Yeah. This or beat the kid with a 2x4. That’s about all that would have gotten through my head at that age! 
Ignore my previous post. Post #7 is much better advice. Don’t beat the kid.
I did the same sorts of shit when I was 13. Maybe I’d actually hand in half of the homework due each quarter. It drove my parents nuts: they just couldn’t understand why not only was I not applying myself, I couldn’t even do basic organizational tasks. But ultimately, they left me alone to take long naps and read the books I wanted to read.
I ended up going to an ivy league college, had a successful career in business, and am now a professional academic. How you do in school when you are a 13 year old male may be a lousy predictor of how you do in life. My temperament was just a very bad fit for school when I was his age. Don’t take it personally. Do continue to provide structure and boundaries, but somehow his motivation must come from within.
What? He’s thirteen and he’s beginning to rebel? (That’s his job at thirteen.)
Tell him that if he brings home another D in the same subject, you will be requesting the teacher’s permission to attend class with your young rebel and sit next to him to oversee his work from time to time. Explain that you know that it will be uncool to have his parent hover over him. Be sure you look him dead in the eye when you say this.
If he does it again, follow through with your threat ASAP. Then talk with him again about his options.
I’m glad that it’s his motivation that you are concerned about and that you are not overly concerned about the one bad grade. If your first words of description of him are accurately, he is probably a well-rounded kid.
Please don’t have him tested for depression unless he actually shows signs of depression. It may not cost you anything, but it will cost the guidance counselor unnecessary time and they are over-worked as it is. The GC can’t diagnose depression anyway. It may also make your son think that there is something “wrong” with him.
He has three other siblings? I say use that to your advantage. Start an incentive program for ALL your kids. Something like all A’s and B’s gets some truly awesome reward that they would all want. C’s and D’s, you get nothing. Nothing motivated me more than watching my sisters get something great while I got nothing.
Ya know, I have a similarly unmotivated kid. We would never have been able to argue this one convincingly. Not at all.
So, he failed two classes. Mostly because of failing to turn in homework. He had to go to summer school. He didn’t like it, and he did better the next year.
I know others have freaked out, but I won’t.
However, I totally disagree with WhyNot’s post.
Don’t get him tested for those things unless you are really feeling sure something is medically wrong with him.
I’m a teacher(of 12 and 13 year olds) and I gotta tell ya’, he just sounds like a very typical 13 year old boy. I would try many of the non-medical things people have suggested in this thread.
Don’t take him to a doctor unless you are seriously, seriously worried.
The OP says his/her kid is above average generally and failing one subject (or heading in that direction)
Maybe he just doesn’t like that subject? When I was in college I got TWO C’s the whole time. My lowest grades and in what? Econ. Macroeconomics and Mircoeconomics.
THEY WERE BORING…OK I’ll admit now I am interested in them and it didn’t help but my instructors just read out of the book, but it was so boring to me, I just memorized everything I could and got a C which was good enough for me.
The problem with math unlike other subjects is that it builds on itself.
For instance, if you don’t understand additon, you can’t really do multiplication, which is just fast addition.
If you are shaky in one part of math, when you move up to the next thing or next level, you’re still at a disadvantage, 'cause that next level assumes you’ve got a good mastery of what you learned.
So this is why people struggle with math. The courses keep advancing but you’re skill level doesn’t. Because learning D-E & F depends on knowning A-B & C very well.
If the OP is going to be happy his/her kid gets a “C” the problem is going to kick back next year because and “average” mastery of math, means the next level is going to be too hard for him and he’s gonna get more discouraged, because he won’t understand.
And if he can’t understand he won’t like it. If he don’t like it, no motovation. And can you blame him? Who wants to put in all that time and effort just to fail.
I remember in high school they made me take Home Ec, which had two parts, cooking and sewing. I got an A in cooking and a D in sewing. My overall grade came out to a B, but I really tried in Sewing and got a D. I kept saying "Man, I could’ve ditched the class for three months and gotten F, what a waste of time.
I was in a similar situation when I was 13. Around that age is when it begins to get difficult to coast by on natural wits, and peer pressure begins exerting more force than compound interest if you’re popular.
My parents took the invisible hand approach for a year, and let me fail out of 9th grade completely. It didn’t work well. After I failed out, I was put on truancy probation and subjected to a battery of tests to establish just what particular learning disability and/or mental defect I had. I went from doctor to doctor, getting sick due to the various side effects of the drug cocktail I was being prescribed. I really think just being beaten would have been an improvement. There’s nothing worse than non-participatory parents.
Eventually, my luck changed and I found myself in a gifted program that was almost perfectly tailored for students like myself. But I could have easily been another one lost in the system if I wasn’t rescued at the last moment.
Anyway, I think the best technique for artificially motivating a kid is mastering the carrot and the stick. Find out what he likes, and give him the carrot if he does well. If he fails, smack him with the stick. It’s simple and effective. Don’t take the hands off approach.
[Ebenezer Scrooge]“Is there no internet? No cellphone? No cable TV? No video games that can be put under lock and key?”[/Ebenezer Scrooge]
Its not fun, but its what got used on me growing up. And while I hated it, it was effective.
Sounds like me when I was 13. What turned it around was my step father stepped in and helped me with my homework whether I liked it or not. I didn’t like it but he persevered until I got it. A year later I loved math and was at the top of my classes after that.
I always take every opportunity in threads like this to recommend John Rosemond’s book ’ Ending the Homework Hassle’.
Easy, quick read, and it speaks very practically to the approach that this is the kid’s problem, not the parent’s. To echo what another poster above said about ‘stealing’ his kid’s homework, the whole bullshit routine that some parents get into about rooting through the backpack, monitoring what the teachers post online, getting signatures every day from teachers or whatever – this simply results in a whole whirlwind of parental activity in which the child sits calmly in the center and needs to do nothing to fix his own problems. 13 is by far old enough to implement some simple policies which will result in the kid fixing this himself.
Read the book, you won’t regret it.
Put him in a good traditional martial arts program. The emphasis on focus, self-control, self-discipline and perseverance will help him immensely.
If you will e-mail or PM me and send me your zip code, I might be able to make a recommendation for a school near you.
Will do.
Oh, and if he has a PC, games console, and/or TV in his bedroom - remove them all immediately. All such devices should be in a family room. Mobile phones to be OFF while asleep or doing homework.
Our son is 12 and very self directed, self motivated. All A’s. Even with Advanced Math and Football. We are pretty sure he’s adopted and junk.
What we do, not because we worry about him or his sister ( equally as smart but not as driven. She’s a social butterfly and procrastinator who gets the A’s but she needs a carrot.) is check several times a week on line for the homework and grades and email teachers.
WE STAY ON TOP OF IT ALL and WORK WITH THEM EVERY NIGHT.
We don’t expect our kids to have the teacher do it all for us. ( one of my best friends does this two of her three boys have issues with homework help or turning in stuff. The youngest learns from their mistakes and is an A student. Their lack of parenting in this case drives us fucking insane. They cannot understand why their kids are not A students.)
So what this means as a parent is you have to *turn off the TV. Get off the computer. *Saddle up next to them at the kitchen table ( yeah, the kitchen table) and have some good old one on one with them EVERY NIGHT. They will HATE IT. It will be awesome. Until they see their grades go up. And they see the kid whose dad is in prison who doesn’t have any parental help at all. Or the kid who is headed directly to jail after graduation ( if they make it that far.). Even if you sit there reading (and I’m dating myself) the newspaper or a book, while they do homework, you make yourself available to them. Consistently available to them.
What they want from you more than anything is respect and face time. ( and to be away from you, you old, crusty fart.) So you can make a deal with them. They sit there an help you relearn whatever subject it is that they are going through from them and you won’t call them by their cutesie nickname in the middle of a HS basketball game when it is really quiet.
Another thing that may help, and it is pretty sweet, is Khan Academy for 15 minute tutes.
On a more serious note, I second the advice to watch out for (a) depression and (b) video games, if only because for me personally they have both been (and still are) problems that hold me back. But as others say, you really need to look for other signs of depression before you actually involve drugs/counselling.
So true!
Thanks for the Khan academy link, it looks useful!
Another thanks for that link, Shirley! I can’t speak for the 13-year-old, but you’ve definitely motivated a 44-year-old today.