Niki was mellow today. I took her to brunch with a friend of mine so she (Niki) could get advice on professional hair coloring. This is not my area since I dye my (increasingly) gray hair at home. One thing I really enjoy about my children is how respectful they are to other adults (not including their own parents). They listen carefully to advice, ask questions and thank the person for their insights -- Niki is better at this than Sid. The best part is when I get friends to ask them questions that they won't answer for me. They always answer my friends with a smile on their face--they don't even care that I'm there. Why won't they answer me? I found out today that as far as Niki knows, none of her classmates are sexually active. o_o
Anyway, after her visit with my friend to get hair coloring advice and assistance in making an appointment (and to arrange dog sitting services to pay for massively expensive procedure), Niki was quite pleasant. Pleasant enough to sit down with me this evening and have a long, realistic discussion about high school options. I don't want to jinx it but I think she's really happy about going to The Center School now. She's not 100% sure she'll stick with that decision (because a tiny part of her hasn't decided if she wants to give up being in a school orchestra and being part of a school with sports teams and Ingraham has both) but she at least sees a lot of positives in going there and none of them are based on who else is (or isn't) going there.
(She dropped the Nova idea after she found out a little more about it and realized it wasn't really her style plus it's moving to Meany -- no more "cute school factor". How did I miss that this was happening? I need to pay more attention.)
Mature reasoning. That's all I ask.
fyi, some high school wait list numbers, if you're curious:
Nova - none
The Center School - none (enrollment services told us 2)
Roosevelt - 223 (hey, Niki's 74th in line...)
Nathan Hale - 7
Ballard - 34 (enrollment services told us 42)
Garfield - 295
Ingraham - none
Meanwhile, Sid is off to Spain in less than 3 weeks. Tomorrow we are teaching him how to withdraw money from an ATM. Sending him off to a foreign country with minimum adult skills = scary.
Wow so great that you are teaching life skills as they are going through it. It is good for her to learn it exactly the way she is. Make decisions, think about them, make changes as necessary. Are these private schools? why are there so many choices?
As for Sid. What a great opportunity. We are going through growing pains with my daughter away from home for the first time and she is 18!
It is scary and wonderful and hope you have good cell phone service. At least he is going with friends? and boys are more resilient it seems.
Seattle has 8 regular public high schools and 2 alternative high schools and kids can apply to any of them. Each school has its own style so kids (and parents) try to match up what works best for the kid. The majority of kids go to the high school closest to them (like my son) but some kids opt for one further away for various reasons (AP programs, music programs, etc...). The hard part is getting into a non-neighborhood school that's really popular.
I am very excited for Sid's trip. He doesn't know any of the other kids going but they seem like a good group and he'll probably come home with a bunch of new best friends (I hope)!
What a great opportunity for them and the perfect age to think about options on a smaller scale. and have choices open to them.
I am excited for Syd also.. I am realizing how hard being away from home is for teens but my son, no problem. more my daughter.. who is also learning to deal with her new surroundings.
Your kids will look back one day and realize what great opportunities they had and great supportive parents who helped them along the way