What's a good way to motivate a kid to do better in school.

Great Debates
21

Laziness or the symptoms, there of, in teenagers can be caused by several factors.

  1. Physical Illness: He may be suffering from a physical illness that while otherwise symptom less is sapping his strength. (Low-grade glandular fever springs to mind)
  2. Psychological Disorders: He may be suffering from some form of disorder that leads to the symptoms of laziness. Depression has been brought up previously however there are a number of other conditions that can cause these symptoms.
  3. Peer integration: As is also mentioned already he may be suffering due to a problems with peer integration.
  4. Family: He may be having problems coping with his changing role with-in the family dynamics.
  5. He hates whathe is learning. An artist learning science, an achedemic forced to do competitive sports.
  6. He may be lazy. There is such a thing, it is however very rare in health adults.

It would help to know some more facts:
Have you checked with a physician of some sort?
Did the private school start with high school?
How much freedom did he have regarding what he/where he was learning?
How well socially integrated is he?
Ho many people does he ‘have fun with’ outside of school?
What does he enjoy doing?
Does he offer any explanation for the grades?

Which avenues to persue will depend on these sorts of variables.

What ever the cause, good luck, and keep caring.
Britt

22

Show 'im a few episodes of Cosmos. He’ll suddenly want to grow up to be an astrophysicist. :wink:

23

You could gently remind him that the better he does in school, the sooner he will be able to be independent, at which time he won’t have to follow your pesky rules anymore :slight_smile: and thus he will be in control of his own life.

24

I was in the same boat in my high school years. I was a miserable student. It never changed. Eventually I did well for myself and I’m fairly bright as well as fairly sucessful, but that was mostly luck.

You need, of course, to rule out any serious problems, as the many posts above have suggested. Failing those things, here’s MY story.
In retrospect, what would have helped me to do better? I would have liked my parents to have taken an active role in my learning. If my father had helped me with my homework, maybe even once a week, I might have been more motivated. Lessons I learned at my fathers side were never forgotten, and those are my best memories. But to my parents, who were products of the depression, an education was a gift not to be wasted. They forgot that I had never had their hardships to endure, so I had no appreciation for the education they were providing.

Be involved. Youn might be ignored at first but stick it out.Make a point to be with him when he does his homework. Turn off the TV. Find out from his teachers what kind of homework he has so he can’t dodge it.

And good luck.

B.

25

Chiming in to agree with Jess above, the book is indeed ‘Ending the Homework Hassle’ by John Rosemond. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it but it is chock full of fantastic practical advice. As I recall it is largely geared toward the problems younger kids face, but I think there are several applications and Q & A type sections that deal with the teenager too. He may even have another book or two dealing specifically with teenagers. Before you pull your hair out, read this one. It’s a great starting point for sane solutions.

26

I think ADHD sounds like a good possibility. (BTW, it’s technically a behavior disorder rather than a learning disorder.) People with ADHD are often thought of as “smart but lazy”–not studying, not completing anything, doing half-assed jobs.

There hasn’t been a lot of work done on ADHD in adults just yet, but I think it can initially present later in life. I think some people develop defense mechanisms to deal with it over the years, and then later on the tasks they are required to do exceed the capacity they have developed, and they “decompensate”. (This happened to me at the beginning of medical school.)

A visit to a good psychiatrist might be beneficial. Don’t be put off if he suggests medication at the first visit, but make sure he has looked into such possibilities as depression or learning disabilities, and make sure he has had a full physical and screening at his regular physician. (I think of ADHD as a diagnosis of exclusion.)

The other suggestions here have been great–I’m just weighing in from my field and from personal experience. I know how frustrating this can be, and I hope something works out.

Dr. J

27

I have three teenagers. I’ve struggled with all of them at one time or another. I know where you are. Listen carefully.

Go see a counselor. First, describe the problem. Then bring your kid in. Then both of you, then the whole family if necessary.

Whether you realize it or not, you are now at war with your kid. You are not thinking clearly, neither is he. You are not thinking “what’s best for my kid?” but instead “how dare he screw around?” He is not thinking “wow, I could get 10 grand!” but instead “wow, I’m messin’ with his mind!”

At this point, it’s time to let cooler heads prevail. Get a third party involved. Do a little probing, get some perspective, face the music.

If you’re willing to spend $10K to get him to pull his grades up to a C, you should be willing to spend a fraction of that to try to get to the root of the problem.

28

I still continue to maintain that you need to stop micromanaging your son’s life. I know perfectly well that letting your son exercise more freedom when he appears to be going through a troubling period is difficult; my parents basically refused to do it. However, it’s something that you have to learn to deal with. Teenagers, by their nature, will not just accept everything that their parents tell them with no questions asked. Some of the learning that occurs in this part of your son’s life will have to come from his own experience. It’s part of growing up.
Putting more and more punishments and controls in place is simply a bad idea. This just gives your son a reason to focus more anger and resentment against you. I know that it isn’t easy for you to deal with him under the conditions that you described. Letting go of teenage children is never easy for any parent.

29

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ITR champion *
Many of the parents living today could be accurately described as ‘overprotective’ or ‘overinvolved’

[QUOTE]

I think the opposite is true—not enough parents are truly involved in their childrens’ lives. Many parents have no idea what their child is thinking and feeling and needing. Parental agendas differ widely from teenagers. And the expectations and discipline begin too late. My best friend always excused her boy’s grammer school grades—he was shy and the teachers wouldn’t pay attention to him. He accepted a ride home from a stranger and lied about it when another kid’s mom called to make sure his mom knew. She ws so glad he was okay, all he got was another safety lecture. Now, suddenly, at 14, he’s accountable for good grades, good attitude and, as he says,“being perfect all the time”. My daughter is in his class and tells me what is important to her—her cell phone and her boyfriend.(My ex got her the phone, she got the bf by herself) I am an excellent student, she is a casual one. She is not me at 14. I can ignore the Ds. I have ignored an F. She is a good girl, a joy to know, and she has slowly figured out that good grades=good stuff. She got all As and Bs this quarter and her bf was so proud of her, saying she was really smart and awesome and not just pretty. It stung a little that he’s motivated her in ways I never could, but whatever it takes to make a happy,safe,confident girl…

30

I had a similar problem in high school. I didn’t do homework, didn’t do projects, rarely did much on tests, just didn’t do much of anything. My dad was at wit’s end trying everything from a tutor to punishments. Nothing worked. Looking back, I think I just wasn’t ready. I don’t know that anything could have worked.

Turns out I was depressed. Counciling helped, but not as much as switching to an “Alternative School.” Not a vo-tech, but a school with tiny class sizes (3 or 4), lots of personal attention and encouragement, and (most important) easygoing, supportive peers. It also helped that my dad eased up, at the advice of the shrink.

I don’t know if this helps you, but I wanted to let you know that it is possible to totally suck at highschool and turn into a productive adult. It happened (happens?) to me.

31

Maybe I’m alone on this… But I try to stay very well informed about my classes so they aren’t challenging. I hate doing homework, and making it harder only makes me put it back in my backpack if I even think of doing it.

32

Here’s my little solution: get him to fall in love.

Seriously. I fell in love with an exchange student with study habits that would make the cast of Revenge of the Nerds shudder. In an attempt to attract her eye, I began studying (and cut my hair, and started bathing more often, yada yada yada) much more than I did.

She returns to her home country this summer, I’ve given up the chase, but I got an arm cramp carrying my books home for the spring break. I have a 3.8 GPA and a small amount of pride, and even regret that I didn’t do this earlier, perhaps in elementary school (last semester, my GPA was a shameful 2.8.).

Love is a fine madness, I suppose.

33

Leave him alone. If he fails- his fault. He’ll have to work it out on his own. Just like everything else for the rest of his life. You’re not always going to be there, are you daddy?

I went to a private school for awhile, but finally managed to get kicked out. I then went to the local school and didn’t do much better- I barely graduated with a 1.9 GPA. Hated the teachers, hated my mom for nagging me, only wanted to spend time with my friends, the works. I didn’t even do many drugs back then- only drank occasionally, and more often than not I was the designated driver hauling all my friends home on a Friday night. Even after I moved out at the beginning of my Senior year I didn’t care to make school a priority. I just didn’t want to live life the way others wanted me too. I don’t even think I was trying to prove a point, I simply didn’t care about high school.

Then I went to community college. I enrolled in an aviation course and started taking classes that I enjoyed- boom! 3.77 GPA! From there on out I was always going to school, doing odd-jobs, living the life of a young-adult. Then I finally applied myself at 23 and got a full-ride to a private liberal arts college.

Now I’m 30, very happily married, have a great job using my brain everyday, and living overseas in the prettiest city in the world. And if ANYONE would ever ask me what would have happened if “I had just taken high school more seriously” I would laugh in their face and say I probably wouldn’t have gotten laid as much. But other than that- high school has very little bearing on what one can do with one’s life. High school is a bad joke that everyone has to suffer through, IMHO.

Again, leave him alone. Let him live his life. He fails? Big deal, his choice. Kick him out the day he turns 18. He’ll sink or swim regardless of what his GPA is in high school. If/when he comes around- there will be choices, there always are.

34

Having first hand experience with being a “great student, until he hit high school, now he’s lazy, what happened?!”, here’s my take.

He might have figured out that high school is NOT as important as everyone tries to pound into his head everyday. Believe it or not, you CAN just barely get through high school and not end up living on the streets. No one tells you that when you’re a teenager, though…they just tell you that you’d BETTER be getting As in school or you’ll be a total failure in life. Real encouraging, heh…

Being artistic, I hated math/science/history (English was fine though, I got excellent marks in English), and I got horrible grades in them. It wasn’t that I was stupid, but I just didn’t care enough to spend my time on them. As far as I was concerned, as long as I passed the class (by however little), that was good enough, because it wasn’t going to be useful to me later in life. Has ANYONE (besides a teacher, heh) had to be able to convert a quadratic formula to it’s standard factored form in everyday life as an adult? Or been going for a job interview and had the guy ask “So just which two people DID start the French Revolution?”? And if you have no interest in the subject, and have an idea of what you want to do with your life and know it’s not going to matter, then why would you try to get As?

Ask him what he wants to do with his life. Maybe he’s figured it out on his own already, and if he’s doing good in ANY subjects, those are probably the ones that he should focus on and get good grades in those with bad grades in the others, rather than just average grades in everything.

Anyway, if it were me (as the parent), I would have a talk with (not at) him…See what he likes to do, see if he knows what he wants to do with his life, and if he doesn’t, see if I can help him figure it out. And give him space, lots of space…My dad forced me for a year to “study” every night with him while he went through every question on my homework making me do it over and over having to explain how everything worked on it, not letting me go to sleep or have supper until we were done and blah blah blah, and it was hell. I still hate him for doing that, and in the end I still got bad marks in math (because I hated it that much more).

Anyway, I have to go with the “back off” method…If he screws it up this year, he can always take another year, take summer courses, etc. And whatever you do, don’t call him lazy, stupid, a failure, tell him “fine, I give up on you”, or “so what are you going to do WHEN you fail?”…I’ve heard it all and it doesn’t help in the least.

(and for the record, I was 2% away from not graduating (if my math mark had been 2% lower, I wouldn’t have passed the course and wouldn’t have had the credits to graduate), and I’m currently finishing (1 week to go, whew) 2 years at a community college studying subjects that interest me, and I’m MUCH happier…I still haven’t used grade 12 math/history for anything, but any day now I’m sure…)

  • Tsugumo (I would have taken the 10K for a C though, holy crap)
35

Take him to a shrink, if the shrink says he is ok then you can do the following.

  1. take him to see some state schools and say ‘i ain’t paying for you to go to some private school if you don’t work !’ — , best to take him to rough looking ones, ( tee hee )

  2. drive him around to the poor area of town and say ‘you are going to be living here cos when your 18, YOUR OUT !’

  3. if he still don’t mend his ways… take him out of private school and use the money on the other kids, he is just a duff one.

life is cruel, let him know this and he may fight back…