Success and a well-balanced student

The first two weeks of summer school have passed in a blur. My 14-year old son has four hours of online class in the morning, a quiz or test every day, and homework and studying at night. Sometimes he stays up until midnight trying to prepare. It is a struggle.

I’m worried that things will just get harder. My husband is tutoring him and trying to help with his test-taking skills. We are already worrying about his GPA and college admissions.

Maybe we need to re-define success. Maybe we need to consider the characteristics of a successful person, not just a successful student.

That’s the starting point for a presentation, “The Well-Balanced Student,” by Challenge Success Program Director Margaret Dunlap and School Program Manager Laura Easley. They reminded us that path to success is not always a straight line, from high school to college to a good job to success. More often than not, there are unexpected twists and different ways to measure success.

Dunlap and Easley shared research from a national survey of over 310,000 middle and high school students, and the most shocking result was that 41% of students feel they never, rarely, or only sometimes meet their parents’ expectations. This is based on students’ perception, but it’s a reminder that we need to make sure our expectations are reasonable and achievable.

Often, there is a disconnect between how parents define success and how children define success. For example, what is the first question we ask when our children come home from school? If we ask, “What grade did you get on the test?” we may be showing them that success is about test scores and GPA. If we ask, “What did you learn today?” or “What did you and your friends talk about today?” we may be showing them that success is about learning and pursuing their interests.

We expect children to attend school, do their homework, participate in an extracurricular activity, and sometimes, for high school students, hold a part-time job. During the school week, that means 7 hours at school, an average of 2.7 hours on homework (with 30% spending over 3.5 hours on homework), plus activities and work. And while experts recommend 9 hours of sleep, the average high school student only gets 6.7 hours of sleep.

One of the best things we can do for children is consider how they spend their time, and make sure they are getting enough unstructured time and sleep.

Dunlap and Easley reveal that the top three protective factors for students are play time (unstructured time, social time, NOT practice), down time (unstructured time, such as relaxing, sleeping, or watching media), and family time (family means, traditions, service activities).

My son will define success in his own way. As a successful person, I hope that he would be kind to others, curious and open to new experiences, and mindful of his responsibilities.

How do you measure success? How important was GPA to you and your parents when you were in high school? What is a successful high school experience today?

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Tags: Challenge Success, Student Success, Success, Well-Balanced Student

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