Tell me about your bright, able but can't be arsed DC's

notagiraffe My kids are not at the local comp, they are at the leafier one just up the road that gets lots of kids into good universities.

catsrus
That is true. The DD of a friend had to drop out of college for medical reasons. She's decided to do modelling for a couple of years and then go back and do her A levels when she feels like it and her health is secure.

i could have written most of these posts.
all you can do is support,chat,nag whatever until they realise it themselves and sort it.with different children it will be different ages.ds coasted all through juniors and secondary.did ok at gcses ok at a levels (maybe a last minute surge of something...?) and is now studying at uni but picked imo a fairly easy option at a non demanding uni.but hey ho he is happy.the turning point for him which has happened fairly recently is meeting a lovely girl who is extremely motivated and has sorted him out with a part time job.

Let them fail. Seriously. No exam they take now is the end of the story. They might end up being a few yrs behind their peers in going to Uni etc but if they choose to work and get there it will be their achievement.

It's not like it used to be, they don't have to be on the academic treadmill and have one clear career trajectory. Failure - particularly for a bright teenager, can be very motivating in the end we can't do it for them - just provide the opportunities.

I was the same at school. I managed to wing it with O levels and got good grades, but it didn't work so well for A levels. Did pull my socks up for my degree

Wordfactory just to say that attending a super-selective won't necessarily make a difference to your DS! Mine is at one and he's still lazylaidback...

I find it very frustrating because I'm naturally less clever but worked really really hard....It is incredibly difficult to know quite how to motivate a child.....

Talkinpeace, your local comp can't be that manky if your DC is sitting 11 GCSEs and predicted 11 As or A*. Many schools don't even sit that many. That's demanding super-selective levels of commitment from both pupils and teachers. Pretty impressive (if daunting).

DD does very well at her non selective (ish).

But she is just averagely bright. To get a good raft of A*s she will need to work hard anyway. If she coasts she might not. So she won't.

DS is brighter than that. GCSEs just aren't enough of a challenge so in a different environment he could easily coast and like everyone says, come very unstuck having never developed a taste for hard work.

Where he is, he aint all that . He's not unusual in any way. He's not allowed to coast.

wordfactory
But DD has achieved what you wanted in her comp.

I sat at parents evening scanning the predicted grades (an old left hander auditor trick - reading through face down paper) and the whole of her sets are targeted A / A* in all 11 subjects

the real praise will come when they get A* in their weakest, non A level subjects

and then when they excel at the 6th form college up against 1700 other pupils, many of whom have come from selective private schools

and then when they get unconditionals to the uni of their choice.

What has mahoosively changed since I was a kid is that schools (even my local manky comp) value bright kids so do not tolerate bullying of them

on the other hand, schools are now better at picking out "coasters"

remember that I went to a posh crammer in London to retake my As with representatives of every single high profile school in the country (and some from abroad like Geelong) and we'd all been predicted good grades when we should not.

talkin that's one of the reasons I really wanted DS to attend a super selective school.

I wanted him to be somewhere where he's not seen as terribly clever. Just one of many. There will be no pat on the back for an A because everyone will get an A.

Instead the work handed out is routinely challenging. No one is expected to find it easy or be able to do it all. Effort is required and celebrated.

I think that striking the balance between showing convincing belief in your DC's ability and encouraging them to work hard to achieve their full potential is a hard act. There is, IMO, no recipe as different DC have different buttons.

Ds1. 14, year 10. Spent the first 3 years coasting along, putting in no effort whatsoever because all the teachers kept telling him how "bright" and "charming" he was.

Start of this year. New head of year. Explained to him that yes he could coast along and get an average set of GCSE results if he wanted. But that would mean moving down to set 2 in every lesson because the set 1 children were expected to get all As and if he didnt want to work towards that, there was not much point him being in the class.

Overnight change. Although, how long it will last is questionable tbh

Talkinpeace yes, and not just that. For the rest of your life, hard workers outstrip laid back bright people in most areas. There are so many additional advantages to hard work: meeting deadlines, getting good at what you're weakest at, not being afraid to have a go at new stuff, being modest about what you might achieve and then over delivering at the end. All of these are far more impressive, long term, than natural flair.

The thing is that kids are labelled as "gifted" when in fact they are just "accelerated"
ie they can pick up basic concepts quicker than other kids at primary
but by mid secondary, theose who actually work hard start to overtake most of them
(think tortoise and the hare)
DD is bright but works bloody hard.
Her best friend (lad) is equally if not even brighter and she has just started whumping him in results because he thinks he can carry on winging it

basically "brightness" will last you till about 14
then hard work has to take over.

Richard Feynmann's writings on the topic are worth digging out.

I have the same problem.

We have resorted to doing things as we did in my day. No sky TV only the first 4 channels. No computer games or phones. No money unless you work for it (in my DCs case it means A* or merits)
This has had a massive impact on our family. The children actually communicate with us now, behaviour, concentration and energy levels have improved also.

Please watch this it is soooo interesting its a talk by Sir Tim Robinson.

Interesting thread. I've been telling suggesting to DH that he stop telling DS that he's a bright boy as he approaches the 11+ in an attempt to encourage him to work harder to get through the entrance exams, because I think I can see DS getting a bit confused. He is bright, according to his teachers, but not the brightest. Sadly, he wants to be the best at something - anything would do - and he isn't. It's coming hard to him that most people live their entire lives not being the best at anything. Most of us have to just come to terms with just being good at some things (and not good at others).

I think breadandbutterfly's point is excellent: praise them for being hardworking and being brave enough to have a shot at things knowing that they may not get them, not for being clever. If we keep telling him he's clever enough to get into e.g. Dulwich, and he doesn't, he's either going to feel like his parents don't know him at all, or like he's let us down. I'm trying now to just tell him that if he wants to have a go at these schools, we'll support him all the way, and that hard work is the only thing he can deploy to try to get what he wants.

Not sure this really belongs on this thread, actually, sorry to go off piste - but it struck a chord because I'm looking at my poor little 10 YO, who's being on the whole pretty good about working for these wretched exams, but who I fear is just not mature enough to produce the type of English work required.

Sorry, bit rambly!

breadandbutter that is so true about kids labelled bright ducking out of things they have to work at. I had that. I got lousy GCSEs because I didn't lift a finger, and was actually only 'gifted' (whatever that means) in one localised area. Stuck with that area for A levels, so got good A level grades but it took me years to learn how to knuckle down to hard work at something you don't excel at. The funny things is, it's one of the greatest pleasures in life, to get even averagely good at something you are naturally rubbish at. I get far more sense of achievement at breathlessly coming last in a 5k race, than I ever did for winning awards for translation.

Precious - your son makes me smile. DS1 has said that to me too. He just stares at me and says 'Budget Care Home' if I'm on his back.

Sandy, you could try a bit of psychological manipulation. Instead of worrying about her, which puts the pressure on her to achieve for your sake, focus entirely on her hopes and dreams. Find out what she's most ambitious for or most excites her in life, and then slip in motivational comments such as 'I know you're capable of working hard, because x is so important to you' or 'I trust you to aim for good grades because I know how much you want to...' or 'Mrs Y (teacher) reckons you are pretty committed to french, because you want to live in Paris, and she's confident you could get a B or an A. I'm happy to test you on vocab to help you get that A if you like. Give me a shout when you want to do it.'

I learned this technique from a parenting book. It's pretty effective, because there's no blame or worry involved, only positive reinforcement that you trust her, that you know she can achieve and that when she does, she's doing it for her own bright future and because she motivates herself, not because she's been badgered into it.

The other thing I do is chat to DC (who always want to be out with friends) and help them plan the week. Mon-Thurs - heads down, and if they finish homework early, then they can skype or game etc. Fri is always a night off. If they have loads of revision at the weekend, I suggest they do it on Saturday morning and then reward themselves by fixing to meet friends for a film or to go shopping. That they reward themselves for hard work, not I reward them, is the key. Though I'm always happy to give them a bit extra for sweets or magazines or a DVD is they have really concentrated.

I own one of these - he's in Yr13 now - it doesn't get easier until you decide you've had enough, and they can stand or fail on their own.

DS1 has always been a good student but since the end of Y8 he seems to have lost his motivation.

He seems to have given up on some subjects completely (those he doesn't want to continue to GCSE) and in others he is trying to get away with the minimum effort possible.

He has always made good progress in his half-termly reports (the sort of levels that would have led to A*/A grades at the end of Y11) but his most recent report showed he was falling behind in half his subjects so he had to go and see the head of year.

We have given him until the next progress report in January to show some significant improvement. If he doesn't, there'll be a restriction on his wi-fi access (he doesn't have 3G) and potentially less freedom in his GCSE options.

I was one.
Managed to wing it through O levels.
Came unstuck at A levels.

I wouldn't disagree with that.....

Lots of research shows that kids labelled 'clever', 'bright', or worse, 'G&T' see themselves in that way and so achieve less well - because they imagine they are good enough they don't need to work. And if they come across anything challenging that might show they are not as clever as others think, they are more likely to give up than risk trying, failing and making others realise they aren't actually clever.

Conversely, children praised for effort rather than ability go on to try harder when faced with a challenge because that is what they have been admired for previously.

So, in short, don't tell your kids they're bright - praise them for being hard-working. Some of the kids described above sound like they are aware they are the 'clever' ones - that's the downside of top tables, sets etc. I know my dd would probably be a harder worker without the G&T label - it's supposed to help them (by providing appropriate activities) but probably does the reverse.