Parents Middle School

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

F

flippymonkeysmom

Well - now I know why so many girls end up quitting in middle school. Yesterday was our first day of school. This year is going to be tough. There is no time between gym and school at all and my dd is totally overwhelmed by middle school itself. Hopefully once she settles in a little it will be better. I really hope homework isn't too bad this year - otherwise she will be up until midnight doing that every night.

Also, we went back to the ortho. She is allowed to start using her wrist again - but it still doesn't look great. Her coaches are being careful with her- not having her overdo it. When it started really hurting on bars she stopped and just did conditioning. She is freaking out though because she feels like she is going to fall behind not being able to work on everything. I'm really glad her season doesn't start until January.
 
My DD is starting middle school this year (yesterday!). Somehow she got herself into the advanced math and language arts classes. We actually switched gyms this year to move her closer to home. The new gym will also start 1 hour later, so she will have 2 hour to get ready before she leaves for the gym! Because of the switch, they are having her repeat L5, but it is worth with the increase in homework. She would have practiced T, Th from 4:30-9:00, Sunday from 4-9, but is now M, W from 5:30-8:30 and Sat 11-2. Love the new schedule so much more! She may still move to L6, we'll see. It's a smaller group, so less hours don't concern me. She has already made such improvements over last year, even though she did well.

I hope you daughter's wrist gets better. I can't imagine how frustrating that is for her. It must be so tough to sit on the sidelines and know that you are capable, but you body just won't let you. At least she is not pushing it, causing further injury.
 
I hope everything works out ok. My DS started middle school yesterday. Luckily, he is not on team - I am worried enough about DD in 3rd grade and not being up late !!

I will be thinking of you and praying that it all works out.
 
My dd came home from her first 1/2 day of 8th grade with a history project/report/presentation due on thursday, math and spelling homework. No easing back into things here. She works ahead as much as possible. And make sure that any study halls are used for as much as possible. DD doesn't get home from gym until 8:45, and for her it's quick dinner, last minute homework, and bed usually by 9:30, She's up at 6:45, and on the bus at 7:30.

Mondays and thursdays are big homework nights, and she has managed to stay on honor roll, so I am very proud of her. She actually struggled with homework more in grade school than she does now, she has found her own system. Just be supportive, help her keep track of due dates, and she will find her way.
 
I totally get it flippy,my head is spinning over school this year. So many changes and gym changes too.

Little DD is changing school to go to the same one as my older two kids. Their school is in the same town as our gym and goes from k- grade 11, they will all be on the same bus :D, and will all be in the same building. They leave at 7:45am and return at 5pm, except on gym days when one girls or the other will come home at 8pm ish. I will have a kid in gym MTWTF. They will never see each other!

No time between school and gym, they have a bus that drops them at the gym door. SO when they get home tired and hungry after gym, homework begins. On top of older DD's stretching and icing regime.:eek:

Oldest son is in his last year of high school, he is 16. Next year her will have to move away from home to continue his education as grade 11 is as far as is offered in small town Canada.

All this change is stressfull for families. I am just hoping that by October things have settled into a managable kind of madness.
 
My own daughter became very overwhelmed in middle school (shes now in college). She actually began to hate and beg not to go on Mondays if she won first at a weekend meet.. A solution(unadvertised) in our area with written request and proof is to drop school gym if you are in a competitive sport more than 10 hrs a week This gives the kids that extra study hall to get homework finished. If you request early enough they arrange to have it first or last period so you can come late or leave early ...which most opt to do. I always suggest this now to any middle school gymnasts that I coach that are overwhelmed. Its a better solution than anyone dropping the sport and seems to give them breathing room.
 
No study halls in middle school here. They have 4 periods a day for 86 minutes. Math and Language Arts every day, social studies 1/2 year and science other half, Last period they have gym once every 3 days half of the year, health the other half, cultural arts (chorus, music, arts) once every 3 days, and elective the other day (technology, world language, etc.). No getting out of any class, including PE (gym).

No time to study during school.
 
Well, I'll admit, school was a big factor in dd2's decision to leave the team. This is our second year in ms (ms starts in 6th grade). Last year, dd2 got home from school by 3:15, threw some food into her mouth, changed, and was ready for her dad to pick her up and take her to gym by 3:40. Of course, if she had jazz band or math bee after school, her dad picked her up at school and she went right to the gym. Practice was 4-8, except Wednesdays, when she had church.

After gym, she had to eat, shower, and do homework. Our district does not allow middle schoolers to have study halls, so all homework really had to be done at home. She never complained once, but it must've been more overwhelming than she let on.

Who can blame the kid for not wanting to do it again this year? She's got high school algebra, so she has even more homework. This morning, she was excitedly telling me about all the skills she has in gym, but she's still certain being done is the right decision.

Now, if she were a compulsory with practice even 3 school nights instead of 4, she'd probably still be in. But, your dd is an optional, too. It just gets tougher.
 
Big DD started MS last yr (5th grade in our district) and was in advanced math & Language Arts. She had alot of work, but managed to get most HW done between school & gym (2:40 & 5pm). I had her start HW in the car while waiting for her younger bro/sis to get out of school at 3:20 so that was a full 40 mins of quiet time. This year, gym is going to start half hour later at 5:30, which is great for getting HW done. Little Monkey is also starting a new school - they moved our 3rd & 4th graders to a separate school. They are making 3rd grade more like middle school with changing classes/teachers throughout the day. This means her HW load is also likely to change, one teacher may not know (or care) about what else has been assigned for the day. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how this works out ....
 
Along those same lines, though I don't know if it applies to middle school, is to talk to the school about dropping an elective class or two. Some schools will allow the child to take only the required core academic classes and substitute their gym training for the elective credits. Their schedule can then be arranged so that they leave early or arrive late or some combination of the two. I think the bottom line is if things really become a problem, talk to the school and the teachers to see if a solution can be worked out.
 
We had a rough go of it when my oldest daughter started middle school. She loved school but all of the sudden started "hating" gymnastics for the first time ever. It was the first time that social concerns (many friends without gymnastics) started pulling her in other directions. We just tried to support her. She seemed to have a tough time juggling gymnastics, homework, and friends wanting her time. She stuck with it and now (as a 7th grader in level 6), she tells us she is very happy that she didn't quit.

Middle school is a very challenging time! I do think it's important that they have interests and friends at school (not just at gymnastics) but it can start to pull them in different directions. I hope that the transition time is quick for your daughter and that soon things will settle in and become easier.:)
 
Oh, another thing. . .

Middle school might also be the time that the girls start looking ahead. A girl who has been interested in college gymnastics, might suddenly realize she's not where she needs to be to get a scholarship. Nobody every wants to tell a kid she can't achieve her dream, because somewhere out there there's one kid who managed to achieve what someone said was impossible. But, our kids aren't stupid. They know the odds.

We pointed out to dd2 that as a 7th grader and a level 8, she could do 2 years of 9 and still have 3 years of 10, making her a decent scholarship candidate (assuming she didn't get hurt). She could have 4 years of 10 if she didn't have to repeat level 9. The kid's long term goals, however, involve math, not gymnastics. Guess that's just another kind of looking ahead.
 
Thank you all for your support - you guys are the best :D Unfortunately here there is no study hall for middle school. I already asked about skipping PE since she is at gymnastics 20 hours a week - they said it can not be done. I'm sure she will adjust after the initial chaos wears off. She has already done the math regarding her long term goals - very similar to your dd2 livin. She is in 6th grade now as a level 7 - if she continues to go up a level a year - repeats 9- she still has a couple of years at level 10. She would like to do gymnastics in college - but that thought is really more in the back of her head. For now she has a bunch of short term goals she is working on.

Her day just seems so long to me - I know I wouldn't be able to do it. She leaves at 8:00 in the morning, gets home at 4:30 - we leave at 4:31 - she eats dinner in the car. We get home at 9:00 and then she still has to shower and do homework. From what everyone has been telling me the homework in 6th is a lot less than it was in 4th and 5th though. Also, I made the really difficult decision and took her out of the gifted program for middle school. She is still in the advanced classes - just not the gifted track. Last year she was just way too stressed out trying to keep up with it all.
 
Aw, I hope everything goes well. Give it another two weeks, and she will be up to par. The girls don't start until Sept, but my ds is starting kindergarten! Here goes another tear from mommy LOL. Leah has a really mean teacher, who gives about twice as much hw as any other 3rd grade class. She was crying when we first saw the name printed on her report card. We are so stressed out because of it. At least Lexi as a cool teacher.:eek::eek:
 
Gymmie has been back in school for about 10 days now. Lets say she's not in love with 7th grade. She's had homework everyday. She also has block scheduling for her core classes, but with practice on M/W/F and Sat. she is able to work ahead somewhat, does some homework in classes when she's bored and other stuff just needs to wait until she gets home. No study halls here either. This semester she has PE everyday and we could fill out a form to get her out of it because her gym hours would meet state requirements, but then they just put her in another "elective" class.

I don't know how these girls do it. Mine is up at 6:45 or so and at the bus stop at 7:30. She gets picked up right from school at 3 and then practice from 3:30 to 7:30. So, she's away from home for a little over 12 hours on gym days. There were some nights last year when we took her out of practice early because she just had too much work to do and the coaches understood. How she got straight As taking Algebra I as a 6th grader I don't know.

I've found when raising the homework recommendation timeframes(noted in another post), we get the response that these are "guidelines only"for the teachers ---its nothing set in stone.
 
So far dd is doing ok in 7th. She was able to choose study hall as her elective, which happens to take place at the end of the school day, so she has been able to complete homework then.

She's out at 3:00 pm, eats in the car while we drive to gym, has practice 3:30-6:30, home by about 7:00-ish. Usually I carpool TO gym, & a friend carpools them home. Then it's shower, dinner & hw.

I feel lucky w/ this schedule b/c we can eat dinner together as a family and she has time to do more homework or just hang & watch TV a little before bed. That little bit of down-time really helps her mental outlook.

She is asking to do FL Virtual School like many of her gym-mates are doing (it's like Homeschool, but they have teachers online & submit work to them). At this point, hubby & I don't really believe she'll enjoy it as much as SHE thinks she will, so it's a 'no' right now. I see her pulling back socially at school though (we moved here 6 mo. ago and she has not truly broken in to any of the friend groups yet), and that worries me. She feels her gym mates are her social group now. I have to remind her that if she gets injured and can't do gym and is home doing virtual school, she will not be seeing many friends at all, but she doesn't really get it.

Anyway, all to say, that we could go that direction if she got super serious about gym (like trying to go College-bound, which she has mentioned over the years) and/or if school got super overwhelming, so it's nice to at least have a backup plan.

But w/ a Junior High-er, life can turn on a dime, am I right ladies?! :rolleyes:
 

New Posts

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

Gymnaverse :: Recent Activity

College Gym News

New Posts

Back