That's my mantra for the moment.
Yesterday, The Boy had a two hour fencing class on his schedule. He came to me and said "Mom, I don't want to go today. I feel like we never have any time. We have fencing, and derby, and school, and we're barely homeschooling, and I have homework. We don't have any time." His face (none of us are good at hiding emotions) was pinched and upset.
So we emailed his fencing coach, and asked about drop-ins for the time being. His coach was delighted to hear that he wanted to come even with everything else going on, and understood too why we need to back off from two classes a week. He offered us a great drop-in rate too. Then The Boy and I talked about his school load, and scheduling homework time more effectively. I explained that the Big History Project, etc., could be done when he has time... at his discretion. That all he needs to do for me is math, and writing, and I want to see him pursue interests. We can squeeze in more story reading, or lunch time documentaries, and time out in nature.
His face relaxed, and he smiled!
He built an intricate Keva plank structure, chatted on the phone with his best buddy. We ordered pizza, and watched an episode of Chopped, with teen chefs, as a family. We played a few rounds of You've Been Sentenced. Totally the right move at the time.
Yes, college has been a learning curve for him, definitely. Being accountable to a teacher, following a syllabus -- all new territory, but he's navigating it very well overall. I don' want him feeling overloaded at home, so I am absolutely fine backing off on some of the academics (just not math and writing), and the fencing classes. I don't want him to feel like this...
Any words of advice on balancing the busy life of a teen?
Going through this with my own teen. She has bowling twice a week, fencing once a week, piano once a week, college classes that meet three afternoons, and a full day of a homeschool highschool program plus homework (lots of it!), friends, and a new boyfriend is now in the mix...she loves it all but is so stressed out but I don't know what can give way or help...doesn't help that I work part-time now and my own time has become more precious than it used to be. I feel like I work and drive her around everywhere all the time, then watch tv for a bit and go to bed. Rinse, lather, repeat. LOL
ReplyDeleteExactly. He loves everything he's doing, there's just so much of it, on top of my schedule, his dad's schedule, his sister's schedule....
DeleteI don't have any advice, I pretty much feel just like those Muppets a lot of the time:). My mantra lately is: When you say yes to something, you say no to something else". I tell myself that many times a day when I am trying to figure out what to do, what invitations to accept, how many errands to run, what classes the kids can sign up for. But I still struggle with feeling badly about not doing everything. I think I will probably figure it all out the day before my youngest moves out:).
ReplyDelete