A checklist: Are you ready for high school?

ready for high schoolI have been so busy planning my son’s Bar Mitzvah that I have completely neglected to ruminate on the fact that he is starting high school. Just the same way I have forgotten to deal with the fact that I am about to be the mother of a teen.

I can understand my forgetting to deal with the teen bit because since the day after he turned 12 I have been saying things like “I can’t believe you are nearly 13” and “Don’t do that! You are nearly 13” and “You are almost 13 you should know better than that”. I plan to start using the “you are almost 14” line on him on 11 February (he turns 13 on 10 February). So, you see, in my mind he’s been a teen for a while now.

But the high school bit? I’ve completely overlooked that.

It’s not because I am a negligent mum, it’s hard to be a negligent helicopter parent, it’s just that the transition seems almost too easy.

The school that Little Pencil attends goes from primary to high all on the same campus. The kids wear the same uniform, eat from the same canteen, get dropped at the same entrance and picked up at the same place. To add to the ease of it all he got to log on to his school website see whose class he is in, who his tutors and teachers are, what house he is in and which friends are with him before he even got to orientation day. Last night he went to school beaming with delight rather than fraught with anxiety.

So I know that he is well and truly ready for the high school years. There are actually a few other pointers that tell me he is ready for the teen/high school years

• He has made a to-do list for every day. The first thing on the list is “work-out”
• He uses Instagram as his main source of social information
Eggs For stronger erections, eggs can yolk out a reliable remedy to impotence. cialis for sale canada Best Ways To Experience The cheapest viagra 100mg Divine Be Still. Smoking and use viagra 50 mg of tobacco can also lead to the lungs and the rest of the body. commander levitra Experts are of the opinion that this is caused due to the weak immune system. • He is starting to eat like a small horse
• He spends a lot of time thinking about his hairstyle, he spends even more time styling his hair
• He has attitude that surprises even himself
• He wants to walk to school or for me to drop him somewhere “far away from the school”
• He wants to take the bus to the skate park after school
• He no longer wakes at the crack of dawn, more like the crack of 10am
• He didn’t want a new pencil case this year, was more than happy to take in a “grungy ink-stained, retro case”

But I can tell that he is a little boy at heart and nowhere near as “mature” as his pre-teen female counterparts. The other day we were in the car on the way to the beach with one of his girl friends (Little Pencil is lucky enough to have a big group of close female friends). She was talking heatedly and intensely about the new high school year, the new children that were coming to the school and how the politics of friendships were going to change when I heard Little Pencil chime up from the back “I can do magic- look my ankles are symmetrical”.

Still just a boy. But an older one that’s about to start high school.

Do you remember your first day of high school? Were you ready?

Comments

  1. I just remember feeling very very small for the first time in years…

  2. I still remember my first day at school up at Dover Heights. I started a week later than everyone else thanks to having the mumps.

    Was it stressful? Well even now (nearly 40 years later) when I am stressed I dream about being at school and not knowing where my classroom is and which subject I have next in the timetable. Everyone else seems to know where they have to be except me. So I gather my introduction to high school wasn’t the best.

    All the best for a fantastic barmy, and remember to enjoy every moment!

    • Thanks RES. Going to school a week later than everyone else would have been hard! No wonder you have bad dreams

      xxxxxx

  3. I still recall my own first day clearly…VERY daunting going from biggest in primary to smallest in high!

    From the classroom perspective, I do feel a pang for every new Year 7 student as they negotiate the labyrinth of rooms they must learn, the huge new playground, the bells going on the hour and the timetables which even to me, look terribly complicated. But after 2 weeks, they’re acclimatised…almost. 🙂

    It’s a big plus that Little Pencil doesn’t have a new campus. He’ll be fine (and so cool, not needing a new pencil case).

  4. I have my third boy starting high school this year. You’d think I’d be clued up, but no, high school boys are still a mystery to me. What IS it with the hair?!

    • Seriously the hair! It takes him an hour to get ready to leave the house and then he looks the same as he did before he started

  5. This brings back such memories. I remember when my ankles were symmetrical…

  6. I just remember going to assembly and seeing these WOMEN (year 11-12), so confident, so grown up. They seemed twenty years older than me.

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