Stepson underperforming academically

In My Humble Opinion
1

My stepson is a bright kid, in my opinion. I think he’s academically talented, although his report card didn’t show it. He read early and has placed in extension classes via testing, for example.

He’s entering 10th grade after Christmas holidays. In Australian schools, the grades he gets in the next few years are (from what I’m told) the main, if not sole, determinant in what university programs he can enter.

He has mentioned a couple realistic career interests. He currently says he’d like to be a lawyer. I think he could do it but needs to improve his grades.

Comments from his teachers range from “a pleasure to be around” to “wastes time” to “displays unacceptable behaviour”.

He rarely does homework. We’ve given him complete freedom this year to study as he wishes, as we set a study time and got him a math tutor last year, but his grades were below where they should be for where he wants to go. His grades this year are about the same, a couple Bs and Cs in everything else. We thought the autonomy thing might be worth a shot, particularly as this is the last year that his grades don’t count toward entering university.

He has a job at a fast food restaurant. This is new this year.

He stays with his father half the time. His mother and I have little to no influence on his study time when he is away.

Any advice? I’d particularly like comments from teachers and parents. Any books or useful websites you can recommend? Thanks.

2

He sounds like a perfectly normal teenager. If he brings up his lawyer plans again, gently remind him that his grades aren’t quite there and that if he’s serious about it, he should work on getting them up.

Otherwise, don’t hound him. “Bright” kids hate that.

3

He sounds like me (except for wanting to be a lawyer, I’d shoot myself before doing that…)

See about checking for ADHD. It doesn’t always manisfest as hyperactivity. I never was hyper, I just find it difficult to maintain interest over a period of time. I’m not talking about short term here (hours or minutes,) either. Interest in new things (jobs, hobbies, etc.) wanes after a relatively short time that can be measured in days, weeks, or months depending on the complexity of the situation and how much new stuff there is to absorb - new stuff that keeps leading to new stuff being hte best.

I am over 40 and have just recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Your description of your stepson sounds so very much like me when I was in school. Some people grow out of it, and some don’t. In any case, learning to deal with it (whether that involves medication or not) is better than running blind and being frustrated by all the failures inherent in a life with ADHD. If you know how to deal with it, you won’t have to hit the failures.

4

Random things:

Some people work/study better in unstructured environments, others need some structure. For high school, I could study and do my homework without my parents telling me, but this was after elementary, where my family made sure I had “study time”. Once the habit was formed, they let me loose, and I kept studying. But later in my career, I’ve had to have structured time again so that I can focus on my subject.

Perhaps going back to setting aside study time for him would be good. He can focus and give his attention to his homework and classes. Or maybe you won’t even need to do that, just telling him that you will may make him improve the study habits on his own.

In what classes is he doing poorly? Is he doing poorly because of the tests, because of not turning in homework/projects, or because of class behavior? If he’s not turning in his projects/homework, why is that? Is it because he thinks they are stupid (I did, I was guilty of that)?

It is possible his job is affecting his studying, especially if it is during the week. Perhaps he is too tired and unfocused after work to deal with schoolwork. And schoolwork should be first, if he cannot handle both at the same time, perhaps he shouldn’t be working.

If the relationships with his dad and his mom are amicable, perhaps it would be nice to bring this to him too. If he is also on board, he may also re-institute the structured study time, or help him with tutoring, or attend some teacher/parent meeting. That way, both parents are on the same page regarding the issue, and can deal it with it better rather than each independently.

I think you should remind him, like Justin said, that if he wants to go to certain places to study, he must improve his grades, either by studying more, being less disruptive in class, and/or learn when to suck it up, stop arguing, and do the project he finds idiotic.

There is also the possibility that he will end up studying something different to what he now claims, and for that new major, his grades are appropriate.

Lastly, he may not be as bright as thought. I had classmates who had learned to read way before I did, but by the time we were in high school, those early milestones were negligible, and we were roughly at the same level.

5

These things all seem pretty normal for any teenager. I think you’re right to step back and let him direct his own studies, because he’s of an age where any other approach just seems ridiculous. Lots of people, when they were in tenth grade, wanted to be this or that, and it would be a while before they figured out they really didn’t have the drive to be a Dr or whatever. And of course parents often think they know their child’s ‘real’ potential and what they ought to achieve. Only to discover, some years later, their dream for the child, as righteous as it may be, just isn’t and never was really, in the cards. Almost every parent can say, “I don’t think he/she realized his/her full potential. I always thought they had it in them to be a - whatever!”

I’m not sure how schools work in Australia, but worst case scenario around these parts, the kid comes up against the reality of the limiting nature of poor test scores, and has to return and repeat a year of high school. It’s not the end of the world, as price to pay for valuable life lessons, in my opinion.

I think this experience is probably as much a lesson in parenting, and letting go, ‘your children are beyond your command’, ‘you can’t push a rope’, for you, as it stands to be a lesson, in focus and applying yourself, for him.

Step back and let him do what he’s going to do. Offer to help him, when he’s with you, maintain a study schedule or whatever you can do to help him (outside of tutors etc), if he wants. The ‘if he wants’ is key though. Just keep offering. It’s okay to ask if he’s aware the impact his grades will have on his school choices, rather pointedly, from time to time.

Is this the difference between getting into a really prestigious uni or some lesser school? Because it’s possible he just doesn’t value that as much as you do. If so, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept that’s how it is.

6

Very good advice, in general, Elbows. And the very WORST thing to do if it is ADHD.

You can’t tell from the outside, but for people with ADHD it doesn’t matter how much you want to do something - it still ain’t gettin’ done. I have literally CRIED with frustration over not being able to do something that I very much wanted to. I’m not talking about something external (parents or circumstance) stopping me, but rather that something internal blocks me from doing the things I want to do. I will spend time planning something, joyously anticipate working on it, purchase the materials needed, and a couple of months later finally realize that it is never going to get done.

I would check to be sure it isn’t ADHD. If it isn’t, then by all means back off and let the kid learn his life lessons. If it is ADHD, then there are mechanisms to cope with it that he needs to learn. Medication may or may not be part of the solution. Learning to cope with the blockages, however, definitely will be part of it.

ADHD isn’t as such a bad thing. I know I think differently than people without it, and my insights and abilities have stood me in good stead. I also know that if I’d had better mechanisms for handling the ADHD I could have accomplished much more in my life.

7

Sure there’s no harm in testing for it, of course. But, to be honest, I was discounting it as something of an over(self/internet)diagnosed thing, almost kneejerk, no offense intended.

I’m thinking if he’s getting B’s and C’s, it’s less likely crippling ADHD, and much more likely normal teenage distraction and lack of focus.

Teenage years are often turbulent and always changing times, and it must surely be more so for any child who lives in two families. That’s a lot of dynamics to juggle, no matter how harmonic the families may be, during an already turbulent period of a child’s development.

I should think this parent, who is so very much more familiar with the child, is in a position to judge for himself if this child needs to be tested for ADHD better than any of us.

8

I knew before I even read the OP more or less what it would say, it sounds just like me.

So does furdmort’s description of homself. I haven’t been diagnosed though.

My advice to the OP is this: No amount of tutoring, classes on study techniques, lecturing, pleading, bribing, grounding etc. will get the kid to study. It’s possible that he quite literally can’t. If that’s the case, then learning how to specifically deal with his situation is necessary.

And this.

9

Hitting B’s and C’s was easy. I could manage that without ever having turned in a single page of homework - just reading the book and doing the in class assignments was enough. I’d routinely ace tests after having not turned in a single homework assignment. I have a sort of an ace in the hole that got me through school. I’m a reading addict. Words in a row draw my eyes like magic. I usually read and re-read the school text books just to keep from dying of boredom in class.

10

Because it’s so for you doesn’t mean that’s what going on for this kid. I think the parent would know better than a bunch of internet strangers is all. But I’m not in any way opposed to getting the kid tested.

My advice should perhaps have been prefaced with, ‘If he’s been tested and doesn’t have ADD…’. I’m beginning to think all advice concerning child rearing on the internets should probably be prefaced this way - just to save bandwidth!:smiley:

11

:smiley:

12

Pretty much 90% of getting good grades is actually reading the material and doing the assignments.

13

This sounds like both me and my brother. Neither of us have ADHD, we were both just really bored or lazy in high school.

Once both of us got out and into college where we could study the things that we were interested in, things completely turned around. My junior college GPA was something like 3.2 (got sucked down by the math and language requirements), and went up to 3.8 when I transferred to a university where all my coursework was for my major.

I’m betting the “pleasure to be around” comments are for classes he enjoys and “wastes time” are for the classes he doesn’t.