Homework advice when training 25 hours a week?

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I am so glad to see I am not alone. It is such a struggle daily to meet the AR points (must read so much and be tested on it) and get the homework done. I try real hard to get her homework done prior to gym; however, she wants some downtime. I appreciate all the comments. Does anyone use a reward system?
 
Gymnastics is the reward in our house. School first then gym second. With a 25 hour training schedule though I would like some flexibility on the part of the school. Our kids can miss school for sports training as long as their grades do not change.

The only thing I know is homework increased a lot when mine hit grade 6/7, but also the ability of my kids to manage their homework increased too. \\Good luck, it really is a balancing act.
 
I am so glad to see I am not alone. It is such a struggle daily to meet the AR points (must read so much and be tested on it) and get the homework done. I try real hard to get her homework done prior to gym; however, she wants some downtime. I appreciate all the comments. Does anyone use a reward system?

Do you mean a reward system for getting homework done? If so, absolutely no at our house. School before gym. Went through the AR program with my gymmie in elementary school and it wasn't that bad---just the time spent to get the book read. Ok, had a few times when my stubborn child did not believe me that she had to do homework or no gym. She tested me by not doing an assignment and I put the car keys away. I think she was 3rd/4th grade at the time. Haven't had a problem like that since.
If your dd is having trouble getting her work done, then it may be time to look at cutting back some gym hours. 25 hours/week is an awful lot for a 10 yo to handle and keep up with everything else.
 
I am so glad to see I am not alone. It is such a struggle daily to meet the AR points (must read so much and be tested on it) and get the homework done. I try real hard to get her homework done prior to gym; however, she wants some downtime. I appreciate all the comments. Does anyone use a reward system?



IMO, (and what I tell my dd) gym time is her "down time". Gymnastics is an activity that she has chosen to do (unlike school, church...we've chosen those activities for her;)).

My dd is currently doing gym, diving and violin; making for an extremely busy schedule. When she thinks of these activities as her "down time", she is fine. If these activities become a burden, then it is time to give something up.

Just my two cents...:)
 
HA HA HA!! My DD is 14 and I STILL have to stay on top of her homework and assignments!!!! WHEN will she learn that time management that I try to hard to instill in her?!?!?

To be blunt, she'll learn time management skills when she can't rely on someone else to remind her what to do. 14 is old enough to be responsible for her schoolwork without anyone helping her. Once I hit middle school; it was entirely my responsibility to study for tests, keep up with my homework, and work ahead on projects. Of course my parents were willing to help me study for a test, but they never asked me if I had homework, if I had finished it, or if I needed to skip gym to study. It was my call, and if my grades slipped, I was out of the gym until the problem was resolved. I see this problem with a lot of college students-- they were too dependent on their parents and never learned to budget time on their own.
 
Yes, it is possible

I understand your daughter is 10 and a level 7 while working out 25 hours a week. My daughter is 11 (6th grade middle school) and is a level 8. I know your frustrations but it can be done. I have worked with the school on this situation for 3 years now.

The first thing I did, every year, was sit down with the school principal and explained my daughters goal for gymnastics (letting her know that school is important but so our my daughters dreams) then with the principal's help talked with the teacher. My daughter has 7 different teachers so it was much more complex. But talking to the teachers one on one and not with my daughter helped. I let them know when she would be missing school and got suggestions (very important)from the teacher on how my daughter and the teacher could work on this together. (My daughter misses about 4-5 hours of school a week all year round not including competitions.) We came up with different plans for each teacher. ex. English - my daughter gets the date of book reports ahead of schedule so that if we have a down weekend she can complete it. She does a lot of projects on Sundays.

This does work for us and she is pulling all A's. But it is hard work. She doesn't get to do those extra things - school activity nights or visiting friends all the time but if you asked her - she will say it's worth it. Hope this helps
 
I think for middle school age, if they show an ability to handle some things, then you want to help them increase it. Not all kids have the same development capacity, but if they're tracking average development, you can probably think of it like being an adminstrator rather than a teacher (this is what I think about with the older kids). Letting some of them go with no guidance can be too much (some will thrive). But they should be able to work day to day within a system. I would try sitting down and working out a complete schedule (windows calendar or the gmail calendar, etc, can even do this for you on the computer). Have them look at how much time there is for schoolwork. Then look at the average amount of schoolwork they get a week. Help them figure out what is optimal for them - do they prefer an hour each day, or a half hour weekdays but a long block (say 2 hours) on weekends? Use the syllabus provided by the teacher to put all big assignments on the schedule - it's a lot more stressful to vaguely know there's going to be a project at some point and maybe there will be a meet or a concert or whatever. It's better for them to have a concrete idea of what projects are due when and identify any conflicts ahead of time.

I wouldn't necessarily schedule the exact time they will do every bit of homework - I feel that's too much and hard to hold to, then they'll feel guilty that it doesn't work. But I would encourage them to look at the big assignments and break them down into a timeline - I will do the thesis or experiment for this project by the end of this week, and finish the presentation by the end of the next. Otherwise, I would just help them see what time they have, and what they need to do with that time.
 

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