Graduation, Check!

We now officially have a high school junior, a high school freshman and a middle school 5th grader in our family! It was an exciting last week of school with many commemorative activities that left us with all of these very grown up kids.

And now, it's time for laundry. Just kidding a little bit. With all of the excitement around here, the little things in life have gone on the wayside, so it's time for bills and laundry. It's time to catch up on the mundane, yet necessary business of life.

It feels so good to finally have arrived at summer. The first official day, and all of the kids are sleeping, but I've been up and busy and getting the little things done so later we can do the really fun things like Pilates and doctor's appointments.

The Application Waiting Game: Private High School

We've submitted all of our applications for high school. Our daughter has chosen to apply to 3 very nice schools. She filled out her applications herself. She wrote her own essays. She answered questions in thoughtful, creative ways.

Now, we wait. The competition is fierce out there. It's like applying for a job or college or going to a casting call.

All normal bets are off. It's not always what you know, as you all know, but who you know. I guess you might as well learn that sooner than later.

So, as stated before, we are waiting. Waiting... Waiting... Waiting...

When Can Kids Be Kids? High School Applications and How They Can Impact Your Entire Life

Well, I have to say that I've pretty much had it. If it isn't hard enough to be 13, we've added a whole new dimension to the teenage twilight zone: high school.

My own middle school years flowed seamlessly into high school. I never thought much about it. There was the high school on Baker Road, and that is where you went after 8th grade. My 9th grade teacher did tell my parents to get me out of that place and get me into a private high school, but I was in 9th grade, I had my friends and there was no way that I would switch.

Now my 13 year old daughter is taking SSATs and writing applications and having interviews and visit days. Even I am writing essays about why my kid is so fantastic that they should be dying to have her at their school--despite me forking over the $40, 000.00 check for tuition. No matter how fantastic my own essay is, or my kid is, the old boys network still exists: if you know somebody or ARE somebody, you have a significantly better chance to beat the regular process. It's like the elite line at the airport.

Welcome to the real world kiddo, you might be 13, but this is how the world works. Welcome to decision making and test prepping and acing an interview. We send our kids to a school that treasures childhood, now it's like WTF? Grow up and grow up fast.

Ruth was playing Lego's with her 10 year old sister. I had to break into a litany about homework and getting it done and done right. No Lego, no movie, just study. There words are hard to spit out, because I don't believe much of this pressure cooker practice, but we live in a world that is steaming up.

There are people out there that are playing the game every minute. They are networking like a flu virus and they are teaching their offspring to do the same. If you go to the right high school then you can go to the right college. Heck, I know this starts at preschool for some families.

I think I'll take Ruth to Toys R Us this weekend, at least there, a kid can be a kid.

Mommy Angst: Cut-Throat Competition for Private School Acceptance

Our kids go to the cutest, private school. O-k, I've said it and you, reader, are either cringing that I used the word "private" or you have private school in your background.

My kids did not end up at an "elitist" institution out of breeding. My husband and I went to public schools and I think we turned out pretty o-k. We kind of ended up at private school by accident. How does one make a ca trillion dollar mistake such as this? Read on...

Our first born, John, is an early September birthday boy. If you are a parent of a September boy, you know there is always one question before they enter kindergarten, "Do you send them early, or do you hold them back?"

If you are new to this debate, at the heart of it, a lot of people believe that you should give a child the "gift of time." This especially holds true for boys. I'm a Montessori preschool teacher, and when it came time for our son's third year of preschool, it was considered his "kindergarten year."

My husband and I, just figured that John would enter the public school kindergarten class with his "gift of time." He would be 6, and that would be around the age of most of the boys in his class. We went to tour the public school kindergarten and uh oh.

The tour guide said that they like the kindergartners to enter school being able to write their name and that most kids are reading by the time they enter 1st grade. John was over at Montessori school probably reading chapter books as we took our tour. This wasn't going to work out so well.

We toured 1st grade. The class sizes were small, but there were 600 kids on recess that border a public park. All we could picture was our little baby in that big class. He was quiet and shy and sweet and he was going to get lost!

Meanwhile, our Montessori teacher called us in for a conference. She told us if John entered kindergarten, it was going to be a disaster. Basically, we were told there was no way John could do kindergarten again.

She recommended that we tour a number of small private schools. We started touring, and the rest is history. We chose the sweetest school that was a cross between Montessori and traditional school. It actually was nick named the "Hippie School" a long time ago.

This was not a fancy school with a parking lot full of fancy cars. Being in Northern California, it had an eensy weensy celebrity attendance, but for the most part, you wouldn't know it was a private school, until you got the bill.

There is one class for each grade. Each class has a team of teachers, usually one male and one female. Every teacher at the school knows you and knows your kid. There is music and art and a wonderful projects lab where the kids use saws, hammers and drills. It has been a lovely place for our now 8th grader to grow and learn.

However, this school ends at 8th grade. Now, we are being catapulted out of our comfort zone and into the land of high school. Public school is large and excellent and facing big budget cuts. Private school is uber competitive and exceedingly expensive and excellent--it faces no budget crisis as the prices just keep going up.

Now we are on that age old question again, what do we do? Do we sell the farm, and maybe a couple of siblings to afford an excellent secondary education? The competition is so fierce for so few spots, you can't go anywhere around 8th grade parents from our school and not have the "High School Conversation."

Where did you apply? Do you think you'll get in? How many recommendations? Test scores? How many times did you child take the SSAT? Did you take the SSAT courses? How was the interview? What did your child write their essay about? Grades?

Calgon! Take me away! We will get letters from the schools about acceptances March 18th. Until then, oh boy. There is tension among the best of friends. There is parental angst over who will get the coveted one or two spots at the top schools.

Then the rumors fly right alongside the circus. If you give more money, you have a better chance. If you have this zip code, you have a better chance. If you play such and such sport you have a better chance. If you have siblings you have a better chance. If you're famous, if you're friends with so and so, if, if, if...

If this is high school, we are going to need Valium to get through the college application process.

Writing Your Kid's Entrance Essay or Who's Essay Is This Anyway?

I've always approached education in a different way than other teachers and parents. As a junior high school teacher, I let the kids actually run the school newspaper. It wasn't pretty and polished, but it was a product of the student's own work. At the end of a semester in my journalism class, kids knew the entire process first hand.

I also let 8th graders with drama experience select plays, hold tryouts, and run wild with the production of the plays that we produced. Once again, life wasn't perfect and tidy, it was messy and trying. The plays in the end were excellent, but there were a lot of fields to plow until we harvested, if you know what I mean.

Now, my own son is writing his high school entrance essays. He is 13.

Flashback to 1st grade when the kids were assigned research reports. My son did all of the research, writing and artwork on his own. He was so proud of his project and we walked into school together that day, carrying his diorama. Two other kids walked in with their parents. Their projects looked like professional architecture presentations for a corporate firm.

I overheard a parent say that he would come in at lunchtime with the computer to set up the power point presentation!

What?

High School admissions directors, I will tell you now: Have the students write their essays when they visit your school. Otherwise, you are getting a familial composite essay at best. Rumor has it that some parents are paying tutors to write their children's entrance essays.

Last night, a mom said that she was going home to write her son's essay. Her excuse was that he just didn't care enough to do it. Does he care enough to do the four hours plus of homework a night if he actually gets into one of these schools?

Parents, are you good enough to write an essay that will get you, um, I mean your kid, into a prestigious private high school?

I don't know what to say... I hope those parents are ready to keep doing all of the homework in that cut throat four years of high school for their kid, too.

Where I come from, you fight fair, you do your own work, and your kids sink or swim on their own merit. Is anyone out there still where I come from? Do I have to play dirty to even give my kid a fighting chance?

If you compromise your morals, in my opinion, what is the point? What are we teaching our kids?

The world is not fair, and yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.