Help me help Hallboy (School related)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I went to yet another frustrating, embarassing, and disappointing parent teacher conference yesterday. Hallboy is nearly 13 and in 7th grade and goes to a small private school. (There are 12 kids in his class.) The public school in the district we’re in have a record of being “at-risk”, so much so that the local government took over the schools and legally disbanded the local school board. They’re improving, but not well enough, which is why Hallboy is at a private school.

Hallboy is fairly smart. He’s creative and has fairly good critical thinking skills (considering he’s almost 13). Yesterday, he did his vocabulary work (as I literally stood over him), and he was incorrect on ONE word out of 20–and he didn’t even use the dictionary. The work he turns in is A-B quality–when he turns it in. At the meeting yesterday, it was stated that Hallboy is once again not turning in his work. He flunked Spanish (0% on his homework–obviously he made NO attempt there), bottomed out in Literature and barely pulled through (a D) in another class–I can’t even recall which one, I’m so pissed. This is all because he’s not turning in homework (or even bothering to do it) or isn’t studying for tests.

I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of–rewards, punishment and everything in between. He has a schedule book, where he’s supposed to write in his assignments, but what does he do? “Forgets” the schedule book at school. I set aside time and a place at home that’s for “homework”, but he claims he doesn’t have any, or that he turned it in already (sometimes this is true, but most often it isn’t).

Last week, I found out on Saturday morning (through a reminder email from the teacher) that his book report was due on Monday. He hadn’t read the book (even though he had a MONTH to read it), and he then spent all day Sunday reading the book, and up until 11:00 that night writing the book report (which was crap).

I have no clue what to do next. I don’t want him failing (this is getting worse, not better). I never had this problem with the Hallgirls. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’m about to the point of bloodshed (his, not my own).

2

I’m sorry about the situation.

I can only offer advice as a teacher at a UK private school (I’m not a parent).

From your point of view:

  • the teachers would welcome your support, and will be happy to give you a copy of the homework schedule
  • there should be a teacher with specific responsibility for Hallboy (his tutor?), who you should be discussing things with
  • the school should have some guidelines for dealing with failing pupils

From his point of view:

If Hallboy is intelligent enough to cope with the work but is still not doing it, then he probably has a problem.
Is he upset about a family situation or a school difficulty?
Can you get him to open up? If not you, is there another family member, or even a teacher he likes?

Good luck! :slight_smile:

3

I was Hallboy through most of my high-school education. I had no agenda against school, no drama or trauma weighing on me. I was just bored out of my skull because of what I considered mass education at a level well below mine. I C’ed my way through high school and never created any good study habits which made college very hard for me. I excelled at the subjects that truly piqued my curiosity and bobbed through the rest. This meant strange results as C’s in general chemistry and A’s in biochem. C’s in math and A’s in physics.

In the end, it resulted in me being a dabbler and not a scientist. We will never know if that was a good thing or not.

I am sorry I don’t have a solution to your problem but I just wanted to push you to find one. This might be just a stage that he will outgrow but it will have repercussions if you don’t address it properly.

4

Any idea why is he doing it?

One of the hardest things to understand sometimes is that human beings only do things to which they see a benefit. If he’s behaving like this, it means he gets more of a benefit from behaving like this than from doing his homework or that doing his homework doesn’t give him enough of a benefit. The benefit can be something you find completely idiotic - but he doesn’t. What is it?

What does he do when he’s not doing his homework?

Those rewards you speak of, are they things you discussed with him, or did you decide what they’d be unilaterally? What you think he’ll like isn’t necessarily what he’ll like. When I was that age, “a book for every A+” would have been great; “a day when you don’t have to help with housework at all”, even better. Most of my classmates were getting things like “a motorbike”, which wouldn’t have motivated me at all yet were a lot more expensive.

5

I have no idea why he’s doing it.

I’ve thought about going to school and sitting behind him and smacking him in the back of his head periodically. (I did go to school once with Hallgirl2 when I kept getting reports from her teacher about her “talking all the time”. She was in third or fourth grade and I was enormously hugely pregnant with Hallboy and sat behind her for an entire afternoon. The class was absolutely chaotic and EVERYONE was all over the place. I wondered how in the hell the teacher could tell that it was Hallgirl2 talking—not that I ever denied she was running her mouth, as she did so constantly at home—but the entire class was nuts.)

The teacher has a record book of all the assignments, and what grades they’ve received for them, so the kids can look in her book at any point to see what they’re missing. I’ve sent her an email to see which day would be good for me to go every week and take a look at the book with Hallboy. However, in past meetings with him and his teachers he says he’ll do better, blah, blah, blah, and for a few weeks, he actually does do better, but soon it’s back to not turning in his work.

I agree, Sapo, that this will have repercussions if it doesn’t change, but I’m at a complete loss as to how to get it to change…

What’s he doing when he’s not doing homework? Well, yesterday, I called Comcast to block “his” channels, and locked the computer. I’ve already taken away the Game Cube, the Game Boy Advance, and the computer games. He’s very good about occupying his time—plays with almost everything and will draw or make creative stuff out of sting/pipe cleaners/wood/etc. Yesterday afternoon when I got home, he was whittling for crying out loud. (He did make a really cool two pronged fork from a branch.) There’s absolutely no one in the neighborhood he can play with. The last neighborhood kid that he had over to the house—since the kid’s mother “wasn’t out of bed yet” at 2:00 in the afternoon, tried to walk out of the house with Hallboys’s Game Boy Advance stuck under his jacket. When confronted as he was leaving the house—“Mom, he was playing with my Game Boy, and it’s not in my room now”—the “friend” said he was going to “borrow” it. He periodically will go to a friends house (from school), but that’s about the extent of his social life. (He hates sports, except for running and swimming.) How much “stuff” do I take away before he has nothing??? And, is that the right answer? “Hey, you don’t have any friends to play with, but you’re doing crappy in school, so I’m going to take away everything at home that you play with by yourself.” I’ve also tried the “reward” route, but even that has resulted NOTHING.

I’m so frustrated, I want to scream.

6

I wonder if it would be possible for his teacher/teachers to email you his homework assignments on some sort of a regular basis? It seems like if you at least know what his assignments are, you could bug him to do them.

7

That’s the first point, then. Until you find out why you cannot correct what.

8

Sorry about the double post, you didn’t say whether the rewards had been designed with him or not.

9

We had similar problems (tho not as severe) with the kids getting worse grades than necessary just for blowing stupid things. Not handing in assignments, writing papers without addressing what the assignment required, etc. We figured one of the many lessons we wanted our kids to learn was that there will be so many difficult things beyond your control in life, don’t piss away the easy ones.

What worked for us was taking a very active role. First off, require that the kid bring home the assignment book every day. If he forgets (which our kids did on occasion) then they have to turn right around and make their way back to school to get it. Our kids could walk or ride bikes (a benefit would be if it was raining or snowing!) If we had to drive them, I imagine we would have charged them a buck or 2, docked their allowance, or somesuch.

You may need to set up a regular system to confirm with the teacher as to the accuracy of what he has recorded as assignments.

Then review the assignments - both short and longterm - every day, and have him set up a schedule for when he will do the work. Set up an area where he can work comfortably - if need be at the kitchen or dining room table so you can keep an eye on his progress and help if needed. You may need to work with him re: organization - just make sure he has the tools he needs in a manner that they are readily accessible. (When our one kid was younger, we used to periodically go into his classroom and clean out his desk with him, just so he could find things.) See if snacks or limited breaks, a certain pencil or paper, would make it more attractive for him - but don’t waiver from the position that he WILL do the assigned work.

Then, when it is done, check it, and have him redo what needs to be redone.

Finally, require that he bring home all graded assignments. If need be, have him correct any wrong answers.

Lots of work, but it seemed to work okay for us. Good luck.

10

Former “gifted” kid chiming in here:

Your boy sounds creative and independent. He also sounds bored. I know I could amuse myself for hours (yep, even did whittling) but really didn’t give a darn about homework. I saw it as irrelevant busywork meant for students who were slower than me.

I’d suggest you talk with him at his level instead of standing over him (metaphorically and literally). Acknowledge that the work his teachers give him can be easy and dull, but emphasize that it has to be done anyway. Heck, that’s life, right? If you feel he needs a reward, try something that will stimulate his mind, such as a visit to a museum or a book-shopping trip. He’d probably treasure positive attention from you more than any toy you could buy him. Sorry if that sounds corny, but I can’t think of a more elegant way to put it.

11

If he is such a creative kid, you could try providing a super rich environment for him to experiment. Be flat out honest with him: “school sucks but you really have to do it, get it out of your way quickly and you have all that extra time to do what you really like”. Once he sees that doing homework unlocks the door to all the stuff he really cares for, he will do it in a snap. Discuss with him and the teacher, the possibility of trading homeworks for more interesting projects.

Sounds like Hallboy is a kid with special needs (in the good side of the spectrum) and school is failing to interest him. Is he old enough to skip a grade?

12

I’ll second Nava’s statement that you need to find out why he feels he’s benefitting from this behaviour. Then work with him on other ways (or more balanced ways) to achieve the same benefits.

Perhaps he’s trying to become more popular in class, which is often at odds with being a good student. But you can help him learn better social skills*, or buy him more expensive clothes. That will help him become more popular without sacrificing schoolwork.

Or else he might have reached an age where he needs more responsibilty. He might be making bad decisions because that’s the only way to make sure they’re his own decisions. So get him a job.

If the problem is procrastination, make sure the rewards are about finishing assignments promptly, not about the quality of the work.

On preview, from your comment on his social life, this might be a good idea even if the problem isn’t related.

13

Yeah - my kids are all smart and competent with school, such that I was able to openly communicate with them that their primary “job” at this point is “getting the grades” in school. Yes, we want them to grow and develop, but in order to maximize their options in the future, they need to get good grades. Moreover, we were able to convince them that this was something easily within their control.

It was tough for our kids in middle school, as they were not the most popular kids and had no interest in sports. Those kids seemed to have it easy in the social scene. They seemed to be held in the highest esteem by their peers. Good grades were almost dissed. But our kids were intelligent enough that they were able to understand that as they move into high school and then college and the job market, educational achievment was going to become more and more desirable, especially compared to whether or not they wore the “cool clothes” in junior high, or his a home run in little league. I firmly believe this, and my kids - currently ranging from HS soph to college fresh - have come to agree. As they get older, getting good grades, being in honors classes, and getting into the college of your choice is “cool.”

14

One doper parent (I can’t remember who) had success by basically making it the kid’s responsibility, not the parents. Saying, in effect, “I love you, and I’ll love you if flunk 5th grade, but you have to want to succeed, I can’t do that for you.” They were there if there were homework questions, but backed off on the pressure. Suddenly, he wasn’t rebelling anymore.

Personally, I don’t know if I could easily give up that control, but for this kid, schoolwork had become the one thing he could control. They could force him to do it, but they couldn’t make him turn it in. Once there was no fight, he moved his grades up by himself.

StG

15

What happens when he forgets the schedule book? Or when he claims to have already turned in or not have any homework? It sounds like if he doesn’t have any proof that he has homework, he is “rewarded” by getting to avoid doing the boring, unstimulating work and gets to fall back on his own devises to amuse himself, and the delayed consequences of not doing the homework are not motivating enough to get him to actually do the work. I can tell you’re frustrated, and it feels like you’ve tried everything. I’ve been there with other issues, and strangely I find other possible things to try after stepping back and regrouping (and possibly pulling out a little of my own hair)

I get Hallboy is smart, and is not enriched enough by his workload, et cetera blah, blah, blah… I lived that life. Under stimulated smart kid who was an organizational mess, and often missed homework assignments. Know what? Most of my life is chock full of the dumb stuff I have to do, and I still struggle with organization. He needs to get that even silly, pointless things that need to be done, need to be done, and he has to get himself to a point where he can self-manage his workload.

To help him get there, some suggestions (think about whether any of these would work for you, or how they could possibly be modified to work for you):

It’s GREAT you’ve set up a time and a place for homework, but what happens if he forgets the schedule, or claims to have turned the work in? there need to be consequences for not having the schedule, not an effective reward (not having to do the work) Either he needs to go back and get the schedule, if possible, or he needs to spend the scheduled homework time doing a busy-work task more onerous than the homework would have been (copying I will remember my homework schedule one bazillion times, or copying out [of insert dull book here]). The same consequence should be true if he claims to have turned in work but has no proof (I know his claims are sometimes true, BUT he’s lied about it in the past, breaking your trust – so now you need proof (teacher’s signature in the schedule) he’s turned the work).

Contact his teacher(s) and work out a system where he has to write down the assignments and then get them to initial the correctly written assignment, AND they initial or sign a statement if homework is completed and turned in at school. Also, bring up the possibility of rewarding progress in homework doing with enrichment work.

Think about trying with Hallboy self-monitored delayed gratification – or self-reinforcing. He chooses a reinforcer he wants (a snack, 5 minute break to do [reasonable break type thing], then, after 20 minutes or so of on-task homework doing (or after each assignment is completed – whichever works), he “rewards” himself with the reinforcer. When all the homework is complete, he gets to reward himself with a larger reward. This could be anything agreed upon by you and Hallboy – including spending time together working on an enrichment, high-interest project.

16

laramary has it, I think.

My younger brother was precisely like hallboy. Smart as a whip, but failing all of his classes because he failed to study for tests, didn’t complete assignments, fibbed about whether or not assignments even existed, and (maddeningly for my mother) failed to turn in homework even when successfully completed under her eagle eye. In his case, he was just being an asshole. He freely admits that fact now, years after the case. At the time, the answer he gave as to why he was behaving thusly was “I don’t know”.

Maybe the consequences need to start shifting more towards the lack of organization areas and less on the actual grade? It sounds like he’ll be able to maintain the grades if he’s more disciplined and organized about it.

As it is now, when he “forgets” his assingment book or “forgets” about assignments, he gets the reward of not having to do what he sees as pointless busywork. This reward is outweighing the ultimate consequences for failing to do the pointless busywork. Maybe shifting the consequences to earlier in the process will help?

17

I agree, laramary has great advice. You will need some help from the teachers in making sure that your son brings home an accurate homework assignment sheet every night.

As far as why he’s doing this, besides the possibilities of boredom, something bothering him, just a phase, etc., another possibility to condider would be ADHD. Not because having a diagnosis would change the situation, but it’s just something to think about, and even if he does NOT have it, some of the interventions used for those kids would help helpful for anyone who’s having trouble remembering things.

At my son’s school, they follow a lot of the procedures described by laramary. Every student has a notebook and in the front is a sheet where homework assignments are written down. It is a preformatted sheet, and as the student goes to each class throughout the day, he/she writes down what (and whether) there is any homework assignment. (If there’s no homework, that is also noted.) The teacher reviews the homework sheet at the end of each class and initials it to signify that it’s accurate. Most assignments are due the next day, but if they’re a long-term assignment, the due date would also be indicated.

Then once he comes home with the list, you have to get him in the habit of ensuring that he has meticulously gone through the assignment sheet and done whever is requried every night.

Good luck, it’s not easy!

18

Great advice posted already; I hope you find something that works for hallboy.

My firstborn also slacked off on homework for a while, out of boredom, recognizing it as busywork. I often reminded him that his teachers had access to more challenging/interesting assignments, but he had to demonstrate to them that he was capable and interested, and the only way to get to the interesting work was to show the teachers that he could fly through the regular work. Does your school have a chess- or math team? Something to get a little positive peer pressure working for you? or some other extracurricular activity that would appeal to his creative side? If he likes the adrenaline rush of last minute homework (drives me nuts, but it works for my son), squeezing his time just a bit with other activities, especially if they’re still school-related, can help.

My younger child was too interested in social activities to be bothered with school work, so for a long time she was not allowed weekend activities unless she could prove that she had earned them–and the proof was showing me her assignment notebook, initialled by each teacher, that assignments were current and behavior was good. No nagging involved. It took a couple of years of ups and downs, but once she hit high school she became more motivated and now does an excellent job of monitoring her own schedule.

Hang in there.

19

Maybe he’s already got somebody doing that.
Bullying can pull down a good student’s grades.

20

Another doper chiming in with the “that was me!” refrain.

In middle school (6th, 7th and 8th grade), I generally didn’t do my work and actually ended up informally dropping out by the end of each year, only to be passed (no idea what the grades ended up being, probabably C’s or so) by the teachers, I can only assume they passed me because I always knew the answers during class discussion and did extremely well on tests. I’ve always been good at figuring out the answers from context, and I read constantly though not what was assigned.

In my case, it was a combination of factors that led to this behavior.

First, I hated going to school. I had some friends, but they were mostly girls in my scout troop and boys who went to my old elementary school- at school I had no support group, and I felt like the teachers didn’t care either. In retrospect, many of them were great teachers, I was just a really weird kid. I avoided my homework because the last thing I wanted to do at home was remind myself of school.

Second was the busywork factor. Since I could pass the tests and understand the material without doing the homework, why on earth should I do it? [hijack]My school was staunchly against letting kids skip grades, instead focusing on ‘enrichment’ activities, but these were usually just more busywork that had to be done on top of the basic stuff. Why would I try to do well on a 30-word spelling and vocab test only to have to do a 50-word one next week? I believe to this day that if I had been able to skip to 9th grade when I was 13 I would have learned more and faster without all the frustration, and I wouldn’t have had to wait for college to find out what it feels like to work hard to learn. The social effects would have been negligible, since I didn’t have any friends in class anyway. I’m not saying this would be the best choice for hallboy, or even possible, just following a tangent. [/hijack]

The Third factor in my middle school career (and I think the one that applies most directly to hallboy’s situation) was my realization that none of it really mattered. I had plenty of goals and dreams, many involving college and beyond, but I figured out when I was 12 that nothing that I did or didn’t do before high school would be on the transcript that I sent to college (I told you I did a lot of reading- including library books on how to apply for higher ed). I essentially resolved, in my 12-13 year old way, that I wasn’t going to bust my hump doing busywork in a place I hated when it wasn’t going to benefit me. This coud have gone terribly awry, leading me down a path of ruin, but it didn’t. My family moved to a different school district just before I started 9th grade, and I buckled down. No one forced me to, but I understood that now I was getting a chance to learn a little something, and that I actually did need to do the busywork and get the grades so I could go to college. It worked, I did well and it’s all long over now.

You know your son best, and if you think his reasoning is something along these lines (and from what you have said about his activities-whittling and so forth, I suspect it may be), my advice would be to give in. I know that sounds terrible, but think about it: what is the worst case scenario? He fails his classes and has to repeat a grade. That would suck, primarily because if he doesn’t like being there, he sure won’t want to prolong it. Best case scenario? He pulls his act together and starts doing all the work, on time and in an organized fashion. Commendable, but not likely. I think the scenario you should go for is PASSING while learning as much as possible both in and out of school. You could try sitting down down with teachers and finding out what work Hallboy needs to do to pass the class. The teacher will obviously want him to do all the work, and up to his high potential, and rightly so, but that might not be possible right now. Perhaps a part of this ‘minimum’ could involve Hallboy sitting down with each teacher for a short session once a week in which he discusses what they’re learning in class? This shouldn’t merit a better grade than a kid who actually does the work assigned, but perhaps it could push him up a tick without too much pain. There really isn’t anything wrong with getting average (remember, a C is supposed to be average) or below average but still passing grades, especially when college admissions aren’t on the line.

After you get this ‘minimum to pass’ info, sit down and lay it on the line for Hallboy: this is what you have to do. No threats, no punishment, just do it or you’re stuck in the 7th grade for another year. No TV for a goddamn lifetime is strawberry cheesecake compared to that, right?

All the above relates only to the schoolwork and grades, not to the actual learning that Hallboy should be doing. You are clearly an involved parent, try to make it a practice to talk to him about books, current events and whatnot, and encourage him in new areas of study on his own time, sort of like a casual homeschool program running alongside what he’s doing in school.

Once again, you know your son, and you know your values as well, so all this is just talk. I just feel that sometimes too much pressure is placed on bright kids to perform up to their ‘potential’ by getting high marks above all else in life.