to just leave DS to it and let him get rubbish grades?

[NoGinThanks]

DS is 13. Through an absolute fluke he was offered a place at selective school offering the IB last year. We bit their hands off and were so chuffed. He scored so highly on the test portion that it offset his non-perfect grades (lazy coaster).

We hoped the more challenging environment/motivated kids would rub off on him but well, he's consistently done the bare minimum, 'forgotten' homework, lied about what is required, he almost failed his MFL. He is bussed to school so there isn't the immediacy there was when we were a 5 min walk from the school.

Have tried everything we can think of. Having his planner signed, multiple meetings with the subjects he's doing badly in, standing over him, helping him, helping him too much...

Teachers are frustrated as he's scraping by when he could easily achieve better. Our attempts to help are increasingly met with screaming, yelling, more lies. He does seem resentful other children get singled out for praise for outstanding work but won't accept he needs to work harder to expect anything similar.

Would I be U to just say okay, fine, leave him to it and let him get the grades he 'deserves'?

YANBU

I am a teacher and am amazed at the utter states some parents get themselves into, frothing over whether or not their teenagers do their homework.

I strongly suspect that if you leave him to it he will find a level that enables him to scrape through.

It really isn't your responsibility to stand over him screeching, causing a detriment to your own mental health.

If he can't be arsed then he can't be arsed. Let him suffer the consequences.

Take him to an open day at your closest, worst school.

Could you son do a day of workshadowing your friend who is an actuary? Find out about the job, what you need to do to get there, so he has a definite list of steps. How about encouraging him to do a paper round, so he realises how hard graft work can be?

Leave him to it, it might be a wake up call.

The trouble with that Abra1d is that the things the OP sees bad about the worst school, he Ds might find cool!!

He is a 13 yr old boy.the more you take ownership of his education, the more you nag him, the more you are going to turn him off.

Stand back now! He is in a grammar school, as his peers mature there will be plenty of positive role models for him.

If you back off completely will it make things any worse? It seems to me that it could only lead to a more harmonious homelife which would be much better for all of you and might even improve things at school. At the very least it won't make things worse if you leave him to it and I should follow my own advice

OP is listening and telling us what she sees imo.

All those saying 'let him fail and suffer the consequences' not sure that is a good idea, what happens then? How long do you let him sink for?

I have twin boys the same age and do despair a bit. They aren't particularly inspired by anything except for computer games which drives me completely insane. One of them is always getting detentions for not doing homework etc and I can't seem to get through to him.

They are at private school which irks me massively and it's hard not to get angry with them at the waste of it all. I do say to them that I will turn them over to the local sink comp (and it really is). Agree they might find it cool if I took them over there for a day!

I have ordered a copy of that book Bounce mentioned on the first page, looks very interesting.

have you explained just what an actuary does and how much he will need to study to become one ?
www.beanactuary.org/what/

If it's anxiety/a particular need not being met then that can be supported. If he's just settled in a comfortable habit of being lazy, that's a behaviour issue. Which does he think it is, and what does he see as the solution? (Being left alone to doodle and chill not being an option.)

If he has ADHD traits, some people with ADHD find it very hard to start anything, plan time or get started on jobs that seem too boring/time consuming. In that case chunking the task into small pieces with lots of easily reached finish points and very detailed scheduling of time and expectations can help, with additional reminders to get started and move on, however there also needs to be clear consequences for not doing it.

If he's just comfortably used to being lazy then school need to get tough with clear expectations and consequences. If the behaviour is working for him it's asking a lot to expect him to just get on with it and maybe change his own habits or not at some point before he's eighteen. Where friction at home is getting too much because of school behaviour then handing it over to school can be really helpful: they consequence what they need to there, he deals with the trouble he wants to get himself in to there, you'll support him any time but you're not going to chase him. His school, his homework, his detentions. But another strategy can be to lay down the basics of what you expect such as reports from school that homework has been done and meeting those expectations are linked to privileges at home that need to be earned. Such as xboxes. No fights, no arguing, no engagement, hand the ball to him. It just may help to make sure that handing the ball to him and the control to him has natural consequences that have meaning to him right now aged thirteen, and doesn't feel like winning and settling unhassled into poor behaviour.

Poor lad, he's really feeling the pressure isn't he?

He got into the school by a fluke (presumably he knows this) and realises that he wasn't really expected to get in at all, and the fact that it's hard going is making him believe that he wasn't good enough after all. He's worried that he is in the wrong place.

He's trying to live up to the unattainable ideal of a hero-worshipped actuarial role-model.

He believes that you think there must be something wrong with him as you've sent him to the EdPsych/GP/constantly badger his teachers.

He probably thinks that he will never be good enough to live up to your expectations of him

Back off, and tell him you will always love him no matter what.

How on earth did anyone arrive at the conclusion that the OP is not listening to advice?? They must be reading a different thread to me, or just trying to start an argument because this is AIBU.

OP, I would now back off and leave him in peace or he may just dig his heels in and you will get nowhere. At the same time just make clear that you are there for him whenever he does need help.

When my eldest daughter was at grammar school IB was offered in place of A Levels, though her school did teach both. Is it now to be brought in alongside GCSEs too? If he has been pitched straight into an IB style of teaching then that might have been a real culture shock.

My daughter chose not to do IB. She chose A Levels because she wanted to specialise in modern languages and arts subjects without the distraction of other subjects which she would also have been forced to continue if she had taken IB.

As this is a selective school I suspect that it won't be long before they start telling him that if he doesn't work harder and achieve his grades he will be leaving them.

Just to add something else to the mix, my daughter's school considered anything less than grade A to be a failure. A student who looked likely to get a B grade was considered to be failing. B students struggled, and I really felt sorry for them because to me that is a perfectly respectable grade.

It could all mean that the OP's son is finding it all a bit much now, and registers his worry by not applying himself.

I am not anti selective schools at all, but on that point I did totally disagree. It was one of the reasons we did not go down the 11+ route again with my youngest daughter, that and distance to the school anyway.

A lot of recent posts are suggesting that the OP's DS is feeling intimidated because of the high expectations of his school, and his fear of failure is leading him to not bother trying at all. While I agree this can be an explanation for some young people, I'm not sure it is in this case, because the OP says he only did the bare minimum at his previous school too, and in life generally.

I am assuming if he is in year 8, he is doing MYP. Each of the 8 subjects have 4 criteria assessing different skills, is he scoring the same in each criteria or does it vary. For example in Maths, which I teach at MYP, there is A- knowing and understanding, B - investigating patterns, C- communicating and D - applying Maths in real life situations. From his profile, of bright but lazy, I would expect him to score better in B and C which require less preparation. looking at breakdown of the 32 criteria might help.

I hope that makes sense.

Remove all electronic devices until his behaviour and attitude to work change.

Outline on paper (bullet points) your expectations and let him know that until you see improvement over a specified period of time there will be no access to Xbox, mobile phone and computer etc.

I've done it and it worked. It's simple too. It didn't take long to see a turnaround and when they were reintroduced they were done so on a limited basis so it didn't impact on new good work habits.

That depends entirely on personality- some would dig their heels in with that treatment. Long term they need to be working because they want the results- not the parents want the results.

I am a fairly easy going, people pleaser, but that treatment would really bring out the rebel in me!

I've discussed this with DS2 (16 and in Y11). He's coasted most of the time at school and been able to do pretty well. He's just had his GCSE mocks and that has been a real wake-up call for him.

I'm a very hands-off parent. If they don't do their homework, then they have to suffer the consequences - detentions, redoing, whatever...

Has he not found a particular teacher that he bonds with?

With DS1, he was misbehaving in class and not doing his best by any means. We asked for a meeting with HoY. That was a wake-up call for him. He was informed in no uncertain terms that part of the criteria for setting in the school was behaviour as well as ability. He changed overnight, luckily.

DS2 is sitting next to me and says that you should probably back off and allow him to fail and deal with the consequences at school. I would also let the school know that that is what you are going to do. Ime schools are fine with almost any behaviour so long as they know that the parents are onside. DS2 also says that you should perhaps now back off until after the Y8 mocks to see what results he gets. He will have no excuse for whatever results he gets. I do wish you luck, but you are right, ruining your relationship is really not worth it.

My DS said that perhaps he thinks is far too much effort to catch up so he decided is too much for him and does nothing. Also that he may think nothing of what he is doing at school will be useful in his adult life.
Does he even know what qualifications/grades he needs to become an actuary?

Good advice from ILoveJudgeJudy. ( also the only thing not tried yet)

It sounds like a shock to his system. It can be very difficult to go from being the best by coasting and seeing that other people are doing better to than you. I'd guess he's stuck in a mindset where he's supposed to do great by not trying and is scared of trying and not doing as great as he has before or others in his class are doing. It's actually quite common to find any excuse not to work because if he isn't trying at least he can tell himself that if he did try he'd be best. It's a self protection issue as he probably sees his self worth tied up into being the smartest or having the best grades.

I strongly recommend reading Mindset by Carole Dweck, it really really gave me some aha moments on my own behavior as a teenager in similar circumstances. It's just a matter of giving the right reassurances to get him in a mindset where his focus becomes doing his best rather than doing nothing because he's afraid to fail.

Don't give up on him or stop pushing, but push in the right ways. Don't focus on the grades or how he's doing compared to others, but reassure him that if only he does his best thats more than enough for you (and any others' expectations). It doesn't matter if he doesn't get as great grades as before, it only matters that he works at it.

Sorry haven't read whole thread but just wanted to add some insight. Your ds sounds very similar to my ds. Ds school sends grade cards home every half term for all subjects. Each subject teacher gives a grade for level achieved and also a grade for the effort a pupil has put into the subject. DS has worked out that he needs to achieve a middle grade for both level and effort otherwise interventions will be proposed by school and supported by us.

So whilst DS is not top of the class he knows he has to work consistently at a good enough level and put in sufficient effort. Being below average in his class means attracting the attention of teachers and parents and a whole load more work and hassle for him.

"It's just that Cs were okay in old school and aren't now. "

I think you need to tell him in words of one syllable that he won't even sniff becoming an actuary if he's a C level student for GCSEs. For a start, he won't be allowed to take A level maths. That's Step 1 of "what you need" from their own website (www.actuaries.org.uk/becoming-actuary/pages/how-become-actuary). Without it, it's game over.

What GCSE grade does his school require in maths to go on to A level? At a selective school it is almost certainly going to be an A and it might well be an A*. And that's just the maths.

If he doesn't care at school to the point of getting Cs despite being bright, he isn't going to be an actuary. Tell him. An awful lot of "don't care" kids don't seem to have grasped that there comes a point where the train doesn't just carry on anyway, with them only having to deal with getting told off occasionally. The train stops, they get off, the train leaves with those who have done the work.

Being an actuary is one of the hardest professions to enter and they are also very sniffy about the subjects you take at Alevels Think maths, physics, chemistry type subjects so he does need to up his game. If you can arrange a visit for him to an actuary firm I think that would be really useful.