DD has no time for homework!

[bluetictac]

Well not exactly...

DD2 (15 year old) is in Year 11 at school and she’s got her hobbies every night after school. She’s a competitive show jumper and rides almost everyday after school. She goes straight to the yard from school on the tube and that takes 30 mins to get there and another half an hour to get back. So one hour travelling, then she’s at the yard riding, helping people, chatting, doing horse care, having lessons, hacking etc. So she usually isn’t home until 6/6.30.

Then we have dinner and at the moment it’s fine as she can eat in her room and do her homework whilst she’s doing it because DH and I have jobs at the moment where we aren’t home until 7/8PM so we don’t all eat together as our other children don’t mind either, we are self employed/contracted work.

But when we do eat together we aren’t done with dinner until 7 and then she needs to revise, do homework, shower etc. School gives DD an average of 1.5/2 hours of homework per evening and then she usually tries to do 45mins/1 hour of revision to keep on top in subjects she struggles in. That’s almost 3 hours each night.

She isn’t done until 10PM usually and then she needs to read, unwind, shower etc so she’s not asleep until 11PM generally. Then she wakes up at 6AM and 7 hours isn’t really enough sleep for her. She’s exhausted throughout the day.

Any clue how we can help her manage her time better? We’ve spoken about doing more on weekends but she goes to the gym with her friends on Sat mornings and then we usually go out as a family in the afternoon as it’s the only time we have together all week. On Sundays we either relax at home and take it in turns to take the younger DC to clubs or go together with the DC. DD meets friends on sunday as she can’t ever meet them after school and has a yoga class in the evening but does do hours of revision on sundays.

It’s all too stressful!

Can you move the riding to the weekend for this year? I think year 11 calls for a quiet life. My 15 year old has cut out activities to just one one-evening club during the week plus school sport Saturday mornings. And we are keeping family outings to Saturday afternoons only. This isn't to try to squeeze better marks out of him, it's because he gets stressed about getting his work done and becomes unhappy if he feels he doesn't have any time to himself as well as time to study. We have tried in vain to get him to chill out and do less, but he won't. So we have had to make sure he has time to do as much as he feels he wants to and also has a modicum of free time. He can go back to his other activities next year if he likes.

Rich people are so funny. Can you really not work this out yourself?

Something got give or her grades will suffer. There’s no magical solution. Even if you don’t want to see it the GCSE seem to be at the bottom of your priority list.

How is she competing at such a high level without riding at weekends?

Dd could easily get up at 7am to leave by 7.45 that's an hour sleep gained right there.

And if she is snoozing the alarm, it is actually true that you feel worse off than if you just get up and get on with the day the first time the alarm went off.

Perhaps buy an alarm where she has to get up to turn it off.

Then also the wind down in the eve.... This doesn't necessarily need to be so long so she could go to bed a smidge earlier

Why does she have to get up at 6am? Sounds very early. Why do you send her to a school so far away?
Her exams should be the priority now so I should think that she needs to cut a couple of the riding sessions each week and the yoga. She could do some yoga at home in her bedroom really. The gym with her friends is good and helps her to de-stress I imagine.
If however she is very serious about the showjumping, then don't worry about how she'll do in her exams.

I am 31 now and I have had my two horses since I was 9 . I competed and did all my school work i just fitted it all in.

I didnt overly stress about my GCSE results tbh and I got average grades nothing amazing however I Knew I didnt want to go into further education etc .
I still have my horses now but I have them on DIY so have always had to go twice a day! Every day for 20 odd years missing the odd dad here and there.

How do you manage competing ?

Can she revise with audio books and listen while riding?. Also can someone quiz her while riding like calling a dressage test?.

As long as she is happy , not stressed and her mental health not being affected then let her be. Horses are definately a break from the real world x

The 3 hours between 10 pm an 1 am spent unwinding and getting to bed can be condensed to one.

The 1hour and 45 minutes spent waking in the morning needs to be cut to an hour max.

She must develop the self discipline to be in bed and drifting off by 11 pm. Whatever she is doing now for three hours a night is just indulging bad habits.

Same goes for the morning. She needs to find some way of waking up faster.

Would you say your DD is an anxious sort of girl?

Moving the horse closer to home would seem like an "easy" win (I know nothing about horses and am sure it's not "easy" at all).

Besides that, as people have said, it comes down to priorities. I'd seriously question 2 hours of home work every night though.

Having just finished the GCSE year I’d say she is not going to manage with what she is doing . It’s a tough year and emotionally hard they get a lot of pressure from school .
She is going to need to prioritise. To do well unless you are super smart they recommend 2-3 hours per night and 6 hours of study per day weekends and holidays .
Right now it’s not so bad and that might be a little much but once they start preparing for their mocks they need it . Then you have a few months of calm then pretty much from after feb half term it’s very intense .
Something is going to have to give and it’s up to your daughter to decide what .?

This is totally unsustainable. At the end of last academic year, We sat Ds1 down and talked about what Yr11 priorities were and how something had to give.

It's a year out of her life so she really needs to prioritise if she wants to do well so either cut down on riding or free weekends for study

Speaking from experience..... My step daughter was only interested in her horse and was not bothered about school, ended up with no valid maths/English, got one C, rest Ds & Es and now works as a yard hand earning a pittance.... I voiced my concerns but was told to butt out as not my child and she's so good at dressage. A weeks wage barely covers her entry fee to competitions she needs to compete in to attempt to reach the Olympic goal never mind the maintenance the horse needs.

Food for thought........

The OP isn't coming back.

Could she do some work on the train? There’s an hour. And she aim to get in at 6, not 6.30, then work for another hour before you all eat.
The homework could then be done and the extra catch up can be an hour in a Saturday and an hour on Sunday - slotted in as suits.

combatbarbie I know what you're saying and it's tough but I bet she's got job satisfaction. Growing up it was repeated over and over that horses get you nowhere unless you're rich or a vet but everyone I know that worked in rubbishly paid animal jobs were, got the most part, happy. I went degree, decently paid job with very minimal satisfaction company wide. I regularly wish I'd ignored everyone!!!

Grooms I know earn about 12k a year. A pittance with no prospects.

Trewser the OP can't come back. She is too busy with Family Time

She's doing too much for an exam year.

Cut out gym and yoga and reading at bed time.

She needs her sleep more than fun reading.

Also cut down on the riding time and frequency of riding.

@stayathomer she does get job satisfaction when she's working her own horse but she also works ridiculously long hours with no holidays (6am - 10pm) This year she has managed to have one 4 day break and 2 x 2 day breaks. The hours/times she is expected to work means she cannot get a 2nd job.

Getting job satisfaction does not pay the bills and we are regularly asked for money for blankets, hoofs etc.... Bank of parents isn't open forever, she's 19 and very slowly realising money does make the world go round. Sadly she has no gcses to fall back on.

I think I am the only parent who wasn’t bothered about GCSEs.

Dd worked throughout her GCSEs and ended up with a handful and has gone into a very precarious career.
It was something that she always knew she wanted to do and i did think I would end up supporting her for a long time but she has found an angle that brings in the money.

Whilst working with horses doesn’t pay much is there no other angle on making extra money. Buying and selling horsy stuff type thing etc

I am an advocate of doing what you love and finding an angle to make money from it

@Oliversmumsarmy I wasn’t either. But then my DD hasn’t got a fancy career either, she just works in a shop, so I’m a terrible parent 🤣.

Dd hadn’t got a fancy career, she just works different jobs for long hours to bolster her business and income.

For the past 9 days she has left the house before 6am and got back between 22.30 and midnight and on Saturday she will be working in a pop up shop so has to get there early to help set up everything.

Some of it is her business work some of it is hospitality for big events and sometimes it is shop work, some times it is teaching an Eca and sometimes she babysits.

Dd served one family in a shop in the morning, then they met her when she was their dds teacher in the afternoon and wad the parents waitress in the evening.

The problem with equestrian jobs is that they are, at the same time, poorly paid, involve long hours and out of hours shifts, demand hard manual labour, are dangerous and need to generate money to support an expensive hobby, that is, the person's own horses.