Hello Ladies,
How are you? I am fine. We are new to TOG Y3. My question is for my R. Do any of you have a high schooler that works in the afternoon? How do you fit everything in? My high schooler is a senior this year. He loves his job and it is only after lunch that he goes to it, but how do you have them getting their work done in a timely manner with a job? I feel that he is just trying to hurry through his readings so that he can go to work.
I would appreciate any advice that I can get on this subject. We want him to be able to work, but he also has a responsibility to get his schooling done.
Thank you.
Tamra Rosendahl
Josh 12th-R
Ben 10th-D/R
Hannah 8th-UG/D
Matthew 5th-UG

Hi Tamra,
Do not have an answer for you, I wanted to say hello. AND say wow, you live in Wasilla!! Now that your hometown is famous.
Welcome to TOG. This is also my first year with TOG. We love it.
I hope you can find a workable (no pun intended) solution for your sons schedule.

~~~Monica mom to~~~
Patrick graduate
Max D
Maggie UG

HI,

I have a 9th grader but it is my 3rd year with TOG but I by no means have all the answers -unfortunately (LOL) Here is what I try to do at our house. I give her the assignments on the Thursday before the week we are on for history. She then has time over the weekend to get a jump on the reading. It has worked so far. We also don't do everything TOG has to offer. We recently dropped the literature once we hit all the extra stuff in poetics on poetry. We will use progeny press guides for a little while and then come back to TOG lit when they hit a novel we would like. I found the poetics and frameworks way above my child. Gabrielle has had to do some catch up work at night if she didn't finish everything during the day. I try to tell ahead what is expected. She has needed some reminding but is improving. I found it to be a quite challenging jump from 8th grade level to high school. One of the other reasons why we are skipping some of the TOG literature readings. I hope to come back to it in 1th and 12th grade.
Lisa
ps - I think this level of TOG is very difficult both for mom and student so I've cut her some slack occasionally too.

Hi, Tamra! I have a few thoughts for you; not knowing what you have thought through already, I hope they are helpful. I have a 12th grader, too, and we have thought through these things a little; even though my son does not have an outside paying job, he works hard at home caring for siblings and doing chores and errands, and it is hard to fit it all in sometimes. He does sometimes need to do reading and other schoolwork in the evenings and weekends.

If you haven't already, the main question you (by you I mean you and your husband) and your son need to answer is what is the goal of his job and of his education. And at this stage of his life, he should have ownership of those two, in light of his future. If he sees his schoolwork as vital to his future, it will hopefully be easier for him to give it his best. Having a vision has really helped us get our emphasis right.

At one end of the spectrum, if he is not planning to go to college, and his job is in the field he wants to be in, then I would say to give him the minimum school work he needs to graduate, except in areas you and he see are valuable for his character, his adult life and his possible future as a husband and/or father. In those areas (and I see at least some TOG as extremely valuable for life in general), he should be trying to learn, not just check off a box that it's done.

At the other end of the spectrum, if he plans to get a college degree in a field that does not directly relate to the job, I would suggest that you and he seriously consider reducing his hours in order to be able to focus better on his formal education. It has helped my son to pinpoint the ways that each subject will help him to meet his goals.

Praying for God's clear leading,