stressed/telling my parents

[lnc]

Ok so I am a junior and lately I have been very stressed out about my AP's and ACT and just school in general. But thats not the problem. The problem is that my family owns a business and I am supposed to work there every weekend (fridays, saturdays, sundays) and lately I have been getting so much work to do in the weekend or I am so tired that I don't wanna do anything, but I can't do it all during the weekend. I get home at around 2:30 and on weekdays I spent an hour-2 hours doing paperwork with my dad and on fridays I have to be at work at 4:30 so I have an hour rest when I get home but I don't come home from work until 10-10:30ish and its not like I feel like doing hw because I am so tired. On saturdays I wanna wake up late because its one of the two days I can actually sleep in late so I don't start homework until 12:00ish and I have to be at work by 3:30 and I start getting ready at 2:30 so that day is wasted and thats my weekend cycle. The point is that I can't handle all my work load during the weekend and the weekend is supposed to be relaxing because no school but its not at all like that for me. And the worst part is that I try talking to my parents about not going Sundays because its one day but my dad, who came to this country when he was 16, said all you have to do is study, it isn't that hard. He says that he works all day and he isn't complaining. Its not that im worried about having to do homework , its that i feel like my heads about to explode everyday coming home from 6 hours of school to 5 hours of work or homework.I just feel like I can't count on my parents anymore and that they don't even care about me sometimes, which i know is not true, but i feel like I've had so many cries for help that i don't know what to do anymore. I have had multiple thoughts about suicide before because I can't handle this stress. The stress of going to work, getting good grades, getting good act scores, collages.... and its not like i have time to hang out with my friends or even do any type of relaxation for myself. I feel like if i tell my parents they are not gonna understand since they grew up differently and have different cultures but how can i tell them work isn't everything even though they believe that. Well at least work isn't everything for a 16 year old.

[Kate*]

Welcome to TH, I feel for you. I'm not going to tell you that ACT scores aren't important, but I will say that there isn't as much emphasis on them as high schools would have you believe. Especially with AP classes, if you do your best, I'm sure you'll do well enough.

The next thing I'm going to say made me mad when someone said it to me: We have a lot more time to do things than we realize. Taking time for yourself is important, but even using the time in between things that doesn't feel like it's that much time could help lighten the load. Use your study halls if you have them and make yourself a schedule. Take out time for sleep, school, and work and see how much time is left. If your going to try to reduce your hours, I would start with the weekdays since it might be easier for your parents to give you back that hour or two during the week than for them to give you a whole day off. If you make an actual schedule you could also show your parents exactly how much you have to do and how long it really takes so they can have a better understanding of how "hard" it really is.

Also something else someone said to me that would've made me mad, I think this will help you develop time management because if you plan to go to college, you'll need that skill, especially if you plan to work at the same time. If you're in AP classes, it's similar to what you'll be dealing with. Imagine working 5-8 hours a day then going to classes for 4 hours and having 4 hours of homework. They're spread out better, but the assignments are bigger so you have about the same amount of work.