Is There a Sophomore Slump?

 

Schools rightfully put a lot of time and energy into ensuring their freshmen have a positive experience as they begin high school. There are numerous ways that schools like CA provide the support and guardrails that their least experienced students need.  On the other end, seniors receive attention and support, especially as they apply for and move towards their college options.  Meanwhile, juniors enjoy the new freedoms and opportunities that come with greater choice in their curriculum and increased agency in their learning.  Let’s see, whom have I forgotten?  Oh yes, the sophomores. 

 

I am only half-kidding that sophomore year can feel like the “forgotten grade” in the high school experience.  While no one truly slips through the cracks here at CA, there is certainly less of a spotlight on 10^th graders than they experienced the year before. There is also an assumed growth towards greater independence and autonomy.  That said, at a small school, we still do our best to keep our eyes and ears on these fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds as they encounter some new challenges and chart their course for young adulthood.  Our sophomore dean, Emily Perez, along with the team of advisors and our school counselor, Liza Skipwith, have 10^th grade expertise and can recognize the typical patterns of the year.  They work to bolster the confidence of these students as well as provide the necessary accountability for their actions.

 

It is not unusual for a student to feel a sophomore slump at some point in the year.  Gone are the relatively innocent days of freshman year, and college is still a way off.  So a sophomore may ask him- or herself: where do I fit in?  What do I truly care about?  Who or what do I want to be?  To some extent, these are the larger existential questions we never stop asking ourselves, but for a 10^th grader coming of age, the self-reflections can take them into deeper, unchartered waters. 

 

One of the more common sophomore year experiences is that friend groups and social circles are changing and evolving.  Old-time friendships may suddenly be pushed aside to make way for new and novel relationships, especially as some students pursue romantic interests for the first time.  Sometimes these changes are temporary and old friends may find each other again down the road; other times, there is a sort of sifting and sorting of friendships, as different aspects of life become more important for different students.  Occasionally, this social sorting has to do with students who might be starting to engage in what we deem riskier behavior (dating, experimenting with drugs or alcohol, testing other boundaries) or it could just be that they have discovered a new interest that leads them into different social scenarios with a different mix of students. Sophomores might be interacting more regularly with older students too, and that can open up new opportunities for social interactions.  Generally speaking, most sophomores navigate these changes effectively, although there are certainly times when they might need to talk it through with a parent, counselor, or other trusted adult.  That is perfectly normal and we do everything we can to encourage students to seek out such resources when they need to.

 

From a parent perspective, it is certainly advisable to keep the lines of communication open, even if your sophomore is (appropriately) looking for more independence or may be at times keeping you at arm’s length.  They still need to know the adults in their lives are there for them, standing by, exercising the right blend of patience and direct guidance.  They are starting to come into their own, and can even fool us that they are in fact fully capable of managing their own lives (they are not). At times, they will delight and amaze us, but at other times their youthfulness will win out and some classic “sophomoric” behavior will emerge.

 

For a quick and easy read on the hows and whys of “sophomore slump,” please see: https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2014/08/25/4-tips-for-parents-dealing-with-high-school-sophomore-slump