Sid's a sophomore in high school but it seems like he's a sophomore in college. He comes home, scrounges up some food, heads to his room and spends hours and hours writing essays, reading chapters, cramming for tests. I hardly dare ask him to do chores. I can't even imagine him getting a job. On the weekends he plays catchup with whatever he's behind on and he's going to bed later and later. Last week he stayed up past 2am TWICE.
After all this effort he has 4 B's and 2 A's. This is odd, coming from a formerly straight A student.
So what's up?
Well, first of all he's taking AP European History. His teacher is amazing. But easy? Nope. She grades hard. Her class is averaging a C. Sid's proud that he's actually getting a B at the moment. What's the class like? I'd say they do at least two 5 paragraph essays a week; they have in-class debates a few times a month; they've done a few team skits already; and they read, oh, a chapter a day. The teacher is teaching to the AP test. Her students almost all get 4's and 5's. But A's are hard to get in that class and if you care about your grade (as Sid does) then you work and work, study and study, and write and write. Is he learning great writing skills? Definitely. Does he have a life? Nope.
He's also a staff artist and writer for the school newspaper. Last month he committed to writing a book review and a restaurant review and a bit of artwork. Seems easy enough. Not for a perfectionist. He's a slow reader, started the book late and wrote and wrote and wrote. He pulled a few all nighters and barely turned everything in on time. His book review was great. I loved his artwork. This month he's doing the cover art. And another book review. And an opinion piece about teens and vampires and sex. Heh.
Sports? Nope.
Driving? Learning. Getting better. Much better.
Excelling in his other classes? Not really. He's doing fine, sure, but his B's, rather than A's are due to just not turning stuff in because it's just not important enough. It's all easy stuff for him but he's not doing it.
I know I need to let him just ride this out on his own. He's learning good studying skills. He's learning how to read faster. He's an amazing writer and better and better every day. The best thing is he's learning to be less of a perfectionist. That is a good thing.
This watching your kids grow up; learning through trial and error, it's hard. It's exhausting.
And now I realize that during his Junior year he'll be taking AP Spanish, AP US History, and AP LA.
It's not all work though. He occasionally fits in a bit of free time to cook (he kind of has to since he's a vegetarian and we're not and he likes cooking). He spends a bit of his time listening to iTunes (and probably wastes a bit of time creating playlists). And, thankfully, he stops often to brush, pet, feed, give insulin shots to, and clean up after our ancient cat.
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