Austin Scholar #12: Managing May
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Please forward this newsletter to other parents who want to learn ways to help make twelve years of school less painful and more fulfilling for their children.
This week from Austin Scholar...
What I learned from dropping one of my 2022 APs
Tips for both parents and teenagers for dealing with AP stress
A source for parents on the negative effects of AP classes and two sources for teenagers outlining AP study methods
While the previous newsletter was quite lighthearted, all about finding your people, this week’s newsletter is much more serious: AP stress. May is a month of constant testing. If not handled, testing anxiety can be super detrimental to your teenager’s mental health. I’ve got two APs this month, and here are my top tips for managing May.
Send this newsletter to your teen if they are struggling with APs.
Austin’s Anecdote: My 2022 APs
AP classes are hard.
“Well, Austin, obviously AP classes are hard,” you might be thinking. But a lot of parents don’t understand just how hard these courses are.
At the beginning of this year, I was taking three APs: Language and Composition, Calculus BC, and World History. Which are all, like, basically impossible. Do you know how hard it is to learn 1,000 years of history, wars, politics, trade, economies, and everything else humans came up with? Or to completely master all of calculus, which fundamentally changes how you view math? Or to write three high-quality essays in two hours and fifteen minutes? Or to simply learn how to take the exam?
And in a few months.
All at the same time.
And for students (including me) who want to go to a good college, getting a 5 is a must.
So yeah, AP classes are really hard.
Now, I actually don’t completely hate Calculus. I find solving problems quite interesting and fun. And obviously, I like writing, so Language isn’t that bad either. But World History. I. Hate. AP. World. History.
Yes, history is interesting on its own and you can learn from it and all that jazz, but history tests are horrible. I can give you a ton of stories and context on the Silk Road, but if you ask me for the date that China introduced gunpowder on the trade route, I would tell you to look it up.
Also, the AP test is FOUR HOURS LONG. That is such a long test!
And because it’s such a hard AP, as the testing day grew closer, we were doing a practice test every week. On Friday. From 4:00 to 8:00.
No longer would I look forward to Fridays, to a relaxing night of Survivor and ice cream. Instead, I was at school doing AP World History.
Anyways, I was doing homework, taking practice tests, and watching college board videos all day. The test was still months away and already my stress was through the roof. Not only that, but I wasn’t getting enough sleep because I was doing homework late into the night. (Read Austin Scholar #10: Let Teenagers Take Naps)
I was basically just a ball of anxiety at all times.
One morning, when I was talking (Read: complaining) about World History, I was asked why I haven’t dropped World History. I laughed and began talking about a beautiful fantasy world where I dropped AP World History and had my Friday nights back.
Apparently, it looked like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I had so much anxiety that my brain didn’t even entertain the option of dropping the class until I actually started talking about it.
For the rest of the week, it was all I could think about. That Friday, I dropped the class and went home and watched Survivor and ate ice cream.
After dropping the class, I realized I was able to increase my focus on Calculus and Language, increasing my scores on practice tests. I realized that I would rather do really well on two APs than do okay on all three.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting that your kids drop all of their AP classes, but rather that they find ways to optimize their time and scores.
For me, That meant dropping the class I hated so I could spend more time getting a high score on the APs I actually cared about.
For someone else, it might be to go to sleep an hour earlier so they are more productive throughout the day.
For another person, it might be to start studying with friends.
The point is, AP tests are really hard and stressful, and finding ways to help your teenager with the stress is super helpful in increasing AP scores.
And trust me, I have a lot of tips for parents :)
Article
Here are the things I’ve found most helpful for reducing AP stress:
For Parents–
Tell your kids you’re proud of them.
While this might seem cheesy, it is so important. A lot of teenagers, especially high-performing ones, tend to put a lot of their self-worth into grades and test scores, which is super unhealthy.
Parents can exacerbate this obsession by only talking to them about school or by only telling them you’re proud of them after they accomplish something. Teenagers are very emotional people, so these small things can reinforce the belief that they aren’t good enough if they aren’t getting good grades.
Reminding teenagers that they have value and deserve your love independent of school and grades is incredibly important. Really, just tell your kids you’re proud of them. In the future, I’ll write a full post on this :)