Feel like I've failed as 15 year old ds has no interest in his education

[1newname]

How do people do it? I know you shouldn't compare but how come some people seem to produce children who actually want to do well academically? I end up feeling it's something I've done to make him so uninterested. Ds2 is just going into year 11 and he has absolutely no interest. All throughout primary school and year 7/8 he was doing so well. Now he looks set to get 4s or 5s in most subjects and he just doesn't care. In his end of year report most subjects mentioned lack of effort.

Is this nature or nurture? Do I just need to back off and let him achieve well below his potential?

My eldest ds was very motivated academically - he got mostly 7s 8s and 9s at GCSEs, has just got great A level results and a place at his first choice uni. Never had to nag him to revise or complete homework after about yr8.
Maybe slightly smugly, I was proud of the work ethic I'd instilled in him.
HA!
Ds2 couldn't be more different. He's just started year 11 and couldn't give the slightest fuck about school work. 4 days into term and I'm already tearing my hair out.
So sorry, no great advice but a whole heap of sympathy.

He sounds like a typical teen who doesn't want to think about the future. I've got 3DC and none of them are very academic. They all left school at 16 and went to the local FE college to do vocational/creative courses. Would he be interested in countryside management/ranger type work? Maybe he could do some work experience or volunteering in that field.

DC1 was really pleased when he realised he could study something he did as a hobby at FE college - he's now doing the same subject at uni.

Well? Have you or his dad been doing anything about it?
(Other than telling him to put forth more effort and chalking it up to poor attitude)

He may have always been less resilient, and struggled less obviously earlier, but you earlier pinpointed a definite downslope after year 8. So he is objectively worse.

Well no he doesn't get paid for going to school and luckily in the UK education is free (perhaps point out to him that many others aren't so fortunate). But he is money motivated so may be the "bribing"/rewarding performance has value?
And once he gets good GCSEs, he can go onto an apprenticeship aligned with his passion ad get paid for it... but he has to get decent GCSEs

Dare I say that IME most women (especially professional/middle class women) are woefully uninformed about trades and construction jobs, as are a lot of men. There's very good money to be made in civil construction. Not just engineers/architects/etc and graduate jobs.

I mean, the builder responsible for manning the barrier at the site I'm working on gets £250 a day! He just opens a barrier and tells the trucks where to go.

I agree with this, construction is a great sector.

Teens need to be motivated by something, whether it's a hobby, interest, money, lifestyle. My dd enjoys the nice things in life (skincare, expensive hobbies, clothes, holidays etc) and is very lucky. She doesn't have a passion for a particular subject in school (but a bit of an all rounder) but she knows that to have a nice lifestyle the best way to do that is to get good qualifications so that she has uni/ job options. She knows we won't be subsidising her lifestyle once she hits 18. Of course we'll support her with uni and other costs just not the luxuries.

Does your ds want to be a musician? Is it realistic, as in does he have a talent. Can you get him an appt with careers advisor in school? Sounds like he doesn't have a goal. If you don't have a goal it's hard to get motivated.

Have you said it might not be paid, but it's still an investment.

People can rake away physical things from you but they can't take away your education.

Have you framed it from a future employer's point of view, all things being equal they are going to employ the person with better grades.

Or, you have to go you are a fool to not get as much out of it as you can. That sort of thing.

Education is always there no matter what age you are.

You needed to be stricter with him before this point if you wanted him to do better at his GCSEs. 15 is too late to turn this around. Your best bet is to research jobs / courses he can do with the grades he’s predicted to get. Does he enjoy video games? If so my friend’s daughter earns £80k at 25 coding them — she earns so much because she got into the sector via an apprenticiship at 16 with only passes in maths / english / science.

Ok so this could go in all sorts of directions but I think to make money as a musician you need a very flexible skillset.
Is he in a band? Young people in bands that can do good cover versions can start to earn decent money for their age by playing functions.

If he can learn the tech around stage setup that's gives another avenue. He could run a sound desk , he could move sideways into theatre too.

If he gets a good reputation he can do session work.

He can do one to one or group teaching.

A combo of these should bring a reasonable income until he makes it big ;)

I think some people just aren't academically minded. That doesn't mean they can't go on to be successful. There are many people who don't have a degree who've gone on to be successful at non academic things

I think I'd agree with him about music GCSE. However a level 3 in contemporary music performance and production world probably be much more up his street.

Take him to some college open days. Hopefully getting the 'buzz' off the place might motivate him to work at his grades so that he qualifies

We are all very academic in our family and until recently it was a given that our sons (firstborn is 15) are going to go to a Russell group university. My first born had 7.33 avarage after Christmas. It's about 5 in summer. Bribary didn't work, complete lack of effort. He always wanted to be an enginner but you need A in A-level maths and you need 7 -8 in Maths GSCE if you were to get A at A-level (for reference, his maths teacher told us repeatedly during the school year our son is capable of 8 but puts next to no effort with his homework). So over the last month my husband and I had a few small chats with our son. The conclusion: he either gets his act together this years and gets good results at GSCE and then progresses to A-levels. If he doesn't get good GSCEs, he goes to the local college. They have a few apprenticips to choose from, including gas engineer or electrical installations. If the former, we will fund his gap year and we will support him through uni as he won't get much in terms of maintenance due to our household income. We made it clear we will not support him through a Micky Mouse uni course, he will have to get a part-time job alongside it. If he ends up going to college and doing an apprentiship, we will fund his gap year. After this he is expected to work and pay rent. If he decides to do A-levels/Access to Higher education course later in life we will support in that. (I heard that many good universities will not accept A-levels resits so it's best to get them right first time around, in my opinion). This information had to be fed in small chunks as there is a lot to take in. But now our son is fully aware of his options. We still don't know what he will do, he is secretive like most teenagers. I think he is inclined to improve his grades, whether his determination will last is anyone's guess. To our surprise, he asked for help in finding him a job (he gets weekly allowance and has actually managed to save some of it). This is what we are trying to do at present, any job, nothing special. I remember myself at 15 - I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, there were too many distractions. I think 15 is too young to decide. Thankfully, there are so many options for further study available these days. I retrained in my early 40s. If my son ends up as a gas engineer or an electrician instead of a Cambridge graduated engineer (like he used to dream) I will be happy with that.

That's the approach I've taken too with my lax 17 year old - I don't put him under any particular pressure and am very open minded about what he does but am crystal clear that whatever he does, he will be supporting himself so he'd better join the dots and get on with the path to self funding one way or another.

Just a quick update.... Following our discussion our secretive teenager has disclosed he is now revising for 1 hour Monday to Friday after school of his own accord. He also signed up on his own accord with the after school homework club - something my husband and I failed to convince him to do last year. I am keeping my fingers crossed his determination will last

Are there any career counselors at his schools? If so It might be beneficial for him to shadow a real oncologist for a week.

You might explain to him even though HE isn't getting injections, cannulas, ports, etc he will be the 1 giving them.
Biology, microbiology, biochemistry, etc are all necessary subject matter. Oncology is a tough go.

If he can't handle the "goo" then radiology might be it for him.