If true, I think that’s a problem that most of America has. For a good 30 years, we’ve been looking down on the trades and insisting that only a 4-year college degree is any good. This is stupid. The world needs welders and plumbers, and welders and plumbers make good money. Trades are good solid honorable jobs. And a lot of people are far better suited to them than to office work.
I strongly disagree.
There are a handful of people out there that know so much about a subject that they have no need to learn any more about it. Those people are, of course, doing original research, publishing articles, winning awards and inventing stuff. The rest of us can basically always benefit by digging a little deeper and trying a little harder. Got the high school essay down pat? Try to write a college-level one. If that’s too easy, aim for a grad-school essay. If that’s too easy, see if you can write something publishable. Once you get there, we can talk about you not having to waste time on homework.
Learning how to rise to a challenge is a valuable skill, and it’s one that even the smartest person will eventually need to learn. And for bright people especially, life isn’t going to spoon feed you challenges. You need to learn how to push yourself to learn and progress, not learn how to find shortcuts and cop outs.
Yeah, just witness people like Carlin working stuff like “if your job has you wearing a name tag, you’ve pretty much made all the wrong choices in life” into their material.
What are you disagreeing with? That’s what he said. The teacher is failing by not teaching the student.
I’m coming around to this conclusion as well. I’m exhausted with trying to motivate him with rewards and punish him with taking away provileges. It’s never really worked and it’s less and less effective as he gets older. I think I’m ready to hand over the keys to his life to him and let him drive to figure it all out. Be there if he asks for directions but otherwise just watch and see what happens. He’s a good kid in his head and in his heart. I have to learn to trust him and let him figure it out for himself his own way.
I have to agree here. It sounded like a car is a “necessity” where QuickSilver lives. I have my doubts, but… A driver’s license is the real necessity. There were a lot of times in my teens and twenties where I was the soberest one after a party. Not only having a license, but back then, knowing stick shift was vital. And, I completely agree that you may need him to drive you after a medical appointment or in case of your injury.
The people advocating a part-time job are making sense to me. Sometimes you can use limited time more efficiently than unlimited time. Then he can have the car and pay for the insurance. Also, when (if) he goes to college, crap grades are excusable if the kid is working 20 hours/week. If he doesn’t go to college, the odds are that the grades are irrelevant, but a good work ethic is not.
Now IS the time of his life that you want him to make blunders and errors, if that what it’s going to take, for him to find his footing. Not at college. Not on his first job, or first marriage, or graduate school.
Now IS the best time.
I’m pretty confident you’ve raised a fine young man. Now is that very, very difficult time of life when you are faced with trusting that he’ll find his way. Take heart. Have confidence.
But mostly shift your expectations from, grades, college, etc, to the expectation that he’ll surprize you and impress you in time. Invest yourself in expecting him to be awesome, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
I haven’t exhaustively read through every post in this thread, so this may have been answered already but:
Have you asked him what he wants to do with his life?
Not just near-term (HS / College), but what career (if any) he wants. And, how he plans to get there?
As I agreed in my last post, it depends entirely on the nature of the homework. If the homework was a bunch of short-answer questions (When was the Battle of Jericho fought? Where is General Grant buried? etc.), and if he already knew that stuff, there’s no value at all in his doing the work. If it’s more in-depth homework that requires more than regurgitating facts, then yeah, he should be doing it.
Everything you said about working deeper is, in light of this distinction, totally irrelevant :).
Nothing constructive to add, but the thread title made me think of this comic:
I don’t necessarily feel I have anything substantial to add but, in the way of humanity, feel I must submit my two cents.
On the one hand, I was the classic kid who did homework and didn’t turn it in. The thing is, I could say it was “because high school was bullshit” or whatever, but honestly? I’d give you the same frustrating answer I gave my parents - I dunno. Seriously. I dunno.
As usual, the incomparable WhyNot is doing her thing. And I can’t speak from a parenting perspective because my little guy is almost 7 months old but I bought that Parenting With Love and Logic book on her advice and while it would kill me from day one I do feel it is the best of advice.
And third, seriously, ignore the vast majority of the people who float that whole “oh he just sees through the ridiculousness of high school just like I did” people. At some point everybody learns the lesson that you have to show up. You can do it now or you can do it later. High school is an opportunity, shittily, to learn that everybody has to do things they don’t want to do and exist alongside people they hate. Even astronauts do a ton of paperwork. And yes, I radically underperformed in high school but I am not proud of that nor can I explain it.
Man alive, this was me 100%. I loathed school and it wasn’t until I realized I had to finish this crap up or I’d have to STAY EVEN LONGER that I decided to start doing some work. Maybe Jr year or so. So my last 2 years I pulled Bs and Cs then was thrilled to just get DONE. College? Whole other ballgame. Picking my own classes, having some control over the process- it was like heaven in comparison. In my 2 year school I even served first as the Student Trustee and then the President of our Student Government. My parents nearly fainted to see my sitting on the stage at graduation and giving a speech.
Looking back and knowing what I know now, had it been available I would have loved to have done online high school. I think I would have done great at that, honestly- work at the pace I want to (fast to get it over with), no eternally long lecture classes with the teacher instructing to the lowest skill level in the class. Being able to take a pee without getting a written damned hallway pass. I needed my freedom young- I think if I’d had it there may have been a world of difference. Just my 2 cents
Oh and I meant to add- as a grown up now what I found (in jobs and in life) is that I like to be in charge. No, I MUST be in charge. Whatever job I’ve had for the last I don’t even know how long, as soon as I start I bust my ass crazy until I’m running the place. I make the decisions. I see the rewards of my work. I find it extremely fulfilling. Is there anything (volunteer work like with a boys club, something like that) where he can be a leader and see if that trips his trigger?
One other thing- don’t be like my parents were- when I was in college and working my ass off because I decided “Hey, I LIKE these classes and these projects are a fun challenge” (which I decided on my own with no pressure) don’t bring up the fact that he used to not do homework, be directionless, etc. Mine used to love it- I in my 4th year of college and doing great and my mom would STILL ask me if I bothered doing homework or not. If he comes around just be supportive and go from there, don’t make the past a huge issue. I remember it being a LONG time in college before I realized that I WASN’T lazy or stupid or whatever. I was just…lost in high school. My college instructors didn’t know me with those labels so I was able to start fresh and excel, it was very empowering.
As a high school teacher, here’s what I see: a great kid who refuses to “play school”. He’s personable, respectful, and does his work in class. (If he refused to work in class, he’d become a discipline issue or he’d get an F. We don’t tolerate that shit.) He’s nice to the other kids. But he doesn’t do homework, he doesn’t stay after school for extra credit bullshit (until the end of the marking period, when it’s not really “extra” credit, it’s “make-up credit” for the homework he skipped or re-taking tests). He probably half-asses some in-class work. I would suspect he gets around C’s on tests, just from being in class. And the teachers like him and make sure his 55%'s become 63%'s or whatever by telling him to get in the 3 biggest assignments he missed before cards come out. (I may be way off, but I doubt it.)
What’s the problem? Leave him alone. He’ll be fine.
He’s not going to Harvard. And don’t waste money sending him to Third-Tier-State Normal College. Let him know right now, “I will help you with Michigan, Michigan State, or Wayne State. If you can’t get in, it’s Henry Ford Community College. I’m not spending $30k a year for Ferris State.” And mean it.
But for Christ’s sake, get him the car! Every red-blooded American boy deserves a used car with a big red bow on the hood for his 16th birthday.
He’s really going to be okay. Worst case scenario: he graduates with a 2.0 and goes to CC. He’ll figure out by the end of September that his friends are away having the time of their lives, and he’s home with you. Here’s a secret, but don’t tell him yet: your state’s big research universities HAVE to take CC students–that’s the system. And all credits transfer, for the most part. He can graduate from HS with 1.0, get A’s for a year at CC, and transfer to Cal or UCLA. (Colleges don’t usually ask for HS transcripts, once you have a college transcript.)
If you just can’t resist trying to monitor his grades, make him have every teacher sign his homework planner everyday. When that falls through, and it will, have his teachers email you his assignments each day. Then you can spend the next two years standing sentry over him every night and getting pissed at the teachers who don’t follow through. But who wants to do that?
He sounds like a great kid; enjoy the next two years. He’s eventually gonna want to try some of the stuff he’s seen on the Internet with a real girl. There’ll be dates, and Proms, and football Fridays, and parties, and fender benders. (And maybe even hangovers.) Enjoy these years.
Don’t let school affect your home life. He’s getting D’s, for now; you can enjoy each other or you can make both of you miserable.
You must be one of my son’s teachers. Small world. 
Um, no. No one “deserves” anything, let alone a free car. If he were busting his ass in school, maybe. But I see nothing wrong with the OP requiring his son to use his savings to buy one.
If the OP has other children, and these children do work hard in school, what message does it send them if this “red-blooded American boy” gets whatever he wants without having to work for it?
why?
I guess us red-blooded American girls don’t! Or maybe I am not even a red-blooded American, since I am a filthy furriner and all that. 
But seriously, no one deserves a car. I shared my mother’s until I demonstrated valid need for my own (I was already in college and walking to work.)
As an Asian-American, I’m really fortunate (and thankful) that my parents weren’t the demanding, “You must get an A+!” type of Asian parent. In fact I think they purposefully tried to steer as far away from that attitude as possible. I can’t ever remember being lectured about my grades - my grades were rarely bad, but they weren’t particularly high either.
But I still felt really bad about getting mediocre grades, I think significantly more so than many of my peers who were of other races. I think it just shows that the Asian culture of feeling bad about mediocre academic performance can still permeate through generations even if a set of parents decide that they want to steer as far away from that attitude as possible with regards to their kids’ education. It’s just too steeped in that culture.
I can’t imagine a middle class African-American father telling his African-American son “hey, you’re a nice kid with a good heart. Don’t worry about grades or fulfilling stereotypes! You’ll be fine whatever you do!”
It must be great to demonstrate mediocrity and still be able to ride on good looks, charming personality, and perceived intelligence. Black kid fucks up in school and he’s castigated for equating excellence with “being white”. White kid fucks up in school and everyone assumes he’s a late-blooming genius bored out of his mind.
Black kid doing bad in school => let’s hang our heads in shame
White kid doing bad in school => let’s give that red-blooded American a car!
The thing that gets me? The OP’s son probably is going to be alright. But it won’t be because he’s special. It’s because he had the good sense to be born white, male, and in an upper middle-class home. He could drop out of high school right now and and land a job faster than a black male who has graduated from college.
It must be nice.