The other teen advice thread reminded me to start the thread I’d been thinking about. To make a long story short, due to parental illness, I’ve been taking a more active role in my 14 year old sister’s life for the past year. I’ve moved back into their home to be able to help out more. Last year was sort of rough because she fell into the stage of deciding to slack off in school. I was fielding daily phone calls and emails from teachers for much of the year. She does struggle with the work, but does well when she puts forth enough effort. I will say now, that my parents have always been very nice, and there has been no abuse of any sort, but they were too permissive during the early years, because she was their little baby, and the kid they waited so long to get etc. and now it’s coming back to haunt me. She’s a good kid, but she’s also tries to be sneaky sometimes.
What have you done with your slacker kid? I cannot bring myself to take a hands off approach and let her fail, but I don’t really know how much a high school teacher would be willing to work with the guardians of someone who’s just being lazy. I know I can’t make her not be lazy, but this is driving me insane. If she had it her way, she’d just hang out with her friends and talk on the phone all day long. Of, course we’d all like to do that , but it doesn’t cut it. Basically, I don’t want this year to be a replay of last year. General advice on dealing with the teen years would be helpful too.