My son has crappy grades - suggestions?

In My Humble Opinion
41

As a step-dad of a 14yo in a somewhat similar situation - he’s getting Cs when he should be (and was) getting As - I’ll go along with this. Listen to the professional.

The fact it took you this long to realise the video game thing and take them away is not good - it really sounds like you’re not spending enough bonding time with him, you don’t know enough about how he’s spending his time and what’s going on in his life - as he sees it.

And the point about his friends is vital. At this age kids are influenced by them as role models than by you. See if you can arrange he spend more time with the kids you’d rather he be like (without forcing it by diktat of course, which would be counter-productive).

42

I gotta say, this is pretty much how close I’ve come with Hallboy (now a freshman in high school). This year, I decided to stop stressing out over his grades–or at least let him know I’m stressing out over his grades.

He’s a consistent underperformer and would rather do anything (and I mean anything) other than school work, and his grades showed it. Every report card and parent teacher meeting was the same thing–barely passing grades (and sometimes not even that). This year I stopped going to Parent Teacher meetings. (I told him that they were HIS grades and HE was responsible for them so HE could go to any parent teacher meetings.) I stopped hounding him about his homework. (Instead of “Didyoudoyourhomeworkwhenareyougoingtodoyourhomeworkwhydidn’tyoudoyourhomeworkhowdoyouexpecttopassclassifyoudon’tdoyourhomework!!!”, it was, “Do you have homework, because I need your help with X and I don’t want to catch you in the middle of your homework.”) I stopped stressing out over report cards. Instead of “Look what you got in English!”, it became, “Wow, dude, that sucks”–and that was IT.

Since his school uses a 100 GPA, I told him I’d pay him $1 for each overall GPA point he got per report card. (But the overall GPA had to be over 70, which is a C.) In theory, he could bomb algebra (which I think he will), but his other classes could pull his overall GPA over 70.

Anyhoo, since this, he’s been doing his homework. He has taken it upon himself to go after school to his algebra teacher to have her help him with his algebra. HE is the one stressing out over report cards (which come out in a few weeks). HE is the one following up with teachers/classmates about major projects. (He needed to get some work finished on an art project to get a higher grade in art, so he went in to school EARLY one morning to finish it–and this is when he has to be to school at 7:30 am normally.) HE is the one making sure that he has everything for school, and enough time to finish what he needs to finish. He’s also started taking an interest in the Quiz Bowl group that meets every Friday before school (out the door by 6:30 am to watch–not yet participate because he’s not even tried out for it–but watch because he “wants to know stuff”).

On another note, I tried the taking away video games/television/recreation computer/bike/hanging out with friends. It only made us both miserable because, regardless of if he does his homework or not, those are his releases, and everyone needs them. I tried to think that if someone took away MY releases, regardless of their reasoning, then how pissed off and frustrated I would feel.

It’s still early yet, and he’s not perfect (I have a suspicion that he’s not going to pass algebra), but at least he is learning and it’s HIS responsibility.

BTW, all this that I tried was as a result of advice I got from fellow Dopers, reading their posts, their experiences as parents and as slacker kids.

43

Fuck all of that “This is just natural teen rebelliousness” crap. Just an excuse IMO for parents to absolve themselves of responsibility for dropping the ball the past 13 years and realizing how much work it is going to take to straighten out the mess they allowed to develop. And a tolerance of lazy, unrealistic, irresponsible teens.

Make clear to the kid what his responsibilities are - presumably contributing around the house, displaying a decent personality, getting good grades, being reasonably healthy, and staying out of trouble. Make clear that nothing is free. You and your spouse would rather do other things than work to support someone who is unwilling to contribute to the household and unappreciative of your efforts. Inform him of the income required to support your standard of living, as well as education/careers likely to produce such income. Have serious heart-to-hearts with him as to the importance of keeping his options open, and the bottomline that the one factor he control most in terms of maximizing options/opportunities is good grades.

Monitor what homework he is assigned, require that he do homework and study at specific times and locations, check his work before it is handed in, and review his graded work and tests. That’s your job. You should have been doing it all along. Feel free to experiment with punishments/rewards for his performance/compliance.

If he wishes to not contribute, than he is on his own as far a providing anything other than the bare necessities of food and shelter, and check out the minimum age at which he can become emancipated and move out. And if he isn’t going to get the grades, insist that he get a job as soon as he is legally old enough.

Whoever said it upthread is correct - grade/middle school grades mean nothing down the line. But this is the time for him to wake up and realize that life is not a free ride. If he bombs a semester or 2 in high school it won’t kill him, but it will eliminate some opportunities.

44

This is disturbing.

You are allowing your son to settle for mediocrity.
Take the games physically out of the house. ( To some undisclosed location. Take the tempation away.) No computer games. No internet. Tough Titties.

*It is all down to re-learning the basics and establishing something that is critical for his success as a functional human who will be able to support himself financially within the next ten years. *

Also, this means as a parent for you to turn off the TV for yourself and sit at the kitchen table while he pisses and moans and whines and sighs about it all and does his homework.

It doesn’t mean you stand over him and hold his hand or do it for him. It means you sit there, reading a book, doing a shopping list, engaged in something so he knows you are there.
Also, have your son checked out for reading problems, eye/hearing issues. Don’t just wait for the school to check them in their annual little bullshit exam. Grades like that, when you know he can do better, deserve a thorough once over by a board certified specialist. Rule out any problems like that. Get to ground zero.

Be consistent. Follow through.

45

snip.

Many, many people are mediocre students, espescially in areas they have little interest in. Anecdotal: I was an A-B student, went to university, and have had a series of crap jobs, making a poor salary. My best friend was a C-d student, skipped college, is now an electrician and makes 50K a year, and is looking at purchasing a home. That mediocrity is paying his bills with a job he enjoys doing. He has a nice car, a pleasant place to live and enjoys a pretty nice standard of living for a 28 year old.

46

As a teacher, I endorse all of these!

47

A lot of good advice upthread. Although IANAD, I am a middle school teacher, and a parent of a struggling teen. She, too, gets Ds and Fs, and we would welcome Cs with open arms. However, she has ADHD and schizophrenia, and we are taking it one day at a time.
The ‘not turning homework in’, in my experience, can be due to poor organization skills. Does he lose other things regularly? A lot of kids here have lockers that would take major expeditions to uncover all the homework that’s crumpled up in there. Using a binder/folder system that’s color coded (math notebook and folder are green) may help.
It may also be due to frustration with not ‘getting’ the class. For some cosmic reason, many kids think that if they just don’t turn in the work, the Homework Fairy will magically make their grades all right. My daughter does this when she doesn’t understand the assignment. Many kids are diagnosed at this age with learning disabilities because the reading/comprehension load becomes so much harder. I would be trying to dissect exactly why he hates school. Mean friends? Too much homework? Somewhere there’s a clue.

48

This is good advice, esp the part about setting up a good example. When I know my daughter is struggling with a particular assignment I stay close by and do my “homework” too. Not to hover or micromanage but to be available and give quiet company. The TV is off no matter who wants to watch, when we are in the homework zone. The little sister is not on the wii or watching TV. Evenn if the little sis has no homework the homework zone applies to everyone in it. Its quiet play, or reading. And they always need permission to turn on the TV or wii, always!
This sometimes sucks when she procrastinates until 9pm and we want to watch the news. But instead of banishing her to her room with her homework she sits at the dining room table until it is done.

My thing is to have her get it done at a reasonable hour without me nagging about it. In fact I try not to even mention homework to her, or at least phrase it an a way that does not elicit the same groans and whines. Since the school does have an online website where daily assingments and grades can be monitored and she knows it, I find that helps with her self motivation. I admit I flipped the first time I saw a failing grade on an assignment online. I blew it out of proportion and needlessy worried to death about it. What was my straight A student doing getting an F? Well, the lesson learned is how to fail and then work to correct it.

I have also learned that all A’s and B’s make parents happy but to praise the kid for it, made her angry (a true WTF parenting moment)as if she was only worth something if she got good grades. So now we praise her hard work, perserverence and great attendance,all of which contributed to her great report card.

49

This is precisely the wrong way to handle the situation in many cases.

I’m not a parent, but I was a kid who had grade problems in middle school. In my case, it was because I just didn’t care, true – but I didn’t care because I felt trapped and hopeless in an emotionally abusive family situation and in a school where I was chronically teased. Middle school teachers are often, though not always, poor (due to the conditions), so the protection I had in class at least during grade school was gone. I was under a constant torrent of insults at school and berating at home. I romanticized suicide… to a middle school student, turning 18 is an eternity away. I recently read through my diary of the time and it was the most unhappy period of my life. It lasted longer than it had to because one of my parents wanted to treat me like an employee rather than a tween kid.

Taking away every privilege the kid has is only going to create resentment. Someone recommended taking away video games until two consecutive report card of good grades… that’s an impossibly long time for a kid! As a kid, I would have gotten the message “My parents hate me, and want me to be miserable – even if I do better in school, I can’t have any fun for months and months!” (How would you have felt if toys/books/radio were taken away from you as a kid? How would you feel about six months with no Internet access now?)

Get involved. Your kid might just not care about school because he’s hanging with the loser crowd, but there may be many other reasons causing the problem. Get involved with the homework - find out what assignments are due when, what is he studying. Is he doing badly at homework or just not doing it at all? Talk with the teachers, take an active role, and say “no video games until all the homework is done” but give the kid short-term goals.

In the end, I snapped out of it mostly because of my mom, who did take an active role to help. I resented it at the time, but it worked a whole heck of a lot better than my dad’s strategy: yelling at me even more, telling me how useless I was, and taking away the few things I enjoyed in life at the time.

50

Try setting a reasonable short-term (a week or so) goal, and give back some privilege (though not all of them) for meeting that goal. Maybe something like if you turn in all your homework next week, you can have the video games back for an hour on Saturday. It’s easier for anyone to achieve a long-term goal if you can break it up into small steps. It’s hard to stay motivated when all the goals are long-term (like semester grades) and you don’t feel like you’re making any progress.

I had this problem (and I’m still very disorganized). Maybe a separate folder just for homework would keep it from getting lost in the chaos that is his binder with his class notes and such. I didn’t think of that for a long time, because I was thinking “I should be keeping this binder organized”. But when I was a freshman in college, I realized it would be so much easier to just take class notes in a spiral notebook and have my homework in another folder and not have to worry about keeping a binder organized.

Now, I keep the important mail separate (bills and tax stuff) and don’t worry about the rest of it- as long as I’m paying my bills and taxes, it doesn’t matter so much if I’ve got a big heap of junk mail somewhere. If I made myself organize the junk mail when I organize the bills, I’d just put off organizing the bills (as I put off organizing my binders when I was in school), and that would be a problem. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s good for someone for whom keeping everything organized is not a realistic goal.

Make sure that whatever praise or reward you’re giving him is something he likes, not something “most kids like” or that you or his sister would have liked at his age. He’s not “most kids” and he’s not a younger version of you or his sister. My parents thought lots of praise, especially in front of other relatives, for straight A’s was the way to go. That’s more like a punishment than a reward for a shy kid who hates being the center of attention. A new book or Nintendo game or an extra trip to the mall to shop or a dinner at a restaurant I liked would all have gone over a lot better.

I found that having about a 3.67 GPA was optimal- it was low enough that I didn’t get fussed over, which I hated, and it was high enough that I didn’t lose privileges or get yelled at. I could have done better, probably even in more challenging classes than what I took, but the incentives were such that I didn’t want to. And “what my parents will say or do about my grades” was much more immediate and real to me than “what college will I get into”, at least until my senior year of high school. Make sure you’re not giving your son the same kind of perverse incentive that my parents were giving me.

51

Another opportunity to recommend one of my favorite books that addresses this problem dead-on: ‘Ending the Homework Hassle’ by John Rosemond. Easy read. Read it. Make sure your spouse reads it. Discuss it, internalize it, agree on its implementation in your case.

This is not a burden that YOU need to “solve”. This is a situation that should be squarely on your child to fix. This book tells you EXACTLY how to do it.

You don’t need to make sure he’s “happy at school”. You don’t need to “get him interested”. You don’t need to fall all over yourself worrying about his self esteem. You don’t need to make some sort of elaborate plan or schedule with his teachers whereby you both sign things and check on him every day and ride his case and all the rest of that. In short, you establish “the way things will be” with him, HE solves the rest.

In our case, once the system [for lack of a better word; it was really just consequences] was put in place, our child tested it twice, to see if we’d follow through. It was tough, but we did. (This was a really strong-willed, drama-loving 10th grader) After that there was literally an overnight turnaround in his demeanor in class (we got many shocked raves from teachers wondering just what we did), and he took much much more responsibility for his grades. Not perfect, mind you, not straight A’s; but we made it absolutely clear that D’s and F’s and a shitty attitude toward any teacher would not be tolerated.

52

Fine. I guess I should have started off with suggestion #1 - don’t be an emotionally abusive parent, and find out if your kid is being chronically teased at school. :rolleyes:

53

drpepper, I’m really curious about the book you mention, and the Amazon excerpt only covers describing the problem, not the solution. It looks like a very accurate description of the problem. Can you summarize the solution? What kind of consequences?

54

Please don’t base any punishments or rewards on grades. If he tries hard and gets a D and you punish him (and frankly, not having TV/Video games/whatever won’t be seen as not having a privilege, it’ll be seen as punishment. Such things are seen as as normal as having food by kids IMO), chances are he’ll just give up.

Of course, if he tries hard and gets a D, chances are somethings wrong, whether that be a shitty teacher or learning disability or whatever. Or he might just be kinda dumb, which I’m sure is hard for a parent to accept but is possible.

ETA: Homework is so goddamn stupid. Probably the cause of 95% of problems kids have these days.

55

Is your kid smart or dumb? Now be objective. I know every mom thinks their kid is a genius. Generally if he’s smart, bad grades are usually due to the fact that they are bored and need to find something to motivate them. If they are dumb, then they may need extra help and yelling at them won’t work any more than beating a mule into solving diferential equations.

You can’t motivate people. You can only create an environment where they can find ways to motivate themselves. You can take away their distractions, or threaten them with punishment, but unless they want to do it, it will become a giant chore they will barely accomplish.

It’s kind of like my dad trying to teach me to play baseball. I tried it for awhile but realized that I didn’t care for it. There was nothing he could say or do that would make me want to stand there tossing a ball back and forth one minute more than I had to. Maybe I even toss a wild pitch through the window just to frustrate him.

When I picked up ice hockey, however, it was a completely different story. No one needed to bug me to do it. I would be willing to endure all manner of hummiliating falls on my ass until I actually learned how to stand on the ice. No one had to tell me to go down to the local pond to play a pickup game. He didn’t even get mad when I accidently slap-shotted a tennis ball though the garage window.
Anyhow, the point is I think that carrots and sticks only work so well. You might be better off finding out what motivates your son and somehow helping him connect good grades with that.

56

I’m wondering what suggestion you do have? Since reward and punishment are outside of the question.

57

She didn’t say reward and punishment were out of the question, just reward and punishment for grades. Reward and punishment for something that is more directly under his control, like doing and turning in homework, would be OK.

58

He, and yep. I’m just concerned her son may have a learning disability/bad teacher/just not be very bright, in which case punishing him for bad grades is just foolish.

59

As a former tutor, I say that you should take him to a psychologist and get him evaluated. Educational psychologists run a battery of tests that includes testing for IQ, learning disabilities, and emotional problems.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard a parent say, “He’s so smart, he just doesn’t try,” when the problem was actually dyslexia, an auditory processing disorder, or just plain low IQ. These things definitely need to be ruled out before any system of reward and punishment is put into place.

60

Kumon

It will teach him how to study, it will teach him discipline and most importantly, it will teach him to enjoy and have pride in his work and achievements.