Parents Balancing gym with school

[Gymmomtoa]

Can anyone speak to their experience of balancing high hours at the gym with high school, with an eye towards making it to NCAA? My DD is still in middle school so we are looking ahead, but going into upper optionals and we live in a school district with a high achieving high school. College track is 20+ hours at our gym, which makes it difficult to finish homework after practice without sacrificing sleep. She is usually up until 10:30pm...and she's still in 6th grade. If you attend regular (public or private) high school and keep up with training hours, how do you manage? Do you lower expectations of grades? Cut out all other extracurriculars/social time? Take "easy" (non-AP) courses? Grades must matter if pursuing high academic colleges. Is this when you consider homeschooling? Something must give.

 

[bookworm]

I had 2 level 10s (one was L10 at 10yo , the other at 12 yo) and they always went to Brick and Mortar school , no homeschooling. They were dismissed every day at 1:30 pm for our 2 hour+ commute (each way) to arrive by 4 pm for practice...they ate a snack on the way up ad did homework...at 8:30 pm, they got back in the car for the drive home, ate dinner and finished any homework. I drove my van with the lights on like a city bus! When we got home around 10:30 pm, they jumped in the shower and went to bed. They were both good students and went to parochial schools (who were GREAT with their schedules) and one did some AP, one didn't. Both got D1 full rides. Both qualified and placed at JO Nationals multiple years.

They didn't do a ton of other outside activities besides gymnastics , especially when the hours ramped up it was mainly gym...but we took family vacations, they went to Father Daughter dances, proms etc. I put my foot down on those things telling the coach "looking back they won't remember going to every Friday night practice but they WILL remember not going to Prom so it's not up for debate, period". You can give them a normal life but you have to be the gatekeeper.

 

[Liza]

My daughter is in sixth grade and has started training at level 9. Last year, she attended a private school where academics were the only focus. While she had attended this school since third grade, it was only when she moved to middle school( the school starts middle school at fifth grade) that we saw a huge jump in anxiety. Trying to balance her anxiety, workload increase plus increase training hours began to take a toll on her general well-being. We ended up switching her to Montessori this year where she can learn at her own pace. While I’m sure there are some gymnasts who could handle high academic expectations at a young age she is not one of them. She continues to have homework( a lot less) and works on it to and from practice. As for outside social interests, She has been lucky this year that all fun school activities are on her night off from practice. As for NCAA ambitions, she currently has no clue what she wants to be when she grows up so we are currently just enjoying her gymnastics journey.

 

[Dahlialover]

I went to community college for my Junior and Senior years of high school and that was super efficient. It was easy to get classes and homework done in 4 hours per day. I also earned a lot more college credit at CC than I could have earned doing APs. I plan for my kids to do the same program.

 

[skschlag]

My son had an alternate schedule. He went to school for "zero" hour, then left at 12 every day for practice. (2-6).

That being said, he did not take AP or honors classes. He was still high achieving and did well, but I really wanted him to be able to also enjoy high school. He attended football games, dances, and did a couple of clubs.

He did homework in the car or after practice.