Reflections on the High School years

This week I wrote an email to a friend who was asking for some personal mentoring for herself so she can mentor her "scholar phase" kids (high school age). I asked her if I could post my reply here, in case anyone else may be dealing with this balancing act:

"My two older children are struggling with time management. Now when I say this, I do not mean at all that they are wasting time. They are not. They are working so much doing so much learning that they feel overwhelmed. Now I know that is normal sometimes. But we dont want them to feel TOO overwhelmed. I want them to be joyful learners."

I don't have any real answers for you. But I know it can be therapeutic to vent! At this stage it seems that 95% of what your kids decide to do is based on what they want, what they see in their future, and only 5% what you think they should do. Basically, you have to let go of the reins.
This is a GOOD time for them to take on TOO much, so that they see their limits in an environment where it's safe, where there is a soft cushion for failure. And they may not fail if they're motivated enough -- it sounds like they love what they're doing. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.
At some point in your maturational process you shifted from finding joy in playing and having a "fun time" to finding joy in accomplishing hard things. Your kids may be shifting also, and that's a great thing. The difficulty on my part when my older kids hit this stage was twofold: anxiety that they would fail, and the loss of a playmate/friend, since they're now too busy to do all the fun little things you used to do together. It's sad, but there's nothing you can do about it (except have another baby!) Even when you are remembering the principles of Julie Beck's "Mothers Who Know," family togetherness gets more and more difficult the older they get -- right now you may be down to just weekends (for fun and work).
So, to help with your anxiety and their overwhelm, you should help them make a reasonable weekly schedule, and then provide them with some oversight -- I'm sure you do this. Be a "reminder," but not a nag -- they need to learn to nag themselves.

"What I am asking is HOW did you determine what their high school load of classes would be???"
We try to get in those basics: four years of math and English (always doing something to keep the grammar fresh, plus writing practice of some sort), three or four years of science and history/literature -- we use The Well-Trained Mind as a guide here. Some of this can be AP prep, and they need to do some work with a test prep manual to ace the SAT or ACT in their Junior year, and their senior year it's the college and scholarship applications that take time. Add in Driver's Ed, music, seminary, exercising, a job, and a social life and you've got a full plate! And we were also helping Quinn finish his Eagle his Senior year. It can be a lot, but remember "by the yard it's hard, but inch by inch it's a cinch" (and have then do their Eagle early!)
Yes, I do have HS age kids take outside classes. I think this is critical practice for college.
"Did you have them study a few things or several?" Frankly, my kids have had trouble "compartmentalizing" their time and chipping away a bit at lots of things through the day. They do better with fewer things and larger blocks of time. We often start the year with big plans about many subjects, but only finish some of them. Like Quinn's Classical Rhetoric video program -- seemed great, and he liked it, and it didn't take a lot of time, but he didn't often get around to it, and went off to BYU without finishing it. But they often don't finish programs in the public schools too, and they waste so much time! Quinn didn't waste time -- he was always doing something productive (usually reading far too long.)
"What chores do you have your 14 and ups do?" Everyone had a night to do dinner, and they rotated through the dishes. However, I frequently bailed them out when they were too busy. So the expectation was there, but when we went from "Ideal to Real," like in your class, I'd step in. They also had an inside job (their own bathroom and an area of the house)and an outside job (mowing, weeding, washing cars, leaves, snow, etc.) each Saturday, which together took under an hour, and I tried to consistently get this much work out of them, and usually did (and do, for Luke).

These issues are tough no matter whether your family homeschools or not -- in fact, I think they are tougher for public schoolers since they have less control over what to say "yes" and "no" to. All I can say is, pray and counsel together, and you're already doing that, so I'm confident you'll come up with a good mix for your family.

Homeschooling one

is pretty weird. But this is a good year for it, since with Seth around it seems I can only accomplish about 1/3 of what I could do in a day without him. Not that I would trade him for any number of decks, finished basements, gardens, books, big callings, or any of my other pre-Seth projects; he IS my project this year - raising a baby to raise a boy to raise a man.
But this post is about Luke, the Lone Homeschooler. He is, as I have always said, a most stubborn child. I know one shouldn't label children, but one must also tell the truth. And now I have objective proof of that: see photos below. Wednesday we were at the Maryland Science Museum in Baltimore (Yay for Homeschool Days and $2 admissions!) and we went in the Kids'Room (for 0 - 8 year olds, and we're thrilled to have a 0 year old to get us in) with the Ariases and the Olmos. There lives the favorite toy of all my kids: a big wall of plastic pins -- I don't know what it's called, but I've seen little versions for sale -- you push all the pins smoothly to one side, and then press your hand or any object into it and it makes the pattern on the other side. Well, for the twelve-or-so years we've been going there, my kids have loved to play with this wall, one side of which is red and the other clear. So this time Luke got in a friendly contest with other kids, each trying to push all the pins to the other side. And he kept at it. And kept at it. And kids came and went but there was always someone on the red side pushing the pins back to the clear side. And I went out to feed the meter and came back and he was still at it. After an hour, there were two girls on one side and Luke was on the other and they decided they would go leave for a few seconds and fake him out (he heard them say this) and when he had it almost done, come and mess it up again. But he quickly finished on his side, and then I said,"Walk away Luke -- you won!" and he did so before they could get back. Whew! AN ENTIRE HOUR he was there doing this and he got all sweaty and his arms were tired but he wouldn't give up!
So I'm hoping two things: First, that people will believe me when I say that, no, I can't make him do something he doesn't want to do (swimming lessons, various co-ops and classes), and second, that he will recognize this trait in himself and turn it to great ends.

Oh, AND...

I also was released as Stake Young Women President a couple weeks ago. It was sad, but it needed to happen, with Paul in the bishopric and a baby in the house -- we'd have been fine with two of the three things, but our Stake President feels strongly that any one family not be overburdened. So the rest of my presidency is still in, and they have a new secretary, and will do great -- they've got one year under their belts now so they know the ropes.
I was called to replace Quinn as our Primary Music Leader, and am SUPER excited about that. Though I don't think I'll be nearly as popular as he was -- he really enjoyed the calling to and related well to the kids.
Here's another giggly Seth video.