Stressed out senior - WWYD?

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

My senior is starting to panic about finishing school. She had a mini meltdown during dinner tonight saying that she just needs to be done, she’s learning nothing at this point, her brain can’t do any more. She IS tired. The past few weeks she’s been working 2 part time jobs, plus babysitting several nights a week (only about 2 hours at a time), and cleaning a house every other week. She also had a multi day speech tournament in the middle of all that. One of the part time jobs was a temporary, seasonal position and ended today. That will help. Co-op is over except for end of the year presentations this week. I’m happy to let her skip that. She really doesn’t have much left to do. Three subjects (Science, Math, and Psychology) and 2-3 weeks left of each. But we were hoping to be done next week and she doesn’t feel like it’s possible to finish by then. I’m fine with her spending another week to finish. She’d still be done by the end of May. But she’s starting to come unraveled a little. I’m trying to figure out how to handle this. I already required what I consider to be the bare minimum this year to accommodate all the other stuff she had going on. But maybe it’s still ok to skip the last 8-15 days? Or maybe I give her a day or two to unwind and then we get back to tackling the rest with a plan to finish by the end of the month? Or do I just let her be done now? Then she can take the next couple of weeks to focus on her speech for nationals next month. Maybe that’s more important than finishing the next chapter of Chemistry? I feel like this should be an easier decision but math and science are her weakest subjects and I worry about how she’ll do when she goes to college in the fall. (But really, what will ten more days do?) Also, I’ve seen the times when she wasn’t using her time as wisely as she could have. I need outside opinions. 

[cintinative]

I'm not in a good position to offer advice with so little experience under my belt,  but let me offer my encouragement. It really does sound like she has a lot going on. Is it possible she is overtired? 

I will confess I am the absolute worst about box checking. I am working hard to relax my death grip on "my plans."  For example. my junior is not going to finish the history I have scheduled and he has definitely not spent his time as wisely as he could have. That said, he has done a lot, and I think my schedule was just too much for him. So I am cutting bits out. 

Another thing I sometimes do is convert that last chapter to read and do exercises only or just read.  Or whatever seems less. Sometimes just dropping a test takes a lot of stress off. 

Is it possible for her to cut back some work hours at all? My kids get super stressed with work and school if their hours go over a certain amount. That's going to be a YMMV depending on your kid, but I can totally see it when they hit the wall. 

Edited May 14 by cintinative

[EKS]

I think you should just let her figure it out.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

42 minutes ago, cintinative said:

I'm not in a good position to offer advice with so little experience under my belt,  but let me offer my encouragement. It really does sound like she has a lot going on. Is it possible she is overtired? 

I will confess I am the absolute worst about box checking. I am working hard to relax my death grip on "my plans."  For example. my junior is not going to finish the history I have scheduled and he has definitely not spent his time as wisely as he could have. That said, he has done a lot, and I think my schedule was just too much for him. So I am cutting bits out. 

Another thing I sometimes do is convert that last chapter to read and do exercises only or just read.  Or whatever seems less. Sometimes just dropping a test takes a lot of stress off. 

Is it possible for her to cut back some work hours at all? My kids get super stressed with work and school if their hours go over a certain amount. That's going to be a YMMV depending on your kid, but I can totally see it when they hit the wall. 

She is definitely overtired. And she’s not always great about going to bed at a reasonable time at night. She stays up later than she needs to. One job ended today so that will save her 20 hours a week.
 

I did convert some things to just reading. Those subjects are done now. I can’t do that as easily with Chemistry and math. Math has been review this year. She wasn’t as solid on Algebra as she needs to be so we’ve been going through the basics again. But it‘s all familiar so she doesn’t feel like she’s learning anything new. 

31 minutes ago, EKS said:

I think you should just let her figure it out.

I have thought of this too. She’s 18 and will need to figure out for herself how to balance everything and not over commit. I just worry because she’s had some mental health struggles in the past and I don’t want her to spiral back there. Maybe I’ll try to talk to her tomorrow  (if her outlook has improved with some sleep) and see what she thinks she should do. 

[freesia]

2 hours ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

My senior is starting to panic about finishing school. She had a mini meltdown during dinner tonight saying that she just needs to be done, she’s learning nothing at this point, her brain can’t do any more. She IS tired. The past few weeks she’s been working 2 part time jobs, plus babysitting several nights a week (only about 2 hours at a time), and cleaning a house every other week. She also had a multi day speech tournament in the middle of all that. One of the part time jobs was a temporary, seasonal position and ended today. That will help. Co-op is over except for end of the year presentations this week. I’m happy to let her skip that. She really doesn’t have much left to do. Three subjects (Science, Math, and Psychology) and 2-3 weeks left of each. But we were hoping to be done next week and she doesn’t feel like it’s possible to finish by then. I’m fine with her spending another week to finish. She’d still be done by the end of May. But she’s starting to come unraveled a little. I’m trying to figure out how to handle this. I already required what I consider to be the bare minimum this year to accommodate all the other stuff she had going on. But maybe it’s still ok to skip the last 8-15 days? Or maybe I give her a day or two to unwind and then we get back to tackling the rest with a plan to finish by the end of the month? Or do I just let her be done now? Then she can take the next couple of weeks to focus on her speech for nationals next month. Maybe that’s more important than finishing the next chapter of Chemistry? I feel like this should be an easier decision but math and science are her weakest subjects and I worry about how she’ll do when she goes to college in the fall. (But really, what will ten more days do?) Also, I’ve seen the times when she wasn’t using her time as wisely as she could have. I need outside opinions. 

I am a major finisher. That’s for reference. However, with my third, he was soooo done in April of his senior year. I realized my nephews school let senior do an internship the last month of 12th grade. I thought that was a brilliant solution. 10 days more of chemistry will make no difference in her life. I would let her focus on her speech. It will be fine. Ds, who did not technically finish all of his classes ( except Dual enrollment and maybe one other) got a 3.6 his first semester and a 4.0 this one. So, if she generally doesn’t give up, I wouldn’t think twice. If this is a pattern, get her some support but even then this one semester won’t matter. Senior year is its own thing. 
 

ETA: I didn’t finish my thought. I let ds go work for a tent company for the last 6 weeks and just finish his dual enrollment and physics 2 class. But I skipped the last tests and the final. 

Edited May 15 by freesia

[cintinative]

17 minutes ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

She is definitely overtired. And she’s not always great about going to bed at a reasonable time at night. She stays up later than she needs to. One job ended today so that will save her 20 hours a week.

So 20 hours a week for the one job, plus another job, plus babysitting? I have this issue with my kids as well. I love that they are so hardworking and saving for college, but sometimes it is too much. 

At least for me, poor sleep also brings on a struggle with mental health, so I personally would be advising her to prioritize sleep and self care. 

I will leave the 'do I finish Chemistry' discussion for the other boardies.  😃  By this time, I expect most of our seniors are toast. 

Hang in there. I can hear your concern for your daughter.  

[Farrar]

I'd pick one thing for each class and then just let the rest all go.

This is one reason I don't think parents should be left holding the line at the finish. It's one thing to drag a 10th grader through finishing and another thing for a senior. It's just too hard and most of us are used to being flexible. I'd just call it. It won't make a difference for college at this point. And mom letting go of some stuff is radically different from a college student and a professor and a firm deadline. It's just a different vibe. 

Congrats on your soon to be graduated kid.

[Arcadia]

4 hours ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

I just worry because she’s had some mental health struggles in the past and I don’t want her to spiral back there.

 

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

At least for me, poor sleep also brings on a struggle with mental health, so I personally would be advising her to prioritize sleep and self care. 

I'll focus on sleep. Skip finishing chemistry and psychology. Continue reviewing mathematics at whatever pace her sleep deprived self can cope with. The caveat being that if she needs to take organic chemistry for her major, I would do a slow pace review of high school organic chemistry over summer. Both my kids don't need to take any chemistry beyond AP Chemistry for their major so I didn't bother to make them review their chemistry after they passed their AP Chem exam.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

10 hours ago, freesia said:

I am a major finisher. That’s for reference. However, with my third, he was soooo done in April of his senior year. I realized my nephews school let senior do an internship the last month of 12th grade. I thought that was a brilliant solution. 10 days more of chemistry will make no difference in her life. I would let her focus on her speech. It will be fine. Ds, who did not technically finish all of his classes ( except Dual enrollment and maybe one other) got a 3.6 his first semester and a 4.0 this one. So, if she generally doesn’t give up, I wouldn’t think twice. If this is a pattern, get her some support but even then this one semester won’t matter. Senior year is its own thing. 
 

ETA: I didn’t finish my thought. I let ds go work for a tent company for the last 6 weeks and just finish his dual enrollment and physics 2 class. But I skipped the last tests and the final. 

I am a major finisher too. Actually, until this year, I have insisted on finishing every book each year of high school. But that back fired because we would end up just rushing through the curriculum at the expense of comprehension. So this year I decided that we would slow down and focus on quality of work. We’ve roughly kept track of time spent as a way of determining when we’ve done “enough”. As we got closer to May, I looked through each subject and picked ending points that seemed reasonable. But the end of April/beginning of May got insanely busy with a musical, speech championships, and three weeks of a seasonal job for all three kids on top of all our regular stuff. 
 

I’m going to sit down with her today to take a closer look at what she has left and see what our options are. She doesn’t usually give up when things get tough and I don‘t anticipate any problems when she’s in school. In fact, I think she’ll do much better in a classroom at this point. Homeschooling has been great but we’re both ready for her to move on. 

7 hours ago, Farrar said:

I'd pick one thing for each class and then just let the rest all go.

This is one reason I don't think parents should be left holding the line at the finish. It's one thing to drag a 10th grader through finishing and another thing for a senior. It's just too hard and most of us are used to being flexible. I'd just call it. It won't make a difference for college at this point. And mom letting go of some stuff is radically different from a college student and a professor and a firm deadline. It's just a different vibe. 

Congrats on your soon to be graduated kid.

Thank you for this. 

[teachermom2834]

My dd goes to private school and the seniors have been running wild/absent for several weeks now. Not misbehaving- actual planned senior activities/days off. They don’t have to take finals unless they need it to bring up a grade. My dd has seniors in some of her classes and the classes have gone on as planned and the underclassmen are still learning but the seniors are just not there. Even AP classes. The seniors will return to take the AP tests but whether they studied or not is on them. 
 

It’s a good school and all these kids are going away to 4 year colleges and they will do fine. But come May the seniors are just …gone. It probably keeps all the underclassmen on track to have all of their distracting energy out of the school and they are having a blast spending their last month together doing non-academic things.

I see other schools around having the same energy for their seniors. I know it is hard for parents to let go but it is probably ok. 
 

My homeschooled boys did all de for their second semester senior year because I knew they would finish that and it would be done the first week of May. I don’t know that I could have dragged them through a whole lot.

[kirstenhill]

Just as another data point for comparison about what's going on in schools at this time...DS17, my public schooled junior is missing school all week for an out of state academic competition, and I asked him if he was stressed about missing school/homework - he said no, really nothing was going on all week since AP testing is wrapping up - so classes during AP tests can't really cover any material because some students are out every day for testing, then after AP they just chill and do fun activities.  He has a big presentation next week in his Engineering Design class, but they had to finalize it last week to submit a formal poster for printing.   If I had a homeschooled senior, I would probably be pretty willing to wrap things up - maybe finish one or two assignments that are outstanding and call it good.

[ieta_cassiopeia]

Give her a day or two off with reasonable sleep, then discuss having a capstone experience that will mark a definite full stop to studies needed for graduation (the speech already organised is likely to be the most natural option, but consider other options such as this week's co-op presentations if she seems to need an earlier stopping point). If she's still not getting enough sleep, ask if she'd like you to get some sort of assistance for this and if she agrees, prioritise this over all academics. Under those circumstances, calling it done immediately would be legitimate even if she had done quite a bit less than she already has. (If she's improving after the 1-2 days but not 100% better, continue with the lighter workload because chronic insufficient sleep takes a while from which to fully recover).

Maths and theoretical science to prepare for college are probably better done with a little bit of daily review rather than doing the whole thing in a single week preceding a complete months-long break. It could be worth negotiating letting her do 10 minutes each per weekday all summer or to a specified point during the summer (with a weekly informal discussion on what she chose to read) in exchange for being deemed "done" in both subjects now for graduation purposes. It wouldn't have to be the set book as long as it was covering maths/science that was useful/interesting to her.

If there are any outstanding labs, pick the one you and she agree is the most interesting, do it, write it up and call it good. If she was really looking forward to other ones in the expected lab list, think of them as opportunities to make fun memories post-graduation.

If she needs psychology for college, consider treating it like maths and theoretical science. Otherwise, consider making it reading-only or just calling it done (experimental parts can be treated like outstanding labs).

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

5 hours ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:

Give her a day or two off with reasonable sleep, then discuss having a capstone experience that will mark a definite full stop to studies needed for graduation (the speech already organised is likely to be the most natural option, but consider other options such as this week's co-op presentations if she seems to need an earlier stopping point). If she's still not getting enough sleep, ask if she'd like you to get some sort of assistance for this and if she agrees, prioritise this over all academics. Under those circumstances, calling it done immediately would be legitimate even if she had done quite a bit less than she already has. (If she's improving after the 1-2 days but not 100% better, continue with the lighter workload because chronic insufficient sleep takes a while from which to fully recover).

Maths and theoretical science to prepare for college are probably better done with a little bit of daily review rather than doing the whole thing in a single week preceding a complete months-long break. It could be worth negotiating letting her do 10 minutes each per weekday all summer or to a specified point during the summer (with a weekly informal discussion on what she chose to read) in exchange for being deemed "done" in both subjects now for graduation purposes. It wouldn't have to be the set book as long as it was covering maths/science that was useful/interesting to her.

If there are any outstanding labs, pick the one you and she agree is the most interesting, do it, write it up and call it good. If she was really looking forward to other ones in the expected lab list, think of them as opportunities to make fun memories post-graduation.

If she needs psychology for college, consider treating it like maths and theoretical science. Otherwise, consider making it reading-only or just calling it done (experimental parts can be treated like outstanding labs).

We came up with a plan similar to this. We found logical end points for Psychology and Chemistry and are dropping math for now. This summer she will spend a few minutes a day pinpointing the areas of Algebra that need review and working on them. We will end the school year with the big speech tournament. She’ll schedule some last minute coaching to prep for this.
 

We both feel better about this plan. I feel like she’s finishing what needs to be finished, and she feels like some of the weight is coming off. This leaves us space for some of the fun parts of being a senior that were starting to feel very stressful due to lack of time. We’ll go shopping for a dress for the co-op dance coming up, get some new suits for speech, schedule graduation pictures, and plan a graduation party for some point in June. She’ll have time to get some rest and hopefully be ready to enjoy her last trip to camp this summer. And I’ll have plenty of time to get final transcripts to the school by mid-July. 

[Terabith]

My senior took her second mental health day in two weeks today.  She is so completely crispy fried and DONE.  I'm kinda worried about her emotionally.  It's awful.  They're mostly but not quite doing nothing, but like she has an AP test tomorrow and she has to do a speech in English, and most of her teachers are making them all take finals, which just feels cruel at this point.  Mostly it is Disney movies and Uno, which makes for a sensory nightmare.  And she's so worried about everything that comes next, and also the goodbyes and farewells are emotional torture for her.

[Eos]

Senioritis Is Real. You are in the midst of it now so I realize this is not helpful for you but I'm leaving it here for others who may come after.

I finally learned this lesson with fourth graduate - I made the junior and senior year plans for dd to be completely done with everything important by the end of fall semester senior year. My three olders taught me. 

Edited May 16 by Eos

[ScoutTN]

3 hours ago, Eos said:

Senioritis Is Real. You are in the midst of it now so I realize this is not helpful for you but I'm leaving it here for others who may come after.

I finally learned this lesson with fourth graduate - I made the junior and senior year plans for dd to be completely done with everything important by the end of fall semester senior year. My three olders taught me. 

Yep. Second semester senior year is for fun things. My Dd had two APs, but other than that the workload was super light, even though it may not have been obvious on her transcript.

Let it go, let it go….

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

7 hours ago, Eos said:

Senioritis Is Real. You are in the midst of it now so I realize this is not helpful for you but I'm leaving it here for others who may come after.

I finally learned this lesson with fourth graduate - I made the junior and senior year plans for dd to be completely done with everything important by the end of fall semester senior year. My three olders taught me. 

I had a melting down senior two years ago but assumed it was just her personality. DD2 jumped into senior year excited and on top of things. The complete opposite of DD1. She started weeks before I planned for us to start, was getting up a little early to get a subject done before work, and generally seemed to be managing it all just fine. Until the past couple of months.
 

DD3 will be a senior in the fall. We‘d already planned on a lighter year for her as she‘s already passed where her sisters were when they graduated in all but one subject and she has no desire (right now) to go to college. But as we make our plans, I will be extra aware that this is a “thing” senior year and focus on the fun stuff in the spring. 

[Arcadia]

7 hours ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

She started weeks before I planned for us to start, was getting up a little early to get a subject done before work, and generally seemed to be managing it all just fine. Until the past couple of months.

I think spring quarter/semester is when it starts hitting home (emotionally) that they are really leaving home for college in a few months. That their group of friends are likely going to be dispersed to various colleges. 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

9 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I think spring quarter/semester is when it starts hitting home (emotionally) that they are really leaving home for college in a few months. That their group of friends are likely going to be dispersed to various colleges. 

Yes, this has definitely been a factor. She and most of her friends are staying local for school or work, but she’s feeling the change in relationships. Everyone is busier and it‘s hard to find time to get together with people. Also, their views on life are changing and those differences are sometimes hard to navigate. It’s been an emotional time.

[Alice Lamb]

I would look at what is covered in the final chapter of each text.  If it is a topic which is fundamental to courses she will take in college, it needs to get done.  Many textbooks, however, have interesting, "nice-to-know," but nonessential topics in the last few chapters.  Whether homeschool or brick-and-morter" school, these are essentially optional at the adult's discretion.  So she might actually need to finish one subject, but not the rest.  And yes, I also think she is way over-scheduled.

(If you look at teacher's editions in general, there are often 2 or 3 paths given about which chapters to cover.  So the authors frequently don't expect everything to be done.)

[lewelma]

Mental health is more important than ticking a box.  Unless it is an external class, I would simply stop all homegrown classes and call them done. Kids can't learn and retain anything if they are burned out, so having them keep going just negatively impacts mental health without any benefit.  I would suggest a day with you to close down all homegrown classes.  Write up what has been accomplished together for each class you are closing down. Organizing notebooks, take some photos, create a small portfolio. Celebrate success. Then focus on whatever is left that is important like the speech for nationals. 

[lewelma]

I do think there is a belief that says learning happens on an external schedule. Schooling may happen on an external schedule, but learning doesn't.  In my homeschool, I made a list of options for each course, and my kid could choose from the topics, work at their own pace, get done what they had the interest and motivation to get done. The list was always longer than could be accomplished in a year, so they and I knew that there would be no push to "finish". My younger throughout highschool only did 4 hours of work each day (3 were with me) and the rest was extracurricular (10 different weekly outings). This made him well rounded, personable, outgoing, and a keen lover of life and learning.  I hate the pressure we put our teens under.  There is another way.  Both of my kids have done very well in university, and compared to their school friends, they are way more interested in learning for the sake of learning.  Homeschooling gives us options and we don't have to replicate school.