These days, I feel like many parents have a misconception about their children’s workloads during high school. This is not necessarily the parents’ fault; as we get older, high school kids tend to talk less and less about their schoolwork, especially with their parents.

Do you ever wonder why your child is staying up past midnight, sometimes getting no sleep at all? As a high school student myself, I admit we are not spending 100% of our time studying Biology and practicing Calculus questions.

In this generation, the problem comes down to time management. In other words, the reason why your child is struggling academically is not just because high school teachers pile a lot of assignments up on top of each other. Most students in this generation study with some form of technology within hand’s reach; a laptop with a page opened up to Facebook or Youtube or a smartphone with an unfinished text message still on the screen can be a common distraction. Instead of trying to “multi-task,” if students could refrain from using their digital devices for just a couple of hours and focus on their schoolwork, they could be going to bed around 11 at night instead of 3:30 in the morning.

Of course, this kind of change does not happen overnight. What I mean by that is, although we high school students do not always make the best use of our time, high school is still strenuous. During classes, in order to fully understand and retain knowledge, students must give all of their attention to every class for the entire day. Personally, as a student who is in ASB, NJROTC, and all honors classes, by the end of the school day, I am often very tired. When we get home, we rest before starting on homework by whipping out our electronics. The problem arises, especially nowadays, when we get hooked onto things on the Internet and turn short breaks into hours of wasted time.

With that being said, it is up to students, not parents, to control how much time is spent on the computer. Time management is a skill that will be useful not only now, but also, and more importantly, in the future. Once students realize the importance of their time management skills and high school performance overall, the results will come in naturally over time.

Abraham Kim
Troy High School
11th Grade