I have a niece who is pretty much a straight A student. She is very open about being constantly burned out because of the amount of homework they are given. I asked her what she typically gets for homework and it really is insane, borderlining on ridiculous.
I asked some other friends with kids who go to different high schools and they say the same thing. Their kids are sent home with way too much homework.
Are you seeing the same thing in terms of workload, and if so, why has it gotten so insane? Could burnout be a thing with the kids?
My son did an incredible amount of homework in high school. He commonly worked at his laptop for 4-5 hours a night during the week. He spent more time on homework in high school than I spent in college and probably even law school. I have no explanation for it, but he still can't really write worth a damn. His spelling (in texts) is ridiculous. My wife had to totally hand-hold him through the college application and financial aid process as well as his job applications, and he's considered a smart kid! She still hounds him constantly on basic stuff like his schedule, budgeting, etc. - things my parents never discussed with me that I recall.
I’m not a good person to ask whether this is the reason for teen problems, but I have the same experience about the amount of homework. Related, the number of extra curriculars is extreme. My kid is up at 530, on bus by 630, gets home at 3, has hours of HW to do before going to practice or (most days) multiple practices depending on the season. The second she gets home she goes to bed. Her grades are fine, but I have to assume she is a complete zombie at school and I can see why any kid would be a pain the next day (which is every day).
I take responsibility for some of it. We let her sign up for too much. But this is the norm for kids. Every coach thinks their sport is everything, every teacher thinks their subject is the one that matters, choir thinks they "only" have 3 mandatory concerts, etc etc. It just all adds up to the kids are buried and stressed. When adults get buried and stressed, they cope in various ways or just flat out shut down. Why should kids be different? That's why I find it hard to agree with posts above about kids not playing outside or doing certain things we used to do. When should they do it?
Obviously, we don't know each other personally, so I'll sort of apply your situation to the wider "issue" at hand that I see with kids like yours:
Do some teachers think their class is God's gift to education? Yep. Do some youth coaches act like they're running a professional team? Yep.
I think what it comes down to, is that you simply have to cut things out. Easier said than done, I know.
Because there -are- so many kids that are just bumps on a log, kids that -aren't- are seen as these shining examples and pushed beyond their limits, because adults see them and think "Oh, a good one! Lets get the most out of them that we can!" And so those kids end up in Choir and Orchestra and Lacrosse and Golf and Student Council and National Honors Society and ..... because "they're one of the good ones" and so they are directed into an insane amount of activities.
I am far from an expert on college admissions, but I do teach in our I.B. program with some of the most gifted/driven/capable students in the entire region. The kids that we send to the very best schools, are not always the kids that are in 48 different clubs and have a 5.0 GPA and a 1600 SAT. Are they good students? Of course. Are they involved? Yes. But they don't drive themselves crazy with creating a list of accomplishments to put on a college application.
A lot of the prestigious schools today, want to know about the person themselves, not how many different things they got involved in, or if they ever have gotten a B+. The truth is, that there are a ton of kids with 5.0 GPA's and 15 different clubs and 4 varsity sports and hundreds of hours of community service. But, universities know, that a lot of times, this is done simply to impress some new admissions officer. From my experience, kids that have a high academic workload, but are well-rounded people are much more favorable to the prestigious schools than kids who pack their schedule from dawn to dusk with tasks that look good on a resume.
The college essay portion of the admissions process is now -massively- important. Whereas, back when Millennials or Gen-X were applying to college, those "college resumes" were essentially how you got to those big time schools. 5.0 GPA, 1600 SAT and every club and sport available to you on your high school campus is how you got to the Ivy League. In the past, it was rare for a 3.5 GPA kid that had some life experiences and wrote a good essay to get into a prestigious school. In today's landscape? That is absolutely possible.
Having a normal life, and experiences that aren't designed for the amusement of a college admissions office, are now often seen, as being an important piece of the admissions puzzle.
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You mentioned that your daughter immediately goes to sleep when she comes home. One of my personal crusades is the "bad sleep" epidemic that is going on with these kids. They are on their phones until 3am, or too stressed to sleep, or playing video games, or whatever, and they build up MASSIVE sleep "debt" during the week.
Wake up at 5:30. Go to school. Go to practice. Come home. Fall asleep at 5. Wake up at 8:30. Eat "dinner." Stay up until midnight doing homework. Then look at your phone for 3 hours. Sleep from 3am-5:30am. Repeat.
Then, when the weekend comes, they sleep for 12 hours on Saturday and miss out on time with their family. We as a whole society need to help kids with their sleeping schedules and habits, it is a disaster.