First, I don’t feel piled on, I truly welcome your inputs and perspectives and that was the point of starting this thread.
So let me answer a few questions twowhat has asked in her post. DD does want to do these activities, Science Olympiad, contest math etc. with SO, she has selected study events which take a non trivial amount of study on your own, versus a build event which you’d spend time on after school and not have to do a whole lot of personal studying. The club time is only then group discussion and tests, each student has chipped away at the material in their personal time.
DD, of course enjoys B’s company and the social time. But B is not perusing any of these goals that DD is by choice, and DD cannot afford to spend so much weekend time socializing as B does for sure.
My DD cannot be and isn’t the only one pursing these goals, I know other kids do as well. I’d really like to understand how they balance this. They certainly have got to chip away at it, there is simply no magic wand, another kid can be theoretically brighter than DD but you cannot be born with knowledge of higher level chemistry or biology or math. So spending the needed time on this is inevitable if you want to pursue this.
When kids are into sports, don’t those soccer or swim kids spend weekends playing games, isn’t that a time commitment? Somehow I feel that is seen as an enjoyable activity, versus a kid preparing for competition math. Honestly, any activity can be a time commitment, my DS’s in person chess tournaments pre-covid sucked out an entire Saturday.
I would definitely love if DD can meet friends and have fun during downtime but I don’t think it can be spent the whole Saturday afternoon at a friends place. May be I should have DD initiate meeting for an hour with B at the park or a hike or something?
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