Need advice with 12 year old son that is close to failing school.

In My Humble Opinion
21

I had terrible grades in school.

In my case, it was because of a horrible, horrible home life, but that’s not what I wanted to say.

When I feel like I’m under pressure, even now as an adult, It’s like I just don’t want to deal with it. I avoid even thinking about it. Lectures from my mom would leave me in tears, but the only thing that stuck with me from them were how much I had dissapointed her, which made me feel so bad that I avoided thinking about the whole thing, which made me feel worse…

Anyway, I was a girl who had a nervous ulcer at 9 years old.

I guess what I am saying is that it’s possible that lectures won’t do anything but make him feel bad about himself. Maybe that he’s stupid or just not a good kid or something.

In my school, we had honors seniors who would do tutoring work. They would collect the assignments from the teachers, and then sit there while the kids did them, making sure that they understood the material. I doubt that there is something exactly like this, but maybe a general tutor with a structured time (every other day or something) would be helpful.

22

I totally agree that a friend or study partner could help a lot. Some kind of structure - obviously he is capable of doing the work if he does it for you.

I would have a friendly talk with your ex. Without accusing her, show her that he does the work when he is with you, but not with her. Offer your help in working out a way for your son to do the work with her, too.

Sometimes, unfortunately, kids just don’t care unless some kind of immediate consequence exists. For some the long term goals of success and satisfaction are not enough to sit down and do math instead of play video games. My husband was this type, and did actually fail several classes and narrowly graduated high school at all, not from lack of intelligence, but lack of motivation. (He has since continued his education and is a productive member of society after all;) ). He was also later diagnosed with ADD, something worth looking into (cover all angles). Once you’ve ruled out a medical problem or learning disability I would say it is time to lay down clear guidelines of some kind, and then it is up to him.

I would also say not to give up - it is possible to fail a class and still turn out ok. I know it’s frustrating because you know he is a smart kid, but Jr. High is a better time to learn this lesson than high school (when GPA starts to count for college). Maybe having to re-take a class in summer school (or the thought of it) will motivate him, if nothing else.

It is frustrating to see smart kids not live up to their potential, maybe you and your ex and son all need to sit down and talk about what a fair policy would be. If he has some input too he might be more likely to stick with it.

Just some ideas, good luck!

23

This is the counterargument to homework that I cannot counter. You are 100% correct.

24

First of all astro, good for you for wanting to focus on this. It sounds like you want to be the best parent you can, and I applaud that.

As a parent of a younger child, this is my approach:

  1. Clarify expectations - have them repeat them, and (although I am not at this point with my 5 year old, I will be when it comes to drugs, driving, sex, and coming to me with any needs) write them down.

  2. Stay involved - be there every day and have him in the room with you so you can watch him do his homework. Not possible due to work and/or living situation? Call him everyday - at least once during the time he should be working on his assignments, and once at the end when they should be complete. Have tired mom available to visually comfirm what you can’t see. Follow up with teachers periodically to confirm he is telling you about all of his homework.

  3. Punish him mercilessly - we’re not talking whether a death sentence deters criminals, we’re talking whether removal of priveleges (e.g., computer, games, cool clothes, free time, etc.) coupled with clear intent and parental involvement will get him to do his work.

BIG INSIGHT - We all, at times, lack motivation. Waiting for self-motivation to kick in will be TOO LATE. What you need to educate him about is that even if he is not motivated - HE STILL MUST PRODUCE RESULTS - or face the consequences, either right now (punishment) or later in life (lost in drugs, homeless, etc…)

When he realizes this, he will gain two valuable lessons - 1) he will have done his homework, which is typically a worthwhile investment in learning; and b) he will get to a point when he’s older where he will be able to work past a lack of motivation when the need for results is more important.

Ride him like a bad pony - this is life we’re talking about here. This isn’t about you being mad, this is about you objectively and unemotionally controlling the situation. Let him know you love him and you want to do the best for him, and that right now, that is why you are doing what you are doing. No compromises.

Good luck.

25

I am the parent of a 12 yr old daughter and see many of the same behaviors. The procrastination, the “don’t give a damn” attitude, missed assignments and completed-but-not-turned in assignments. My daughter is also pulling down failing grades.
Much of this is the age and puberty, but after a year long process she has been diagnosed as ADD. I would not presume to say this is your issue, but some of the behaviors are similar. Something to think about. What we do is try to impose as much structure as we can, use things like TV and playstation etc… as rewards to be earned for good habits. I would differ with many of the people here who say that he should know better, he should be mature enoughto do this on his own, etc… . Emotional maturity comes at different rates for kids. Some just don’t have it at 12 and need structure from a parent. Your situation is complicated by a parent who seems to be abdicating that responsibility. Many schools have “homework clubs” after school to help impose structure and good study habits. I would contact your childs school to see if there is such an after school program. If you’d like to e-mail me I can offer some further thoughts. I know what you’re going through and it can tear you up.

26

My brother got rotten grades all through school. Finally in his last two years of highschool, mom offered $50 for every A, and he ended up on the honour roll. Granted, that is a lot of $$ for a 12 year old, but a sliding scale of treats for good grades might be a good idea. For example, D’s = no treats. C’s = a chocolate bar, B’s = dinner at his fave hamburger joint, A’s = a day at the beach or skiing. After all, that’s how life works. You do well at work, you get a bonus, or an extra week vacation.

'Course, for me, competition was the trick. I always had to get better grades than my brother, strictly for bragging rights.

27

IANAP, but I’ve done a lot of tutoring over the years. I agree with most of the other posters that he needs structure. Are there any after-school study hall type programs he could go to?

I’d also strongly suggest talking to your son and getting a sense of why he has a hard time focusing on homework. It could be that he simply doesn’t care – in which case consequences like losing Playstation privileges might make him care – but it could also be that he wants to do the homework but hasn’t got the study skills or self-discipline to make himself do it without an adult standing over him. If that’s the case – and from what you’ve said, it probably is – it won’t do any good to impose negative consequences unless you also teach him how to avoid them.

Many study skills that seem intuitive to adults, such as breaking a long assignment into smaller portions or recognizing when you don’t understand a word and looking it up, are in fact learned behavior. A kid isn’t going to develop them on his own if he hasn’t been taught, and if he doesn’t have this mental equipment in place, a lot of homework assignments are going to look downright impossible to him. It sounds like you (or the tutor) should focus on teaching him how to approach an assignment, not just what he’s supposed to know.

Having a set and finite chunk of time when he’s supposed to be working on homework may also help, even if there’s sometimes no one there to enforce it. It’s much easier to discipline yourself to work from 3:30 to 5:00 and then quit, than it is to sit down and work until the work is done – especially when it looks like it will never be done. (Yes, there’s a good chance not all of the homework will get done this way, but it sounds like none of it is getting done right now.)

28

can’t give you any advice on raising and training a 12 year old. however, i can weigh in as a former latchkey kid.

i also had no parents at home when i got out of school. both my parents worked, even before it was really fashionable for moms to not be stay-at-homes. my parents saw that i had some adult supervision up until the end of 4th grade, but then we moved out of state and i started being on my own.

now, my parents didn’t work as late as your wife does. but they were pretty laissez-faire regarding checking up on my homework (as best i can recall…it has been a couple decades now). as long as my grades and report card weren’t too bad, they figured i was dealing with it adequately. (and since i had a very clear notion of what the outcome would be if things started going south, i did what i needed to do.)

however, in this scenario it’s pretty obvious that your son is not dealing adequately. you and your wife aren’t there to supervise, and he flakes off accordingly. if you reeeeaalllly want to motivate him, offer to have a nice calm discussion with your wife, with him present, about hiring someone (adult) who will be there as sort of a “house monitor”. (or he can go to their house, whichever is easiest.) you’ve got the perfect Catch-22 going there; if he whines that he’s old enough to watch over himself, you can point out that obviously he’s not mature enough, since he can’t discipline himself and do his homework like he should.

somehow, i’d be willing to place a small wager that the shame (or mere threat) of having to have a babysitter when he’s in the 7th grade might have some interesting effects on his motivational outlook.

and i seldom make bets unless i’m pretty sure what the outcome will be.
lachesis

29

My only comment is to make sure in the punishment/grounding/denial-of-all-fun stage that there is a still an opportunity for the better grades to be his achievement.

That probably makes no sense.

What I mean is, I hated doing things that I was doing because my parents made me. It infuriated me. I thought it was a real insult to my dignity to have to hear “I told you so” or “I knew you could do it if we made you put your mind to it.” It seemed so condescending. It made me want to NOT succeed because I didn’t want to prove them right or reward their methods. So just be careful about conveying that attitude.

30

The best thing you can do is get your ex on the team.
if you could do that, it would help your case alot.

Self motivation is great, but that doesn’t make you powerless.

You own the nintendo
you own the house
you own the tv
etc.

Make up a spreadsheet to be signed by every teacher every day indicating that Jr. has/has not done his homework. For every day he brings it home signed appropriately and has done his homework as assigned he can watch tv, nintendo… after he does his homework for that day of course. If not, then he does homework, reads a book, etc. But no TV no Nintendo, no whatever you deem to be inimical to the homework process.

If he brings it home unsigned it gets treated like if he didn’t do the homework.
Call the teachers weekly to check in (at first, then work at just the problem classes, then every two weeks in the problem classes, then…)

You can control this in your home, at least.

I say force the kid to do his homework for a while. Or at least make sure you’re not allowing him more attractive alternatives to homework. The principle is simple: homework is the most interesting thing available, and it is the pathway to other interesting things.
Not doing homework is a viable choice, but not an attractive one.
To get your ex on board: maybe try it for a week first, then you can tell her you figured out a great way to make him do the homework and offer to let her in on it. Offer to do all

Avoid approaching it by telling her she’s a neglecful parent or implying it in any way.
Assume she has the best interests of your son at heart and is doing the best she can.

31

I just wanted to add that I got a letter from my brother today.

When we were kids (I am 9 years older than he) I had all the chores and stuff while he got to do as he pleased. I learned early not to bother fighting it because even if they assigned him any task he wouldn’t do it and I’d get punished for not supervising him and making him do it.

He never did his homework and no one made him as my father didn’t care and my mother didn’t have the backbone to make him. He also wandered a lot on his own. He dropped out of school at 15 and a half. (The legal age here)

He celebrated his 21st birthday last october in prison with a hostess cupcake from the canteen truck and a matchstick for a candle.

32

I hasten to add that while I advocate VERY strong punishment for bad report cards, I agree with posters who argue the opposite; when the kid gets GOOD grades, s/he must be generously rewarded. Presents, treats, trips to the amusement park, real cash money, whatever, and LOTS of praise. If the job of getting good grades is the kid’s responsibility, then the kid deserves tangible, substantial rewards when s/he does it well. After all, I expect MY boss to reward me if I deliver more at my job.

Lectures and “time outs” are fine, but by themselves they will accomplish squat. A 12-year-old cannot understand the long term implications of his actions, and 6-hour speeches every single day will not change that.

Just trying to impose new systems (homework buddies, homework signoff sheets, etc.) will also not work on their own. They’re good ideas, but unless the rewards and punishments are there, they’re just another detail for him to figure a way around.

What changes people’s behaviour is reinforcement and punishment. It’s basic psychology. Maximize the delta between what the kid gets when he does well at school and what he gets when he does poorly. I wouldn’t suggest physical punishment for a 12-year-old, but I’d say a severe grounding until the year end report card is in order. And I do mean severe.

33

I have a twelve year old son with the same problem. One thing that helped was being sent to an afterschool program where he had to do his homework. The advantages to that was the program was at his school and there was a classmate or two of his attending. Which meant that textbooks being left at school and not having the assignment became non-issues for the assignments done while he was at the program. However it didn’t eliminate them entirely, as the one subject left to be done at home could be the one with the textbook at school.

That said ,what I think may have finally made the difference was when I decided it wasn’t my problem if he failed 7th grade- it’s his problem.I know that sounds terrible, and if my mother knew I said it she’d have a heart attack, but-

  • he’s old enough for it to be his problem
  • he doesn’t do it because he doesn’t want to do it. It’s not that he needs help or doesn’t understand the work or can’t focus.
  • there are only so many hours in a day, and I can’t spend four or five of them between arguing over the homework and watching him do it.

and the biggest one

  • I can’t spend the next five years making sure his homework is done. I’d much rather he failed 7th grade than 11th grade.I’m certain that being left back will wake him up. In fact, I wish that he had been left back a couple of years ago- because now he knows that he can have failing marks for two of the three trimesters and still end up with a passing mark for the year (since he has pulled that off once or twice).

I was amazed by the difference. I sat him down and said homework was his responsibility, and if he wanted to get left back it was fine with me, but he wasn’t changing schools. I wasn’t going to fight or nag anymore. If he didn’t do the work on his own, it wouldn’t get done and he would pay the price. It made a big difference, not only in the number of assignments missed (down to one or two a week from at least one or two a day) but more importantly, he’s the one who gets upset when he leaves a book at school. He’s the one calling to get assignments he missed, not me. It suddenly *does *matter to him if his homework is done, when it didn’t before.

34

It is rather striking how heavily the responses on this thread are weighted toward punishment for bad results rather than rewards for good ones.

35

Yeah, but the OP asked for help with bad marks. He doesn’t have any good marks to reward yet. :slight_smile:

(To be honest, I used to think all kids got cash and prizes for good report cards, since I always did. It surprised to me to find it wasn’t always the case.)

36

I agree that maybe a study partner would help. Maybe a tutor for a couple of hours a week if he is having trouble understanding the work. When I was in school, I got the TV taken away and was not allowed to do anything that wasn’t school related in the afternoons (except Fridays) for the entire semester if I got a grade worse than a B. I hated it, but I guess it worked. I’ve only gotten two C’s. I was also rewarded $ for every A I got…that helped motivate me. My little sister, however, went through school with the same rules and got terrible grades (she’s smart, but she would not do assignments that she couldn’t see ‘the point’ in doing). Luckily her school kicked her out for failing and she got sent to the bad kids school, where she thrived and finished high school before she was supposed to. It sounds like he simply needs someone to make sure he does his homework, just to make sure he doesn’t get distracted, so I’d go with a study buddy or maybe he could go to the library for X-amount of time afterschool.

37

I was going to suggest a prison tour but felt that was a little extreme (not to mention dangerous). I was also going to suggest bringing the kid over to my mom’s house so he could meet my older brother. He’s over fifty, hasn’t held a job in many years, doesn’t own a car, fathered a bastard child and, as you can guess, is still living with Mom.

I’d recommend it except for the fact that, despite dropping out of high school, my brother attended Cal Berkeley and made the dean’s list. Of course, he was taking Icelandic and astronomy. I asked him once what all of this University study was leading up to, what sort of work was he going to do. He screamed into the phone at me, “Work? … WORK?!?”, and immediately rang off.

Despite both of my parents going to Cal Berkeley and one of them being a life long teacher, neither of them gave a rusty fuc|< about my schooling. I can barely remember my school teacher father ever helping me with my homework. No one wondered why my picture wasn’t in the school yearbook. No on wondered why I wasn’t going to the prom. No one attended the high school graduation that I didn’t bother to attend myself. Maybe it had something to do with always being told how stupid I was by my father and brothers.

Basically, no one gave a sh!t. Keep in mind that my father was elected several times as president of the PTA and the city teacher’s council. Then again, he also taught sex-education, yet never provided any insight for any of us four children about dealing with the opposite sex. Keep in mind I was the only one of us four kids who graduated from high school.

As so many others mentioned above, get involved, get structure and show an ongoing concern. Not just discipline, but true concern for your child and his future. This is why I recommended a cook’s tour through the bowery. There is nothing like a vivid object lesson as to the virtue of education. To balance that, make sure he sees successful people at their jobs as well.

I was fortunate enough to edumacate myself about microelectronics and computers. It permitted me to succeed in an area where Universities were not yet giving degrees. This is no longer the case. Self education is no longer an option. The business world relies far too much on credentials these days. Get involved, get serious, get the ex in your corner and tell your boy to get a clue. Here’s wishing you success.

38

‘Bastard’ child. Zenster? Lovely terminology there.

I homeschool but I have had some success with backing right off with my 9 yo. Told him bluntly that I would no longer argue with him over remedial spelling, that he has a disability and the only way I know of to fix it is to do the work. We no longer fight and he does the work and the spelling is improving.

I think you need to find a way to find a solution in partnership with your ex-wife. The after school study hall ideas sound good. It’s all very well to say that a 12 yo ‘should’ be able to manage the study but if he can’t, he can’t and he needs support to learn how to manage.
Eeep. I think I just contradicted myself there – to clarify, I think finding some structure for him while ceasing to argue with him is a Good Thing. Rewards, esp small rewards in the short term for small accomplishments help. One major reward at the end of term may be too far in the future.

Good luck.

39

Read and implement Ending the Homework Hassle by John Rosemond. Of course it will be ten times more effective if you can get your ex to do the same. It gives extremely practical advice on how to shift the “burden” of homework to the kid, and is therefore huge stress-reliever for parents. Even if ex doesn’t buy into it, I’d recommend using the strategies consistently while he’s at your house.

40

You know, its rather ironic, but I actually LIKE college courses that assign homework. Its usually nothing ridiculously excessive, and its the best way for me to stay on top of the material. See, I tend to do badly in the straight lecture-and-exam classes because its hard for me to take notes and study material. But completing homework assignments/turning them in keeps me on track.