Your kid sounds exactly like me. I had the smarts, i did great on tests, but one day the idea of homework simply started sounding like the worst fucking thing in the world. I stopped doing homework and simply never could get into it again. I took no classes in college that counted homework for more than 20% of my total grade because i knew i would not do it no matter what it was. I became a master at copying and pasting my way to research papers before teachers wised up to it enough to stop me. Highschool was fine, i pulled As and Bs, but giving up such a huge % of my grade cost me dearly in college. I’m in my 30s now i still have this dream.
There isn’t a kid alive that doesn’t love TV or games :D. You could, however, use this to your advantage. Tell him if he gets his homework and stuff done and turned in properly and all that, he gets a set amount of time to watch or play. Just a thought, this sorta worked on me, but not much, who knows though, everyone’s different, I’d say it’s worth a try. Sometimes taking something away entirely has a negative effect, of course this whole thing is based around psychology, and that takes in-depth study of the person in-particular. A suggestion, I may be over-stepping my boundaries here, but something I notice on a daily bases is how little respect children are given. If you treat your child as a child…he’ll grow up to be, you guessed it, a child. On the other hand, treating a child more and more like an adult and letting him/her have more and more responsibility and control over their life, then they grow to be an adult…you can even buy him a monkey suit when he graduates 
(sorry, I had to add that merely for my own amusement).
I realize you are merely being facetious, but you are and are not correct at the same time. True, I admit that if someone were to actually heed my advice and not merely call me an inexperienced, bombastic little A-hole then just maybe my veiws on the world itself could possibly change people and the way things are done as a whole. However, this would not work, if only because I understand that there are people that trod on people, and there are people that are born to be trodden upon…it doesn’t work any other way, in fact, it’s not really even that bad, I just wish the poor people in Japan would wake up and realize they’re on an island…get the hell off that thing! (sorry, got a bit off subject there, this thread’s about school, not global stupidity, but they actually walk hand and hand in the big picture)
To clarify: “until they seriously fail at something THEY CARE ABOUT”.
Moon Unit is notorious for finding ways out of doing her homework. Lies about it, forgets it, loses the assignment, says she’s done it (then at 9 PM panics because she hasn’t…). We’ve tried incentives, punishments (no computer until your homework is done, and PROVE IT)… and have at this point basically decided that all of these wind up taking FAR too much of OUR energy, and she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it until she DOES fail, then she panics… and then does it all over again.
Not just school work either. She’s responsible for her own laundry… and as a consequence will go as long as humanly possible, with a kid-sized pile in one corner of her room. I once told her “no more computer this week until it’s done”. So after a day she said “I’m done”. I checked… and the pile had been reduced by 50%. Nope “all means all”.
And on another occasion, I told her she had to finish her laundry, fold it, take it to her room and (gasp) PUT IT AWAY before using the computer. She told me she did. I saw her on the computer. I went to her room - and the clothing was piled on the bed.
I went downstairs and told her she had to go do it now, because I’d looked and saw the piles. She said, in a tone of utter betrayal “Don’t you TRUST ME???”.
Um, no, actually, no, I don’t.
I was exactly like this. I was in advanced courses and it was hard. Then I saw my first report card and noticed that, the courses were the same. It said, Algebra for my advanced course and Algebra for the low tracked classed. We had four tracks, Advanced, Red, White, Blue tracks, with blue being the easiest.
I immediately went to my counselor and dropped to blue track and sailed through my courses. I still don’t regret it. I got A’s and I was smart enough to know what to study, like my SAT test, which got me into an excellent college, because the college just saw the course work and no indication of the level.
I say, let the kid drop out of the advance classes and go to the basic. See if the problem continues. The thing is you want what’s best for the kid. But right now, you’re not seeing that, you’re in a power struggle.
11 years olds are just starting to realize they don’t have to do what you want. So you may win the power struggle and fail doing what’s best for a kid.
People are remarkable in their ability to cope. If you take away things, they won’t care. I was raised without much and it never bothered me. Parents often want a magic bullet like, if he’s tested for a disorder it’ll instantly solve the problem if that is it.
My experience, indicates, even people who claim, I was tested and I got straightened out. Even when that’s true, it doesn’t happen nearly as fast or cleanly as people remember.
Your 11 year old has found out he can take the easy way out and in reality there’s not much you can do to him, save taking away a few things, he can easily live without anyway.
Instead of the power struggle find out what motovates him. This is the key to real childhood depression and uninterest. A real depression has a flat interest in pretty much everything, while an uninterst has the kid, able to focus when he finds something he likes.
Zappa Mama, you could try the sink or swim tactic. I realize this is somewhat dangerous because you’re worried about the future and all, but trust me, you’ll never be able to hold their hand forever, it’s better to let them learn the consequences while you can still reach out and grab them before they drown. If you don’t do it now, then one day they’ll be in the middle of the ocean without any support at all.
I may have some beef with this whole issue possibly, so I apologize for being so adamant about it all. My parents did not prepare me or my brother in any way whatsoever, but that’s not for lack of trying, it’s their lack of understanding how the world revolves and what makes it tick…mostly because my dad isn’t the type to talk to you unless dealing out a whole lot of pain on your posterior (mostly on my brother, I watched him get the belt every night, so decided not to do anything too stupid), and my mom is amazingly ignorant about a whole lot of things, so much so I wonder if I’m adopted or my dad had extra-marital relations they’ve kept secret all these years…hmmmmm.
Throw me in with the others who say this describes them in sixth grade and beyond. I did fine in school until teachers started integrating homework more heavily into my grades.
For me, in earlier grades, homework was something you took home to get the concepts down. You then demonstrated that you understood the concept by answering the test questions correctly. Round about sixth grade, they start sending home folders and such that can make up as much as 25% of your grade depending on the teacher. So far as I can tell, they consider this to be a “gimme” part of the grade. Something that only takes the effort of shuffling papers in a semi-organized fashion and scribbling on them. To me, at the time, they were a waste of effort. I could be doing any number of things in that time. None of those things were important or relevant to anything, but gosh darn it, at least I wasn’t rehashing concepts I already understood. That was when I stopped being a star pupil.
From that point forward I never turned in a single shred of homework. I got all the punishments at various times, but none of them made a difference. Eventually I think my mother gave up because I was still getting passing grades. As long as homework didn’t make up the majority of the grading, I was fine with a C average.
I made it all the way to my senior year like that. By that time I needed only one credit to graduate. Senior English was the only class I ever flat out failed because it was essentially nothing but homework.
I never had a goal, and couldn’t solidify one in my head to save my life.
Every person is different, so I can’t really give you solid advice to curb this behavior. However, I would highly suggest thinking about alternate methods of education if you can afford them. I learned best at my own pace and by my own rules. I suspect if he is like me, alternate methods or even home schooling may work well. I understand this can be impractical, but it may be necessary.
I would also suggest against sending him to college straight after high school unless you sincerely don’t like your money for some reason.
Okay, but it’s pretty dumb to slack off on homework, knowing full well that your grades will suffer if you don’t do it. And what happens if your grades suffer? In the short term, you get grounded and scolded. In the long term, bad grades could lead to you being a loser living in your mother’s basement. This is what a kid who is truly smart should see.
Homework feels like pointless BS to most kids, not just smart ones. It ain’t like the slower ones put up with it purely out of the desire for self-improvement, right? No, they do it either because of external pressure (like parents) or because they are personally motivated to succeed at school. So intelligence is a red herring here. Kids that slack off on homework simply lack the drive and motivation to do well in school. The fear of failing in that area just doesn’t keep them awake at night. Overconfidence in one’s smarts could certainly lead to this.
I’m not exactlyy sure what advice to give the OP. There’s probably little she/he can do except continue to reinforce negative consequences and tell the kid that being smart isn’t a pass for poor performance. I actually wonder what would happen if the OP expressed concern to the kid over whether he is capable of handling all the new demands of the 6th grade. “Do you want me to see if I change your classes to less accelerated ones? Maybe you’d have a better shot of completing your assignments if they were less difficult?” Make him see the impression that his behavior is sending. Maybe this will provoke him into proving himself capable.
This how it was with me. I had always been a bright kid, and around that age it dawned on me…I don’t have to be bright. I could be whatever the hell I wanted to be. I could be a total fuckup if I felt like it.
What a feeling! After a lifetime of busting ass for other people’s expectations, with my “brightness” hanging around me like a millstone (full of that big question- what if I fail? What if I’m not actually that bright? Will people still think I’m worth something?) I realized I could just say “No.” I could just not do it. For the first time ever, I felt like I was exercising some free will- for once doing something just for me, that only I would have to answer to.
And it felt so good to have the expectations plummet. Suddenly it went from “Sven, you need to think about an internship for your Harvard application” to “Sven, please try to stay awake in class.” What was expected of me got so much more manageable, and it was much less of a burden.
I stopped paying any attention in class. I stopped doing my homework. I sabotaged whatever I could- writing random numbers on math tests, getting myself put in detention. And oh boy, did I get in trouble! Every kind of trouble you can get in to. They tried to take everything they could away from me. But i knew, I knew that this was still mine. The one thing they couldn’t actually do was force me to perform at school. Frankly, having the privileges taken away heightened my resolve.
As expected, I failed a class. Then I had to retake it in summer school. That wasn’t much fun at all.
Having answered the question that was nagging at me- what happens if I just don’t do it- I went on with my life. I never really reached my potential until college, where I didn’t have letter grades and where I didn’t have to tell my family anything. This was great- I felt like I was doing school for me and for my future. I knew that the negative effects of slacking off were going to affect only me. With that kind of ownership of my life, I was able to take charge.
Perhaps every time he says he doesn’t have any homework, you can say:
“OK, then. I’ll give you an assignment. I want you to read the first chapter of <an enriching book meant for advanced readers that you got from the library> and report to me later tonight about what you read. If you don’t want to do this, then you will clean out the garage/help Mom with dinner/do the dishes/wash the bathrooms/mow the yard. Every time you say you don’t have homework, I’ll find something constructive for you to do. Because everyone has work to do, and learning is your job. It shouldn’t stop when you get home. Understand?”
It sounds like lack of inner drive is at the root of this. Not ruling out other explanations, but from your description, it sounds like a personality thing. While you await diagnoses or whatever, it wouldn’t hurt to help him develop a work ethic and endurance.
The first book I would recommend is “The Genius in All of Us”. It contains a couple of bad words, but it talks about the value of hard work in creating “genius”. Some concepts may go over his head, but if he’s as bright as you say, this may be a good thing. Maybe you can put a magic marker over the bad words. 
:rolleyes:
Really?..
A couple of points here. First, he is in sixth grade. He has another three years to fuck up as much as he likes and it’s all a wash. Until high school it doesn’t mean diddle dick, and even then nothing can stop him from going to community college. Secondly, success in life has little to do with grades in middle school. The kid is smart and able to apply himself when interested. A better method would be to allow him time to explore what is interesting to him and then encourage the shit out of it, whatever it happens to be. Success is created through interest, drive, and a hell of a lot of luck. Most of us never make it as far as we wanted, but ended up just fine. I WAS that kid, and I’ve got two college degrees, am married, have friends, and generally happy with life.
I was pretty much going to say the same thing.
I was diligent in middle school.
My brother was the problem kid, sent to therapy, punished, grounded, curfews, sent to alternative schools, etc.
As adults we’re both perfectly successful adults. Hell my brother’s best friend, who barely completed high school, has a PhD now.
Separately, I notice that all the “things” the parents have tried so far to generate interest are basically athletic pursuits, and it doesn’t seem like the kid is real into that. Have you tried art classes or community theater or knitting or volunteering down at the animal shelter or… anything that’s creative and that isn’t sports?
What’s the urge to get him diagnosed with something or other so quickly? He’s an 11-year-old who doesn’t want to do his homework. This is actually pretty normal. A referral to a psychologist is a good idea to see if there’s anything big underlying, but the rush to a diagnosis strikes me as you wanting an easy fix.
ISTM there’s a lot of stick in your interactions with your son, and no carrot. As someone else said above, it’s become a power battle. How can he already be banned from everything? Like, forever? Surely there must be a time limit - you probably just didn’t mention it before. There’s not much incentive for him to do well otherwise, is there? If he does eventually do his homework it’ll be like conceding to you - I bet he’d chuck it at you and say ‘there, are you satisfied?’
I can empathise with your POV, because you really want the best for your son and you do actually know better than him about how to get that best outcome. But you are not him. He is not a little boy any more. He has to learn things for himself. He has to make his own choices. And he’s still young enough now that ‘failing’ would not impact on the rest of his life, so let him strike out on his own. At least for a semester. The world is not going to end if he doesn’t turn his homework in for a semester in sixth grade.
Of course it means “diddle dick”.If the kid makes a habit of slacking now by the time he gets to H.S., he runs the risk of being entrenched in bad study habits, which could lead to mediocre grades that could cost him scholarships and other opportunities, and also make his life harder when he really does find himself challenged and doesn’t know how to handle it.
Is it a guarantee this will happen? No of course not. But for every story of some genius who slacked off in school and still became a brilliant success by going the community college route, there’s probably 5 to 10 of people wishing they had tried a little harder in school. I went to undergrad with some of those people. They flunked out because after coasting by for so many years on being “smart”, they found themselves unequipped with good study habits and just could not survive.
But nobody is condeming the kid to a life of dumpster diving. He’ll probably be fine.
Aren’t most of us able to apply ourselves on things that we find interesting? I mean, it’s obvious he applies himself when it comes to reading Harry Potter, etc., so encouraging him to do more of that is probably not going to help him do better in school. The sooner he realizes that the world won’t bend to suit his preferences, the better he’ll be off. But I doubt that his parents will be able to teach him that. This kind of wisdom and maturity has to come to him on its on time.
Good for you. Luck, as you acknowledge, plays a big role in success. But you can’t always bank on that. You can’t get by on simply being smart, either. Kids have to learn to work hard, and not view their own disregard for “pointless BS” like homework as evidence of their high intelligence. (Which is the only real quibble I have with your previous post.)
Well, since it appears the kid has been branded as gifted, he probably does have a golden cushion to protect him from the consequences of slackerdom.
But if he were just your average kid, who spent his time daydreaming or doodling instead of reading tomes above his grade level, I’m wondering if the responses here would be different.
I don’t believe in pointless, mindless homework. I don’t think anyone does. But there is value in learning how to work, whether you like the work or not. No kid likes to do homework. I know I didn’t. I didn’t have to have a red-hot passion for algebra to make me go home and work problems. I did it because I had the inner drive to avoid trouble from parents and teachers.
It sounds like the OP’s son is a bit apathetic about impressing people and winning friends. OK, that’s fine. A lot of super terrific people start off that way. But not doing homework doesn’t make him heroic or particularly admirable. He’s being disrespectful. The OP doesn’t say whether the kid shows remorse or promises to do better…I’m suspecting not. But one thing he has to learn is that life is about doing shit that you don’t want to do. I think that is what is making the OP frustrated.
That’s why I say the OP should do something to instill some type of work ethic in the kid, ADD or not. If he doesn’t want to do homework and he doesn’t care about grades, fine. But that means he has to double-up at home with projects. He has to do something he doesn’t want to do and learn how to endure it, for no other reason than “just 'cuz”. Part of being a successful person is knowing how to suffer through trivialities so that you can do what you want to do. Delayed gratification.
As adults, are we always given a choice what we want to do at work? I have no burning passion for returning phone messages–in fact I hate it. It requires practicing what I’m going to say, maybe even writing a script to get me started. And then I still sound retarded. It’s energy-sucking work that I wish I didn’t have to do. But I do it because I’ve learned that for me to do the stuff that I do like to do, I have to put up with shit.
I don’t see why it’s so awful to expect kids to learn how to do this. All this “He has to be passionate about something!” sounds hokey to me. And an excuse to let a smart kid be as lazy as he wants to be. Things worked out for you, but maybe you were lucky and don’t realize it. No one is going to post, “Yeah, I was lazy all throughout school and that’s why I’m flipping burgers.” You rarely hear those kinds of confessions here, but you do hear the “I made out good” stories.
I remember a kid in my classes throughout middle and high school. Ethan. Very smart, quiet, well-behaved, and nice. Always had his nose in a book, though. Even when we were supposed to be doing classwork, he’d be reading. I was jealous that he was so brave and that the teachers never disciplined him (like I’m sure they would have done me.) But he managed to make good grades. Maybe he wasn’t always like this, but seems to me Ethan learned how to be finagle the system. If you do all that’s required of you, you can be as quirky as you want to be and no one will bother you. That’s what the OP’s son has to learn. He can read all the Harry Potter’s he wants without being harrassed, as long as he does his work like everyone else.
No, they are not so fragile as your caricature of my post says. But neither are they so robust that they can deal with an unending stream of criticism from the people they are most programmed to pay attention to - their parents - with equanimity.
Slam them with as scathing a criticism as they deserve - nothing is more sure than they will do and say things that deserve extreme censure. But you (IMO) MUST compensate by demonstrating your love and developing respect to them, in part by praising any little thing they do right. This is training 101 - reinforce the behaviours you wish to encourage, decry those behaviours you wish to suppress. Obviously (I would have thought) what they wear doesn’t count, as you will likely have bought that for them, and in any case that is not an attribute of them as a person. This is about behaviour and verbal expression, not trivial surface shit like clothing.
To zoom further in on your ridiculous mis-characterisation of what I posted: the last thing Mother should do is agree with Johnny that homework is ridiculous. Either you as parents back the imposition of homework to the hilt, or you change your school’s (or at least your kid’s teacher’s) regime that imposes it if you disagree with it (as is your right) or you change schools appropriately. But you do NOT undermine it like that.
So to sum up: you picked a ridiculous way to deal with Johnny’s issue with homework, and a stupid thing to praise in him. One can only assume you did so in order to make the opposing PoV unappealing. Bad form, dude, very bad form.
What are good study habits? Traditional ones never worked for me. I learned most efficiently by listening to lessons or by doing the procedure if it was something involving physical objects. I don’t take notes, I remember. I don’t like silence when studying and need some music to distract my brain when learning boring material. I do better with verbally running down a review list then picking through a chapter to find and re-write the answers. Everything that is “wrong” and “poor study habits” traditionally is right for me. I’m hardly a mutant or a space alien. Lots of other people are just like me. The OP’s kid isn’t special, but he most likely is being poorly served by the traditional approach.
The best teacher I ever had doled out homework based upon results of daily review quizzes. Those who scored above 90% got that score entered for the homework grade and did not have to do the assignments. Exempt students also had to score above an 85% on the weekly and quarterly exams. Those who scored below that level had to complete the work. It was awesome and made sense. MOST students found themselves more motivated to do better than usual in that class as well. They learned that by doing a good job they could avoid bullshit, which is also a good life lesson. Do it right and understand the first time and you don’t have to repeat yourself.
I totally forgot that we do this. Granted our forgetful kid is only in grade three so we only do something small. (If she forgets her math homework, we make up a little worksheet. If she forgets her science, she has to write a note apologizing to the teacher and saying what she thought it was about.)
She HATES this. But since she has to do it before she can do anything else (she can’t even leave the table), she does it.
Of course, the teacher thinks we’re nuts.
Like a lot of other posters in this thread, your description of your son’s problems bring back a lot of memories, few of them good.
I did pretty much the same thing in sixth grade. Lied about having no homework, wouldn’t do the homework I brought home, got talked to, got yelled at, lost privileges, got grounded. Ad infinitum.
And yes, I was ADHD - PI, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 34, because back then, educators thought girls didn’t have ADHD as often as boys.
I got good grades in Band and English, fair grades in History, and sucked at Math, PE, and anything else. I remember getting talked to at least twice each grading period by each teacher, and it was always this guilt-trippy “you’re not working up to your potential”. There was never any attempt to determine what was going on in my head, just the implication that I was lazy. And unfortunately, I wasn’t articulate enough and brave/pissed off enough to tell them what it was like to sit in those classes.
Nothing mattered. I could feel my brain rotting away. I could grasp the concept more quickly than nearly any of my other classmates and then have to sit through an eternity of brainless practicing. I didn’t have any friends in my classes, and while my teachers seemed to like me, every time they talked to me about my work, I had the impression that I personally owed them a good grade, and when I didn’t get it, I made them look bad. My opinion didn’t matter. My wants and needs didn’t matter. I couldn’t argue with the adults around me. I wasn’t allowed to disagree. I couldn’t tell them how unhappy I was. I was supposed to suck it up, get the best grades possible, and just smile, smile, smile because I was such a lucky, smart kid.
Good grades were important to my parents, and they made sure I understood that, but all it meant was that I was letting them down as well. I was grounded. I lost opportunities to socialize with friends. One night, I even ran away. For about two hours. I waited for my dad to go to bed, then I packed my backpack and left the house. I had this idea that I would hide out in the woods for a couple of days, and then the police would find me, and my parents would be so happy I was okay, the grades wouldn’t matter so much. I was halfway there when some part of my brain kicked in and announced “THIS IS INCREDIBLY STUPID. GO HOME NOW.”
By the end of my sixth grade year, I was so stressed out and unable to engage - because the inevitable result was “well, this is fine work for an average student, phouka, but you’re capable of so much more.” - I got physically ill for weeks, ran a fever of up to 103, throwing up, crying, and finally just curling up on the couch and sleeping. The doctors tested me for everything from tuberculosis to intestinal parasites and finally just shrugged their shoulders.
I got better halfway through summer one day when my family was visiting another, and even though I was under orders not to run around, I started playing with my brothers and the other kids. I played. I was a kid. I splashed and laughed and ran, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t sick anymore.
I still wonder about that time of my life. I can look back and see all the telltale markers of ADHD - inability to focus, low threshold of distractibility, hyperfocus on interesting topics. I also believe now that I was clinically depressed and under so much emotional strain that I finally cracked physically. Before sixth grade, I was a happy, active, healthy kid. After, I got sick at the drop of a hat, gained weight, and hid from the world. I still deal with that, 28 years later.
That was my experience as a child. Here’s what I know as a teacher:
-
learning is more important than grades. Talk to his teachers about basing his grade on whether he masters the topic at hand instead of completes homework. Tell your son that as soon as he proves he has learned and retained the skill or knowledge asked for, he’s off the hook.
-
your child is not his grades. You know that. Yet, more and more, that is how we judge our children and their value. Not on their moral character, not on their willingness to work hard for a good cause, not on their kindness or creativity, but on whether or not they got a B on a math quiz. Make sure your kid knows you love him and are proud of him even if he flunks every single class. FIND SOMETHING about him to proud of, something unconnected to school.
In the mean time, stop carping on the homework and the grades. Shut up about them entirely. He matters. They don’t. Talk to him about the knowledge. Discuss what it meant for the world when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Show him why being able to calculate percentages is important. Give him real world tasks to prove himself.
-
get your kid outside. More and more studies are showing that not only do neurotypical kids benefit from unstructured time outside, ADHD and other neurodiverse kids thrive on it, need it. Take him to the park. Build a fort. Start a leaf collection. Blow shit up (legally).
-
give him something that is his, all his, forever and ever. He chooses. Not another fucking class. Not a sport you think is really neat. Talk to him and find out what His Thing is. When I was eleven, it was drawing and comic books. I filled spiral notebooks and got in trouble for drawing on my homework. I didn’t own an actual sketchbook until I was a senior in high school.
-
when he answers a question with “I don’t know,” he’s not being a disagreeable snot. He just doesn’t have the ability to put into words what he’s experiencing. I didn’t know why I refused to do homework. I didn’t know why I hid in the bathroom for most of math class. I didn’t know why I “wasn’t trying”. All I knew was that from waking up in the morning until I got the hell off school grounds, my stomach was tied in knots, nothing I did was good enough, and I physically hurt because I could not be what my parents and teachers wanted me to be. Once I was home, I would do anything to avoid “school stuff”, because it hurt.
-
be his champion with the school. Schools are not designed to help children learn. They are designed to regiment them, file off all customizations, and make them good little workers. Schools are factories. Somehow, most kids get out without too many scars. Neurodiverse kids, not so much. Ask his teachers what matters more - whether he knows the material and can prove it or whether he fills out a worksheet. If they resist, insist on an Individual Education Plan. Your child has a Federal right to one, even if he’s not officially diagnosed with a learning disability or difference.
If I could go back in time and talk to my teachers and parents, I’d tell them to back the hell off, that grades weren’t important, learning was, and that more than anything, I needed their love and affection. Anger, blame, guilt, and fault were poison to me.
Many schools list the work due online. Even if yours does not I’m sure you could call his teachers to get their curriculum, even in 6th grade I got a Rubric the first day of class.
Your kid needs to know you aren’t fucking around with his education.
Your kid doesn’t need pills.
I was also a chronic under-achiever in school. At one point I was rated the top of my class by far, and could easily grasp nearly all concepts simply by listening in class. Everything we were taught seemed simple to me.
I did, however, in grades 7-8 begin skipping classes and not doing homework. I would do well on all the tests but get 0’s for nearly everything in homework and it haunted me all through high school and even into university, causing me to fail classes and lose credits and have to repeat grade 12.
Personally I know at least part of the reason looking back. I was incredibly self conscious and had few friends, on top of being very quiet in class. I had no incentive to go to school and be stuck as an outcast within the class. When school ended I wanted to just escape it at all costs, never staying late and almost always avoiding homework unless I absolutely had to do it. (I assume) This was because it was simply an extension of class and school as a whole. I was still interested in learning and was proud of my ability to learn based on the minimal effort I put into it, even though the grades didnt reflect that.
I see your story as very similar to mine. Is it possible that your child resents the school system and being forced to go there? Even if he doesn’t show signs of it at home it could be possible. I know at the time I was in school I wouldn’t have pegged this as the reasons for my actions, but I certainly see it this way now.