to think you cannot force a child to do their best at school?

[FauxFox]

DD is 11 Y7.

She is very clever and articulate.

She is lazy, disorganised, messy and doesn't care if she gets poor marks or detention.

We have tried so hard to get her to focus and prioritise - screen time, privileges etc all rationed and proportional to effort, but it's just relentless I've just been through her school books which veer between basic effort and shameful - she can do so much better but the default seems to be 'do the minimum'.

Should I just let school deal with it? She gets detention regularly for not doing homework (or forgetting to hand it in when I have made sure she has done it). She does not care.

I was the opposite as a child and can't really understand why anyone would have this attitude. Anyone with an extremely stubborn child got any pearls of wisdom?

Showme thanks for posting - I really hope she will eventually get the message

[user] I think you are right...have to keep on trying...so tired of it, honestly, it seems like such a ridiculous situation that she can't just accept that these things need to be done and use her obvious ability to just do them - aaaaaaaargh!!!!!

Astro - yes we do that too.

Savoy I have explained. She is too "living in the moment" to care about the future.

We are going through the exact same with out Y7 DS so you have my sympathy

Luckily the school have identified that he is bright and not fulfilling his potential and we are working with them to try to improve the situation. It is so frustrating and ultimately I agree with you OP that it is not always possible to force a child to succeed even if they have the brains to do well.

Y9 DD is the complete opposite and has always tried her best

Ok - have you tried awarding for effort - rather than punish?

Every child has a price!! She can earn her new book

It is tough no doubt but I would seriously considered rewards for good work and limit screen time to nothing until she at least puts on the effort. Even if marks don't improve.
Otherwise you are just setting her up to fail when she turns 18. She will thank you. Do you have family or friends who are successful who you can show her that life isn't easy but working hard is worth it.
Sometimes someone outside immediate family can be a help.

Is she happy at school? If she is bright is the work stimulating enough for her? Have you tried using the carrot rather than the stick?

I was a bit like this, although I put the minimum effort in to get acceptable grades. I can only think of one thing that might have helped - making it clear that effort is what counts, not results.
Praise effort, be explicit that you don't mind what her grades are if she's actually working hard. Refusal to engage can be about pre-emoting failure.

Another teacher here. Just a thought but ADHD is massively under diagnosed in girls - largely because they have higher levels of seratonin and oxytocin which keeps them calm so they are not hyperactive like boys with ADHD. They just appear to daydream and be unable to complete stuff - just thinking about the duvet changing comment. Another thought is her preferred learning style - she may be the type of person who has lots of ideas and so ends up not following through on the first task because she has a brilliant idea for something else and goes off on a tangent to do that. Schools these days are league table factories and do not spend enough time trying to understand how individual children learn. I feel quite sorry for children at times who cannot cope/adapt to our one size fits all education system. Sorry, bit of a rant but I hate seeing kids written off - each in their own way enriched! For what it's worth I really like the sound of your daughter!

I have a similar thread going about trying to force a child to work, Interestingly (mine is older) I got the same ' you're quite a bad mum' implications!! Generally, I got some brilliant advice , loads of stuff about rewards and consequences , and then lots of people telling me to back off and leave DS to it... as if I was some kind or projecting monster bully.

With this one you might need patience. You have time on your side and she is a reader, which is a good sign. Did you say she was year 7? She may be trying really hard to be cool and to grow up and be getting it all wrong at the moment. But her brain is just wiring itself up and the pre teen/ teen brain CANNOT see long term consequences or set long, even medium term, goals. That bit of the cortex has not developed yet and won't for a while. they are still governed by the cave man bit for quite some time. There are some great books you could read about parenting teens : they give some comfort. And tips.

One little thing though ? This screen time... does she have social media? She is really too young and instagram. Facebook / whatsapp etc turns them into monsters overnight and is the biggest source of peer pressure or false ideas of what life should like.

My DS2 does not have a phone at all and he is 12. DS1 got facebook at 13, I think , and I regretted it instantly.

ps FWIW (and I am also a teacher!) girls can be horrors at ages 10 - 14. they nearly always turn out pretty well. Patience OP patience.

Is she bored? Is there a way of working with her / the school / another school to identify what might inspire or interest her?

It's a tricky one. My eldest was a plodder at middle school age, didn't really enjoy school until she found something she was interested in when they chose options at high school, and I spent quite a bit of time discussing potential careers with her (very little career advice given at school) and once she realised that potentially she could make a living out of it she really knuckled down at A level and ended up graduating uni with a first. She is now doing the job she wanted and loving it. Youngest hated doing homework and would do the minimum possible, until he saw his sister having a brilliant time at uni and realised he would have to pull his finger out if he wanted to do the same...this was when he was 14 and he has done extremely well. I think it really helps to get them thinking about what sort of jobs they might be interested in, even at such a young age, and generally make it clear that they can do anything they want but they will have to put the work in...then pretty much leave them to it offering as much support as they need and ask for. Threats etc never really worked with him when he was that age, although I did have to make sure he completed his homework before he was allowed to go out to play/watch tv...and I did on a couple of occasions make him redo it when he had clearly bodged it to save time!

I agree with Savoy. It's clear punishments don't work. It's really only once your dd actually wants to put the effort in that things will change. It's not an overnight thing, you will have to continually reinforce the message but not in a nagging way, more in an 'I want you to enjoy your future life and feel proud of yourself' kind of way. I emphasised with my DS about the fact that not doing well reduced the choices he would have in his life. He may not want to be a brain surgeon but how would he feel if he suddenly decided he did, and he'd wasted the chance. I would also help her to organise herself - not doing it for her but more saying, let's sit down and work out the best way of doing this together. Finally, she is only year 7, maybe cut her a bit of slack occasionally. It really doesn't necessarily mean she'll be like this by 15.

FauxFox
Thank you for pointing the blame in the right direction. Too many parents (posters), will blame the school and look for other reasons why children don't do the work.

Don't leave this just to the school, It has to be dealt with by the school and parent in partnership.

faux, no advice but wanted to offer a fistbump. You could literally give my DD every consequence in the world til she was confined, possessionless, to the shed, and she'd still not care.

The only things we've ever found that work are rewarding the good efforts (so she earns screen time rather than having it removed) and long, long, loooooong, and repeated explanations about why something matters. It's wearing.

We operate a 'pick your battles' policy.

Good luck.

Ds year 8 here. He's the same. Although does do homework as he's terrified about getting into any sort of trouble - ever!

My friend and I (both work education) discussed this last week as she has DDs same age. We said we remember the old attitude from our schooldays of work not being accepted if they knew we could do better. Therefore we learnt to out the effort in. Soooooo much is better in education from back then but the one thing that seems to be lacking right from day 1 is the expectation of best work only. It does seem more focussed on learning the information and passing the tests.

I 'inspect' Ds homework and make him do it again. Quite often I do the ironing, sort washing etc whilst he sits at dining table if it's a written piece and that does help as I can support him and remind of of things like - you need to underline the title!

But I do think it's a general difference and is school wide rather than individual wide in presentation. I remember the good old days of the boxed margins, coloured pens to underline and write subheadings etc!

How about making her redo the work that isn't done to an acceptable standard, in a supervised setting at home?

Surely eventually, she'll be bright enough to realise that it would be less time-consuming to do it properly the first time!

Do you supervise her doing her homework? You could insist that she has to show each completed piece of work to you until she proves that she can be trusted to do it properly.

Yes I agree with Bumble She's going through the 'terrible teens' thing very young and she may well get through it younger I would cut her some slack too. It's hormones isn't it?

Oh and as for the not caring about detentions bit, that does ring slight alarm bells... that does make me think she is trying to be 'cool' as I mentioned upthread.

I think you would feel better if you contacted the school - as a PP said get in there before they contact you!

Some detentions are quite good fun, if the teacher doesn't pitch it right or there are lots if students in detention. They become 'fun' : the last thing they are meant to be.

But I still believe she will outgrow her monster year 7 stage! because it sounds like your household places a high value on education and that helps . A lot.

I was like this too. I'm not exactly sure why. I know I wasn't happy, I didn't care about having things taken away, and I didn't really connect the 'crime' of not doing homework with the 'punishment' of not having tennis lessons any more.

I was aware that I could keep up easily with my peers with hardly any effort, but also scared that if I made an effort it would become obvious that I wasn't actually special.

I think I was also depressed, to a certain extent. I don't remember having any ambition or concept of what I could be. People just kept telling me I had potential. All I ever did was let people down and I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

I liked having detention every week, it meant not going home until later, and I liked being at school when it was quiet. And I became friends with my best friend at school because she was there every week too.

I don't have any answers, sorry. But it might be worth considering that it's not just about finding the right carrot or stick to make her do the right thing.

You say when you take away all tech that she happily sits and reads for hours. The obvious answer therefore is to replace all books in the house with educational, non-fiction books. Let her spend hours reading about string theory instead of changing her bed sheets and she'll be a genius in no time

Detentions weren't fun exactly, I remember cleaning board rubbers and drawing margins in notebooks. But I think I quite liked being useful.

Oh and if she was older I would say it's HER life , it's up to her. There's a saying " You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink".

Children are not robots.

Sometimes you can't hammer a square peg into a round hole.

Standardised education isn't for everyone, if your child isn't engaged with the meat factory of schooling it's not always a bad thing.

No social media, yes I had considered ADHD but don't think it's bad enough to be diagnosed (my DS has ASD so am experienced in the SEN system).

Thanks so much to all - too many posts to answer individually but lots to think about and actually quite a bit of validation that I am doing the best I can

She is a lovely, kind girl and most people who know her can't believe she is like this - I love her so much, I really don't want her to make her own life harder than it needs to be.