Parents' Poll! Pop Quiz About Your Teen!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey Mom and Dad, wake up! Pop Quiz Time! Are you watching your teens’ moves in and outside of school? I am tutoring a teen in math who is an only-child. He’s a lazy, but sly kidas the parents don’t ask, so he don’t tell!

I know (almost for a fact) he’s not doing his math homework. He is very weak in Algebra, and I was highly suspicious that he’s had no questions for me and no homework for the past week. His class notes are nil, he can’t tell me what they’re doing (even if only in his own words), and he can’t show me where they are in the book. I told him all this would come back to hurt him when the test comes. (I just pulled him from an “F” to a “C” in the last marking period which just ended.) We were making progress, without me bending to his lazy ways…forcing him to think for once…but, he must think good grades grow on trees!

Pending test? Big surprise, right? He shows me a few dittos they were working on in class. And, ten minutes later…oh yeah, we’re going to have a test on all of this tomorrow! Well, the material covered a ton of topics from solving simple equations with one variable, solving inequalities, simulataneous equations, rearranging a multiple-variable equation to solve for a specific variable, and word problems applying all these skills. WOW! I was shocked they had covered so much, and he doesn’t seem to care! (The classes are a ridiculous 90 minutes in length, so they move fast…he can’t afford to blink, let alone miss one class!)

I was silently furious with him. He missed class last Friday when the new material was starting…because his parents let him have a “mental health” day off. Feeling anxious, he was forgetting everything we had covered…solving for “x” in his own haphazard way. He claims he has a bad memory, but the truth is no one has pushed him to try. (He still doesn’t know his multiplication tables!) He says I should have been doing Algebra with him all week…outside of reviewing some solving of simple equations, I can’t read his mind not take a blind guess from his text.

All this past week, we’d been working on his basic math skills (in lieu of Algebra) because he needs to pass a Standardized Math Test later this month - which he’s failed a few times now - to graduate in a few years. Just wait until he takes the SATs!

His Mom, hearing our discussion, says she’ll ask the teacher for a schedule of what they’ll be covering so I can keep up with the class. Gee, lady…obviously your son is asleep in class, has ziltch for notes, must be skipping homeworks, and then heexpects me to teach him it all the night before the test!?!?!

Are parents really this blind? Reporting from Never-Neverland…

  • Jinx
2

To be fair to parents, we do rely on our kids to tell us the truth.

Slipping grades are, however, usually a fairly good indication of something amiss here in “Never Never Land”.

Both my sons are on the honour system until something happens that sends up a flag. We check their agendas and ask questions, but if they have chosen not to write anything in their agendas, or hide the truth, then usually the next indication is a bad report card or a call from the school.

What else would you have us do? Make our homes into boot-camp starting in kindergarten?

Tell me, how did you come to be tutoring this teen? Did he call you on his own, or did his parents engage your services?

Allowing your kid to have a “mental health day” in high school is an iffy proposition, especially if you don’t know what’s scheduled for that day. My older son, who is in Gr.9, can’t really afford to miss any time. They do cram too much into their classes for “mental health days” to be worthwhile, IMO.

Furthermore, by the time they get to high-school, they really are at the point where they need to sink or swim on their own. There’s only so much parents can do. We cannot DO the work for them. We cannot force them to pay attention in class. Hell, we cannot even force them to GO to class. We can get a tutor, which the parents in your OP have done. We can take away privileges to try to help “motivate” them. Beyond, that, I don’t know.

What suggestions do YOU have for parents when their kids slack off in school? What would YOU do if it was your kid?

3

As a high school student (who doesn’t do that great in math class):

I work on an honor system with my parents, too. How it works: I come home from school, take about ten-twenty minutes to chill and organize. Then I go over the nightly and long-term assignments (Just basically “I’ve got to do this, this, and this tonight”). Then I go off and do my stuff. Before I go to bed, I need to show a parental unit what I’m handing in the next day, just to verify that I did do something productive.

My mom used to check my class notes. Would get pissed off when I didn’t have any. Finally, we reached the conclusion that I know what I need to take notes on, and if I don’t, I explain it to my teacher and my math tutor (who is a saint, I swear). If a teacher calls/emails/sends something home, the parents show me, give me the chance - don’t make me - explain what’s going on, and tell me to fix it. Usually I do, becuase I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to get the hell out of high school, ASAP.

With my tutor - if I can’t show hiim notes and/or homework, he can’t help me. He’s made this clear. THat’s my responsibility, and you need to talk to this kid about it. If he’s taking algebra, I’m assuming he’s in 7th or 8th grade. He probably is very disorganized and scattered, and probably doesn’t care about algebra. I can understand taking a ‘mental-health’ day, though, as long as he takes the responsibility for catching up (school is more stressful than most adult-types figure). He will, eventually, get it - either that, or drop out.

4

Great points, Triss. I have an 18-yr old, who (hopefully) will graduate this year. But he has slacked off so much, and skipped school, that he is having to go to Saturday school to make up for it.

All I can do is nag, and scare him. “You’re not going to graduate if you don’t go to class!!!” “Don’t worry, Mom, everything is under control.” “Well, it’s only your life we’re talking about here. And I won’t support you if you’re not going to school!!!” “It’s not a problem, I promise!”

AAAGGGHH!

5

My kid sister (who is 11 years old) sounds just like him. She is totally apathetic towards anything school related. Right now it looks like she is going to fail 6th grade and she doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about it.

I’d be more than happy to hear any suggestions about what to do. My poor Mom just doesn’t know how to handle the situation (and neither do I).

6

I am not taking this kid’s side here… but I HATED school. I didn’t want anything to do with it. It felt like prison, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Everything about it was pointless and I considered it a waste of my time.

Because it was decided I’d be doing a computer science degree, and that degree had a maths/science pre-requisite, I was doing Maths I, Maths II, Physics, Chemistry, English and, the only subject I had any choice about, French.

I was failing physics and chemistry, and barely scraping by in maths II. My physics teacher was a turd and basically told my parents I was mentally retarded. His logic was that if I couldn’t follow his (inane, illogical and draconian) teaching methods, I must be a fool.

Also, I just couldn’t be bothered doing homework for maths I. Despite that, I was doing ok.

I was sent to a tutor to try to improve my chemistry grades. I really didn’t give a fuck and would conveniently “forget” my textbook, homework etc.

Being sent for tutoring made me feel like my prison term was being extended. It wasn’t enough that I was going to school, then going home to try to study another four hours every night, I had to have my weekends taken up with this shit as well!

My parents wouldn’t acknowledge how much I hated school and the subjects I was being forced to take. Their solution was to force me to do even more of it, I guess in the hopes that something would sink in and my marks would improve. They did improve a little, but I think that was sheer luck more than study.

The bottom line here is that this kid really doesn’t want to be doing this subject, and no amount of browbeating will change that! It certainly won’t make him an A student. At best, (I’m sorry to be the one to say this), your tutoring will help him scrape through enough to graduate and get the hell away from school.

Sorry for being so long-winded.

With regards to your question about parents… they see what they want to see. My parents saw bad marks and decided it was because I wasn’t getting enough attention from the teachers at school. They didn’t want to acknowledge that I was being forced to do subjects I had zero interest in doing.

I think my parents tried to convince me that if I failed, my life would be miserable and I’d wind up in some lousy job in hell. My point of view was that I was already in hell and that working hard for better grades would just result in my finishing high school and going to the next level of hell (university).

mudcrutch, I don’t pretend to know your sister or her situation… I can only speak for myself. I just didn’t CARE about whether I passed or failed. Either way, I’d be made to do more of the same. I was trapped in a situation I considered hopeless and that I felt I was powerless to change. It brought on apathy and depression. Maybe your sister is being made to do something she just really doesn’t want to do?

Max.

7

I’d suggest doing your best, but if you can’t get him to take notes and follow along in class even slightly the most you are going to do, as Maxxxie said, is allow him to pass and get out of school asap.

I myself love learning for the sake of learning, which is why some people find it odd that I dropped out of high school. But at the time I had major problems, I have since gone back and received my diploma as well as been upgrading to get into my choice of university classes. Unfortunately, right now with the job situation I’m too tired to go to class (I work night shift, and we are understaffed right now). So sadly, though I love my class now, I will be dropping it on Monday just to keep myself sane.

I can totally understand the apathy thing. I was depressed and just trying to hold what was left of my family together and sane, I had so many problems at school with the teachers as well as the students that I just stopped caring. The only time I really cared was when my Dad would get on my ass about it (he even had us dragged before the school board) and that would last maybe a month before it fell apart again.

I always felt why should I care about school? The teachers aren’t even attempting to make classes interesting, I got abused by the other students (in a variety of ways) and I’m trying to keep a brave face as the eldest child stuck in the middle of a nasty divorce with an overbearing father who I couldn’t talk to and a mother who needed someone to lean on and help look after my brother. Where is time for school in there?

I don’t know about his situation, but at the very least it’s obvious he’s apathetic towards school. Unless he learns to live with it or love class… well your probably not gonna change him.

8

Regarding mental health days…

This really needs to be an individual decision. My current 17 year old “teenager” is an excellent student, almost to the point of being obsessive. She hasn’t had a grade below an A since 7th grade–she’s currently a junior and is first in her class of 302. When she asks for a mental health day, I have no qualms about granting it.

On the other hand, my 13-year-old “teenager” is a bit of a slacker. He puts forward enough effort to get good grades in subjects he likes and just blows off the others. He’d clearly prefer to stay home and play video games all day. Mental health days for him are few and far between.

9

Jinx, how dare you talk about my kid like that! Oh, wait, I haven’t hired a tutor…

Not all parents “see what they want to see”. Most of us have our eyes wide open. My son is lazy. That’s the only way to describe him. He also has ADD, which may or may not be contributing to his laziness. His father was also lazy, which is why we never married, but I don’t know if that sort of thing is hereditary or not. This has been our only bone of contention, and it has existed his entire life. I have learned, sadly, after 18 years, that there is little to nothing I can do about it. It can’t be disciplined out of him, it can’t be threatened out of him, it can’t be counseled out of him. Only he can motivate himself. He nearly failed 7th grade even though he is an extremely bright kid. He is a senior now, and it looks as though he will actually graduate. If he had only applied himself he would probably have oodles of scholarships and be able to pick his college. As it is, he may be lucky to get into the junior college. And I fear so greatly that his life is going to be hell - low paying jobs, no promotions, etc. because of his lazy ass. I can’t remember how many of his teachers just shook their heads, saying “so much promise…so much promise” then heaved a big sigh.

10

My youngest boys are 17 and 14 and they pretty much are responsible for maintaining their grades and school projects. We do get notices from the school if there is a danger of a bad grade and the teachers call us regarding behavior type problems.

The youngest one was having some trouble in Algebra so I scheduled a consult with a friend of mine who’s an engineer who now tutors kids in math. My kid then insisted he didn’t need tutoring, that he’d gotten over the blockage and was doing well. We kept our appointment for our consult, my friend reviewed basics with him, evaluated where he was, corrected some erroneous thoughts he had about procedure type things, and basically told me he was on track and had a good mastery of the subject. I was relieved to hear that because it confirmed his assessement of where he was at. Sometimes his evaluations are not based on reality, but more on what he hopes will happen.

Our school system has been on a block schedule for many years where there are four class periods per day of about 90 minutes each. I thought this worked well, especially for the harder subjects like math, chemistry, physics, etc. We’ve been informed next year they’re going back to the 8 subjects per day schedule (same as I had in high school) which I think is ludicrous. You’re practically finishing getting the book open when the period is ending with that type of schedule.

Regarding mental health days: we allow those on occasion when all is well, but never, ever if a kid is in trouble in class. Do you think those parents knew their kid and realized he really needed it, no matter what, or that they just didn’t care about it themselves?

The fact that he hasn’t mastered multiplication tables is a real clue here, I think. When my kids were on any kind of new mastery we’d practice it every where we went: “Brendan, I am going to buy 2 oranges and 2 apples, how many pieces of fruit will I have?” and we practiced multiplication tables on the way to school, on the way to church, in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, etc. Did his parents not monitor and assist him with this learning process, or why hasn’t this been mastered? It seems he needs rudimentary skills and I would really try to evaluate why he doesn’t have these as the basis for identifying how to help him.

11

Of course you’re both right about mental health days, as_u_wish and ChrystinP. I didn’t mean to post my opinion about them as if it were an incontrovertible fact applicable to all, or something.

What I should have said: My kid is doing fairly well in Gr. 9 but in his case, he can’t afford to take time off, not yet anyway. He’s on the semester system, 90 min. classes and they are intense.

Maxxxie, I understand & sympathize with you. It sounds like your degree wasn’t totally your choice. If that’s the case, then your attitude towards the subjects you disliked is all the more understandable. But surely you don’t really think that your improvements were due to luck and not additional studying?

Personally, I have no idea how to force my kids to do anything. (Can we still flog 'em? No? Dang. :wink: ) I just try to make sure they understand that the choices they make now have repercussions for their future. If they don’t believe me, then my options are limited. They’ll pretty much have to experiences whatever the consequences turn out to be, no matter how much I wish or want otherwise for them.

12

To your knowledge, is this the only subject the student you are tutoring is doing poorly in?

I ask because I did really poorly in math in middle school (algebra, in fact) and my parents got me a tutor (I had As and Bs in everything else). I too would “forget” to bring home my book, not take notes, have no idea what we were doing in class, etc. To make a long story short, it was found out later in that year that I was dyslexic. (I had always enjoyed reading, so I was able to compensate when it came to letters, but not to numbers.)

Of course, your student could always just be lazy. But it might be worth asking about.

13

Good question, slice, about whether math is the only subject the student does poorly in.

I have an 8th grade boy and another son who is a sophomore in college. Math was always my worst subject, and this carried over with my sons, although they’ve done much better than I.

Aside from special projects, we’d done the honor system, too, until my older son began high school. The slacking off began, he’d get an A in one subject and an F in another, he couldn’t or wouldn’t juggle all of his assignments, he’d skip a class etc etc.
It was partly confused adolescence, partly testing boundaries, partly the social thing…making friends had not always been easy for this kid. I began calling and emailing and visiting with his teachers, getting weekly progress reports. He managed to do okay by senior year, took and passed several AP courses.
Ever since he left the house for college and was accountable to himself more than us, he started taking school more seriously–he is a straight A student now. He does enjoy learning for the sake of it, which makes a big difference.

It’s one thing to slack off on assignments, it’s another to be completely clueless about the class. It would be good to know how this boy is doing in his other classes, and what he does with his time when he is home.

I do think that some parents only see what they want to see.
IMHO, I could not imagine letting my kid have a mental health day if he is doing that poorly: yes, school is stressful, but to me, playing catch-up is the worst kind of stress for a kid.

14

Hiya Triss :slight_smile:

In my case, I have a way of being able to skim through a semester’s worth of books and pick up enough main points that I can fudge it. I would cram the night before an exam and perhaps a little on the morning before the exam. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was good cramming technique, maybe it was the tutoring. Either way it sucked LOL

:slight_smile:
Max.

15

I too did not find out that I was dyslexic until my sophmore year in college. I also got A’s in everything else. WOW!! Someone else with my story- I do not feel so bad now.

Anyhow, my advice when it comes to encouraging children when it comes to learning is to start early. I mean kindergarten early. If they do not bring homework home, make up things for them to do. Help them to develop good study patterns and habits early so when it gets more difficult im Middle School and High School, studying and reading is already an established habit. My daughter reads an hour per day in additon to her homework so when she gets into high school and has to do all that reading that she is not shell shocked. Once she is in high school. she will be required to read 90 minutes to prepare for College. Sound extreme? I wish my parents had done that for me.

My 11 year old who has to tell me what she did in school that day and what she has for homework. All this has to be written in her daily planner and initialed by each teacher. She then has no excuse for not doing her homework. Recently she started failing math and I had her tested for dyslexia (shes not) and then I had a meeting with her instructors who were more than happy to meet with me. Now she is having tutoring and she is in counseling (teenage angst and stuff like that) and she is a different child.

Also, get to know the instructors of the children, be at the school, volunteer. The more people at the school that know your child, the less they feel like they can get away with. My daughter knows that I am in touch with her instructors on a weekly basis and I think that helps to keep her in line a bit.

The way I see it, is education is one of the most important things you can provide for your child, but educational success does not just lay in the hands of the teachers and the child, the parent plays an equally important part as the teacher.

16

Thanks, all for your opinions. Here’s some facts that will shock you: First, my pupil is in 9th grade. I don’t know how he’s doing in his other classes. He is not dyslexic…just lazy. However, he has extraordinary talents in art and cooking. His Mom is an art teacher, but fails to recognize where his true talents lay. Still, there’s NO excuse for NOT knowing your multiplication tables!

Next, about ADD, you make of it what you want. My nephew is ADD, and he is one year ahead in math! For some, he’s two years ahead…an 8th grader doing well in Algebra II!!! If you want to use ADD as a crutch, let the world will label you and keep you down, go right ahead. But, if you have determination, you can do anything you want to do. My nephew’s living proof. He works hard for his grades; it just doesn’t come to him without studying and fighting to make the grades.

Last, who hasn’t hated school? Many teachers? The kids? Again, it’s up to you. I had few friends in school, and I didn’t care what they thought of me. In all the years, I had only a few good teachers. At home, we were living on the edge financially. At first, I didn’t care about my studies. But, once my grades started slipping, my parents DID put me into academic “boot camp”. I had to prove my worth to earn their trust back. My father made me get the teachers to sign off on my homework assignment book, and he’d inspect the assignment book AND my completed homework assignments every night. He wasn’t buying that I didn’t have homework, unless a teacher signed-off on that was the truth. It took a long time to earn their trust back once I damaged my integrity in their eyes.

Yes, my parents were tough, but they knew the real-world didn’t tolerate slackers, either. Yes, I hated how they embarassed me in this fashion, and we fought a lot. Nonetheless, it was time for me to start growing up and become responsible. That was 9th grade…

I became a better student because of it, and these self-reliance skills are critical for survival in college. In college, no one is there to push you. It’s all up to you. Don’t attend class? Let your grades drop? Fine! The schools are just happy to take your money and drop you as a student.

This is life; this is reality. If you really want something, you got to work hard to get it. The biggest kick in the butt will come when all your friends have moved ahead and you’re still taking orders at McDonalds.

So, when the warning signs are there, I say “Yes!” Parents must take action as long as they live under your roof…unless you have a money tree in your backyard. Otherwise, as my MOm made it so clear to me “shape up, or ship out”. Sounds tough? Go ask your boss how long he’ll keep you around if you skip deadlines and work assignments? No one likes dead wood, kids…
IMHO,

  • Jinx
17

Excellent, no-nonsense attitude. I totally agree with you.

But we both know that your mom would not have kicked you out of the house when you were in 9th grade. So how did your parents really force you to take responsibility for yourself? Checking homework assignments only goes so far.

It IS up to the kid. After they reach a certain age, you can’t force 'em to do homework or much of anything else.

Good on you for your realistic attitude. :slight_smile: