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I have an amazing son; he is a very good person, likes helping people, patient, sweet and very hard working. However, he doesn't know when to stop trying and ask for help. He is enrolled in a highly competitive STEM-magnet program in high school and he is usually stressed out.

With lots of school work, projects, and college prep etc., he can't go to bed early, and when he tries to go to bed, it takes him a lot of time to fall asleep. And then he is tired the next day.

Obviously, it has become a cycle and weekends aren't helping either as he needs to catch up on long-term projects/clubs from school. As a parent, I feel helpless in this situation, and have nothing to do other than encourage him that he is doing well. How are other teenagers handling this stress, their time and all the workload?

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These thoughts come from the work I've done with many young men over the last 30 years...Is it that he doesn't know when to ask for help, or is it possible that, like so many young men, he feels that asking for help could be perceived by some as a sign of weakness? Or perhaps, is it less a question of not asking for help, and more a question of not yet having a clear sense of when to stop? So many young men are pulled in so many directions, to so many different activities, and they've not yet really had an oppprtunity to learn about the limits of what they can actually manage physically, intellectually, emotionally etc. - to learn the point at which adding really amounts to subtracting - that some down time,some time to just "chill" and regenerate, will help him be more successful at everything he is trying to accomplish.

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  • I agree that many of us are being pulled in multiple directions at the same time. I believe its a combination of not having a clear sense, and a feeling that he could figure it out or that hardworking nature telling him that if he pushes a bit more harder, he could accomplish the task. He is sacrificing sleep and rest to get more work done and I know for sure that will backfire on him one day. I am trying to get him breaks whenever and wherever possible. And, I am trying to teach him the value of time.
    – Srav
    Commented Oct 31 at 14:19

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