagnosed as 2E and was in public school through 7th grade, the last 3 years in special ed. He was so traumatized he never wants to go back. he was in the school for the PSAT in the fall and I felt guilty about isolating him so much because he is the most outgoing member of our family - but he said that the school was too crowded and made him feel claustrophobic. He is stable on several meds. He is easy to get along with, generally sweet, but i need to manage him entirely to get any work out of him.

 

my youngest is probably mildly 2E . . i mean, he's 2-3 years ahead in math and equally behind in LA. He is a bit of a spaz, major class clown. I am hoping to get him in to the specialty center for math and science for high school ... but now that I think about it, he might hate it too :confused1:

[Catherine]

He is a musician, so he plays cello, solo mostly, but he also joined the jazz band and started learning bass guitar, which translates nicely from skills he already has. Swam with the swim team too, last year and this year. And those activities are fun, but also make the workload stress worse because he finds he has less free time than ever. He's not exactly fast at doing stuff so there is a lot of angst that is unproductive, wasted time. Argh! This boy likes to read, to just hang out and do nothing sometimes and it seems sometimes like there's not as much time for that, now that he's in school. Junior year in particular next year will be HARD. I am not looking forward to it.