This summer, most of my anxiety focused on my 15 yo, who was starting at a new high school, in 10th-grade, online. We didn’t know what to expect. Her previous high school, where she had completed 9th-grade, hadn’t handled the pandemic and online learning particularly well.
Fast-forward to the fourth week of school. My 15 yo has been complaining about not having a social life some. But overall, it’s probably the most relaxed I’ve seen her in years. Meanwhile, my 11 yo is a pack of nerves.
I didn’t think I’d have to worry about her. She is at the same school. She already knew the teacher she has this year, who team-taught her fourth-grade class last year. The transition to online had been handled remarkably well. My kid also knows most of the kids in her class.
I hadn’t anticipated what a pain homework would turn out to be (I should say that’s not because of her teacher.)
In the past four days, there have been two major meltdowns both because she had trouble finding where the homework assignments are posted and because she feels like she has too much of it. For context, last year she usually had a vocabulary list to study every week, some math and some reading. This year, she has a bit of math every day, a weekly vocabulary list, a weekly Latin assignment, some reading and one major English Language Arts/Social Studies project once in a while. Plus PE homework.
Now my 11 yo is not the type to keep things bottled up. Friday, around 9:50 a.m., I heard some very, very loud crying coming from upstairs. I went up to find my kid sprawled on our bed, sobbing uncontrollably, while my husband tried to calm her down. He had to leave to take a work call. I stayed.
I finally managed to get her to tell me that she felt overwhelmed by how much homework she had. And that she didn’t even know where to find some of it. After a lot of listening, I managed to talk her into getting back to her classroom Zoom. Then I went back to work.
At 12:30 p.m., I sat in an online office hour with her teacher so we could discuss the issues.
One issue is that some of the homework is posted on a website my kid can’t access. The teacher thought it was because we were using a Mac. Or maybe she was logging in wrong. The district-provided Chromebook was supposed to solve all our problems. I went to pick it up from my kid’s school. It didn’t help. We called the district’s tech support. They spent about 20 minutes talking to my husband before saying that they couldn’t help, either.
During office hours, the teacher very kindly helped us figure out where the homework actually was. She also promised a referral to the school counselor to help my kid avoid work-related panic attacks. I wish I could say that everything was better after that. But Monday, again around 9:50 a.m., my kid came down sobbing. It turns out that while she was having her last meltdown, she’d missed a bunch of work. So she was upset that she was behind, again.
I’ll say this for my 11 yo though. She is really good at bouncing back. Within half an hour, she’d calmed down. It was as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, I’d texted my therapist to set up an appointment for later in the week. And I’d signed up for yoga class.
PS: I realize that I’m extremely lucky that my kids are older. I have friends and colleagues with little ones who are much more overwhelmed. I just want to share what some of my struggles are.
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