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!

I was part of a competitive water sport throughout my teens and trained 3 evenings a week and once a month at the weekends (5 hours, hour drive each way for the weekend training!) And two times a month when a big competition was coming up. The competitions would take up a whole weekend. However, during my GCSE year I simply cut down. Exams were important to me. I cut training down to 2 evenings per week and often only once if I felt I needed to get on with work. The reality is that yes hobbies are important and fun but ultimately school work was more important at that particular time as I wanted to further go on to uni.
Her timetable sounds exhausting and I think it is WAY too much for a teenager especially one who is undergoing GCSEs.

She needs to cut down on the time spent at the stables and you need to be less precious about "family time" at weekends and leave her alone to do homework. She doesn't need to spend the whole weekend on it but 2 or 3 hours both days would help reduce her evening homework.

Be prepared - when exam time comes she won't have much time at all to do anything other than studying. Agree with others, she's not doing enough homework at weekends.

I am confused why she's revising on top of homework? It seems early to be revising. She would be better off getting a good night's sleep than revising. Lack of sleep has dramatic effects on memory and physical and mental health.

In addition, why is she getting up at 6am - teenagers natural body clock shifts so that they are night owls. Again it's very bad for your brain, and physical health to sleep outside of natural rhythms. She can only do a limited amount about that because we still make our teenagers start school at 9am for some bizarre reason (despite the science!) but she should be encouraged to get up as late as possible.

That's a hard one.

I think the academics need to be prioritised, but you have a responsibility to the pony too, it needs to be exercised and cared for. And you don't want a sharer.

Studying on the tube can be fun - can you get a seat even?!

As a family you sound pretty oversubscribed!

That's actually crazyily normal for DH's home country, he couldn't believe how little the students work here lol. She needs to ride, groom, muck out stalls and then leave two or three days a week. Preferably three. No more hanging around and socialising at the stables. Aka 'helping'

Could she go to the yard later . Stay an hour after school doing homework and study then go to the yard?

Or she can study on the train maybe.

Can she take work with her to the clubs?

When you say you arent done with dinner til seven is that a slow leisurely dinner that takes ages or just a standard sit down eat leave affair? Maybe cut back some time there ?

I think.logically the answer is to study on the train and take some work out to the clubs .

I disagree with giving up the riding , if all she does is come home and study it's no good how well she does if shes depressed lonely and isolated from.doing nothing but study and homework.

The fresh air and exercise will help her brain.

You owe it to your daughter to be brave enough to dig deep and challenge how she is spending her time. Her GCSE year matters. She does have time for homework. It’s the other stuff she may not have time for.

Tbh I'd be looking at dropping the family thing. She's 15, she would probably rather have all of sat after gym with friends and Sunday to do homework, if it means she can carry on as normal with the horse during the week.

Can you afford for her to become a professional show jumper (assuming she's good enough)? Those horses are mega-expensive.

If not, she needs to cut back on riding. Screwing up her exams for a hobby is stupid and short-sighted.

I dont think she needs to give up much riding, her weekdays seem pretty well balanced bw work, exercise, socialising and relaxation. Her weekends on the other hand are just a load of dossing around.

DD is a dancer (10+ hours per week, competitions 3x per year etc etc), and has just gone into Y12, so I can relate what you are describing to our situation last year.

First thing to go has to be the weekends. DD did the essential homework every night (in her case, it was school, homework, dance, home to bed, just because of the timing of dance classes), and the weekends were for clearing everything else and revising. Any socialising was in the evenings, though she did also work in the dance studios every few Saturdays (luckily, her group of friends were also busy types - swimming . athletics, gymnastics - so understood her lack of availability). Yes, we have had less time together as a family, but it's not worth having 'pretend relaxed' family time if everyone is stressed about how much work is stacking up.

The other thing that could go would be the 'social' aspects of riding. DD very much went to dance, danced, came home - or did homework in between dance classes. Yes, when she was younger there was social chat etc, but not last year. Could she really focus while at the stables and then return home a bit earlier?

Think of ways to use the 'dead' time travelling - make vocabulary flash cards for languages, read revision books etc if online access isn't possible.

DD came out with a very high set of GCSEs, and a formidable work ethic with a 'use every moment' attitude

she’s got her hobbies every night after school....7 hours isn’t really enough sleep for her. She’s exhausted throughout the day

Well it's pretty obvious isn't it?
She needs to CHOOSE how to split her time between hobbies, homework and house chores - and still get enough sleep.

She can want to spend all her time on hobbies but that isn't what's best for her and you need to be more firm in your guidance.

Three things -

1. If she wants to keep up with all of the activities she currently does, then she needs to be uber-organised with her time. That means less chatting and socialising at the yard so that she can be done earlier.

1. Revise on the tube. I know that WiFi is patchy at best but if she needs to revise then lots of the material can be downloaded in advance so that it's available offline. Suggest she spends part of her revision time on a Sunday making up a planner for the forthcoming week, with subject areas and learning outcomes that she wants to cover, and making sure that she's downloaded the content that she needs.

1. The weekend family functions and dinner needs to give a bit. She needs to be able to eat earlier if she's going to fit everything in, and she absolutely needs more sleep. Finishing the family dinner at 7pm is too late for her.

The other thing that worked for DD, as she did 2 'coursework heavy' art/design subjects, was to do the 'short sharp' homeworks during the weeks, and the longer more arty ones at the weekends. Much easier to spend time with her as she did art or design than if she was doing a series of Maths / Science homeworks. Change of pace at weekends without too much loss of work time, if that makes sense.

PS my niece is a dancer (competing at national level) and is about to start her GSCE year, so I am familiar with the military-style planning that goes into managing her time so that she gets everything done!

I don’t think you can say that someone who is home 6. 30pm doesn’t have time for homework. I had some hobbies but never sat down to my homework before 8pm at 15.

Some of the extra revision will have to take place at weekends.

I would say that you should look at paying someone one week night to go and do the pony for you so she has a night off to do her homework. Also I would say if she is going to the gym then she needs to do an hour of work beforehand and you need to leave time to do some on saturday afternoons. Maybe she should stay at home every other saturday to do revision (and a night midweek if you can find someone to do her pony) and use the other evenings just for homework. She needs to start prioritising school and you are giving her excuses not too.
My entire family by me as I am allergic and they stink have kept horses so I know how much they consume your life but this is her last year at school.

@MiniMum97 She ‘wakes’ up at 6 as it takes her ages to wake up no matter how much sleep she has had so she’s up and getting dressed by 6.30, down for breakfast at 7 and then goes upstairs to finish getting ready. She has to be at school for 8.20 and leaves at 7.45.

How about saying she needs to be home by 6pm each day. She needs to be in bed at 10pm. That's 4 hours for eating, homework, revision and a shower, which seems like plenty of time.

The only thing is that doesn't include anything nice like watching a bit of TV. Making her tube journey enjoyable would be a good idea. - downloading Netflix or something?

When I am full on with work I sometimes work from the bath. It's a nice place to focus and feels slightly relaxing- I only do my favourite work though coz I'm not going to ruin my bath dealing with idiots. So wouldn't recommend revising your worst subject iyswim.

I presume you are making sure she has decent food to eat and not giving her many household chores?

Maybe try that until half term and reassess?

I would also add that grades are not the be all and end all and that every GCSE can be retaken in future...

I have horses so I do understand the commitment involved.
Is the horse on full/part or diy livery? Maybe you’ll have to pay for the yard to do the bring ins/turn outs, muck outs etc so your DD focuses just on the riding.
Lunging twice a week would save time and absolutely less ‘chat’ would help.
As pp have suggested, cut family time, it’s only for a year.

DD rode and competed at top level in her discipline through GCSEs and A-levels. She managed on little sleep and doing her school work in the lorry on the way to competitions. She was often competing on both days at weekends as more than one pony. However ponies were on a competition yard so during the week the social aspect of rising was minimal.
We rarely managed extended family time and her socialising in competition season was usually Friday and Saturday nights only. She cut back on other stuff to ride. Your DD does seem to be doing a lot of school work, is she really working effectively? It can be easy to procrastinate or do “busy work”.

Is it her own pony? If not she needs to cut back to maximum 2 or 3 times riding a week.

She’s too old to need weekly family time. She should be working on the weekend with breaks for gym or yoga.

Unless you have the money to fund a showjumping career - where is this all going?

To the people saying she doesn’t need family time, perhaps you’re in the fortunate position to have either you or your DP at home after school. At the moment, I do not see DC and nor does DH until 8PM. Then the little ones are put to bed straight away by us (we have a nanny for the rest of time) and the older ones are either out or revising or whatever. We have zero time to discuss anything until our current contracts are over later this year. Not long left until weekend family time can be cut but we won’t see our kids unless we have it and DD loves it genuinely.

We are looking at her doing show jumping as a career as she’s doing crazily well on ponies but she’s off ponies at the end of 2020 so we’ll have to see what will happen with that then as horses are much more expensive than ponies.

I can’t believe she hasn’t already cut back the riding. Even if she was at national level I would be doing this, because her equestrian career will not last for long, and she will never get a normal career off the ground without even basic grades in her GCSEs.
You need to talk to her, and cut the visits down to the yard drastically and think of her future.
My dd is the same age as yours, and she gets hours of homework, there is very little time to do anything else. So little sleep will also be having a big impact on her wellbeing, academic performance,
She lives for her horses, clearly I know the feeling, but right now she needs some parental guidance and support structuring her time.

My dd has 9-10 hours of sleep and is still shattered.

Get some help with mucking out etc at the yard and cut the riding down to twice a week. We only have time for dds best sport twice a week, it would kill us to do anything else.

@MiniMum97 - she wakes up at 6.00am to leave the house at 7.45am ??? there you go, get her to cut down her morning routine and spend an 1 hr on homework/anything - or an extra hour in bed !!

DD (also 15) wakes up at 7.00 to leave the house at 8.00 and manages - still has time to spend on her phone whilst getting ready....