Oh Jennifer. Give me something to break and pound on this morning. No, he’s still in drama. Slick talking and wheedling convinced the Dad that he can complete this week of drama. And then the Dad said, “Let’s give him the rest of the week, okay?”
Why? Because the lad pulled his fat out of the fire by some miracle this week. I don’t know how he did it, but he turned in a history paper late last week that *I* thought was pretty shabby and well below his capabilities. The teacher, however, gave him an A on it yesterday...worth two test grades. Raised his grade by a half a grade point. Back up to an A in that class. Two other classes yielded similar results which he handed me with a smug grin last night. So who am I to complain about his grades after that?
Only 4 more days of this stupid drama schedule and *then* he’s done with drama. At least until time to do sound for the senior prom and graduation ceremonies. Done, but not really done.
He’s virtually a walking zombie, not getting to bed until 2:00 AM, but somehow he’s pulling it off.
And I’m not a happy camper this morning!!
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What about allowing the lad to choose between his homework time and his drama stuff? If he can get up an extra hour earlier in the morning to do his homework, why not? These last few years of highschool will be make or break for any lad but a valuable lesson can be learned in prioritizing time. I’ve been through this with both my kids and we spent many hours discussing their goals and how to use their time more efficiently. Of course I had no television anywhere in the house at this time and restriced phone calls to weekends only.
Asking him to give up his drama activity might trigger an unnecessary rebellion that he does not need at this time.
Well Sandy, the problem is that he’s running short of hours to carve out anywhere. To give an idea, here’s today’s schedule, same as yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before....
Up at 6:30am, arrive at school at 7:30am. Classes until 12:30pm. Internship from 12:30 until 2:15pm. Back up to school for track practice that runs until about 5:00pm (Monday was a track meet which didn’t get him back to school until about 7:00pm). Then immediately over to the stage to begin working on the stage sets which they are building by hand with no power tools. At some point in there I run food up to the school. He gupls it down, goes back to building and also making props.
This week is also tech week where a couple to three hours are devoted to learning new procedures and upgrading tech proficiency for the sound and lights, since he is on the tech crew and runs and designs the sound for several of the productions each year plus whatever else the school requires, including outside groups who rent the auditorium for their own productions. The Vagina Monologues was the latest outside production that he ran sound for.
Then he’s home sometime between 10:30 and 11:30pm. Grabs a snack and sits down to do homework. If he’s lucky, he’s in bed by 2:00am. And then he’s up at 6:15 again to start all over again.
So yes, he’s getting homework done, but he is exhausted and the quality isn’t what it should be, no surprise. I don’t think there are any more hours to carve out anywhere and that’s my complaint. He has dark circles under his eyes that extend halfway to his chin. As I said, somehow he’s pulling it off, but it’s a horrendous schedule that is now in its third week.
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I suspect it will be a little tense but, you are doing the right thing for him. He will see that soon enough, like maybe when he gets that report card this week lol. And now that track is going into full swing his time is going to get even shorter. He is a reasonable young man. He might even be relieved after a couple of days!