Confessions of a Mom of a Teenager

My stomach is in knots as I write this.

I sent Ryan (9th grader) to school today knowing that he probably could have used a day off. He was a little under the weather yesterday, and even worse this morning. I sent him any way.

Ryan is a bright kid, always has been. And until this year, he was rarely challenged in school. It boggled my mind that he could earn all A’s with very little effort. It actually frustrated me. He is now attending his dream school and Neil and I couldn’t be happier with the culture there. It’s actually cool to be smart! As this year has progressed, the workload has become enormous, and the pressure to do well is insane. I am not helping.

For the first time in his academic career, Ryan failed a quiz. He said that most of the kids in the class had flunked and that the quiz was “ridiculous.” (The “other kids” phrase has never worked in our family and Ry knows that.) Neil and I kept our cool, but mentioned that it seemed as if he wasn’t devoting as much time to school work lately. This upset him, but I think he knew in his heart that we were right. He even did some extra credit in that class in an attempt to bring his grade up.

Fast forward to yesterday. He wasn’t feeling well and proclaimed jokingly, “I think I am going to take tomorrow off.” I replied that if he had a fever, he could. (He had an entire week off last week, including Monday for heavens sake!)

It turns out that he has another quiz today in the same class and on top of feeling yucky, he is clearly nervous. I decided to stay strong. He needs to push himself. He needs to learn what it is to really study and buckle down. This is what life is about…right? Right?

It’s hard to be strong. Did I mention that he was up until 1:00am studying? It’s hard to be strong.