DS has always had his head in the clouds a bit, I have never been able to ask him once, always the last one out, forgets to do things he does regularly etc.
It seems as if it needs someone to be really cross with him or deny him something (pocket money) before he pulls his socks up and does something about it. I generally feel as if I need to be over his shoulder all the time nagging him, or it doesn't get done, however if we have recently had a big set to about an issue he will suddenly magically remember to do everything he should do.
I know I'm not explaining this very well, so examples would be
He was told if he didn't remember to tuck his shirt in he would be put on uniform report, he didn't and so was put on report for a week. He remembered every day that week, so came off report and now 2 days later I have had a note from his tutor saying he will go back on report as it is now untucked again.
He has to underline his titles in his work. He doesn't do this until the teacher mentions it in her marking (they are taken in to be marked once a week or so) and then he underlines for a few days before he forgets again.
There are quite a few other 'little' things like this, which I always feel bad nagging him about as he is a very good boy in so many ways. He is quite mature, his marks are great, he got A for effort in all subjects other than RE and cookery, he is and has always been able to fairly easily do the work he is set across most of the subjects.
We have tried encouragement and praise, charts, bribery, grounding and pocket money stopped. It sometimes feels that the only thing that works is really throwing a wobbly at him which I hate doing, and anyway this generally is short lived and is wrong on so many levels including the fact that it is often something trivial, but horribly repetitive, he doesn't 'dot the i's and cross the t's' iyswim.
Am I making too much of these things? Is it normal for a 12 yo just to be lazy about them? I do feel he makes the minimum effort required but this doesn't reflect in his mid-year report.
If I'm not then how do I tackle this?