Should I push capable but lazy ds?

[SemiAquaticEggLayingMammal]

Ds1 is 13. Bright and capable but a bit lazy and likes to do the bare minimum required to get acceptable grades/be well thought of by his teachers and peers.

I've just had his end of year 8 report and it's pretty good. Mostly B's with a smattering of A's, in both effort and achievement. He should be pleased with how he's doing, it shows he's got the brains to succeed even with minimum effort. However I can't help but think of what he could do with more effort! I know that the B's in effort are actually D's in terms of what he could do- some of the stuff he turns in is so far below what I know he could do/time it has taken/thought that has gone into it.

He is a very happy teen, but I am wondering whether I should push him a bit harder to get the better results that I know he is absolutely capable of. But at what cost? I dont want to make his whole life about school. Equally I wish someone had pushed me at his age and had higher expectations because I was EXACTLY the same! And if I do give him a bit of a push, just how exactly?! Its not like I know enough myself to extend his learning.

Any thoughts?

I was the same and like you I wish I’d been pushed more at that age.

I coasted right up to A levels and it was only when I tanked the January exams in the second year of a levels that I actually started working hard, which meant I had extra exams in the June as I resat a paper in every subject. It was a hard lesson to learn at 17!

I’m not saying pile on the pressure because that’s counterproductive. But it’s about getting him to realise that “good enough” isn’t actually good enough if you could be great. A ‘C’ grade that you’ve worked your hardest for and is the best you could have done is fantastic. A ‘C’ grade that you didn’t work for when you could be getting an A is shit.

Yes, he'll thank you in the end, and I agree wholeheartedly with the approach put forward by glumglowworm i currently work with someone who is clearly intelligent, but who got good grades at school by doing little work (boasts he was drunk for much of 6th form...😞) flunked uni and now has an entry level office job and doesn't understand the idea of working hard. Don't let your DS get to that point😮. The only other way he may learn is if he flunks a test in the future. This may happen at A level stage, as things really crank up a gear then

I think, rather than telling him what to do, talk to him and listen to what he wants and why he is not putting the work in. This is the one time in his life that he will have the luxury of learning. And being told what mankind has taken centuries to discover or the art they have created is a luxury. Across the globe, it is a privilege which is denied to many who want to learn. Adults have to pay to go on courses which he is now getting all for free. Not only that, but the work he does now will determine how much his future job feels like work.
Ask if he would like you to push him to study, listen to what he wants to achieve and discuss the best way of getting there.

Push away. My experience tells me that in the longer term they’ll be grateful. What a huge pity to limit your options at 18 because your parents didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable about doing work. If he can get away with it now, it becomes a habit and at A level stage, when more work is needed for achievements then he’ll have lost the study skills.
Now is the time to reward achievement in a tangible way, to start putting pressure on the thumbscrews and to lay foundations for a good adult life.

Don't push! It's not what you want.
What you do want is for DS to push himself. The question is how you (plural) get to that point. Is there some other activity that he does (or others do) where he can see that practice=result? Gaming, sport, music, World Cup set-pieces?

Reward effort, not results.

I wish my mum had pushed me. My highest grade was a B but I know that I could have done better, if I'd had the support and knew what it really meant. She was happy that I was doing the best of 4 siblings but I wasn't doing MY best.

I struggle with this. Ds1 is incredibly bright, only does bare minimum. Ds2 is bright, only does bare minimum. It's a difficult thing to conquer.

The brain isn't fully mature with regard to executive functioning until around age 25. As a result, children this age are highly unlikely to be able to take an objective long-term view of the benefits of doing extra work now. They are also heavily influenced by peer culture. Which is why it's so helpful if the school itself takes a strong view on trying to establish an academic culture of hard work, but often they don't, unfortunately, or aren't able to do so.

We often hear about how teenagers in other countries are expected to function like adults from age 14 or so - marrying, working, having kids - but what we don't hear is that these young 'adults' nearly always live in their parents' home, and are still closely supervised and monitored, with strong expectations of how they must behave.

I wonder if we're not letting our teen-agers down by giving them too much choice over aspects of their lives that will be important to them later on, too early. I don't know what the answer is, though.

This is something I struggle with. My DH's life took a similar pattern to that described by one of the posters above: he got decent O Levels, then failed all his A Levels due to (by his own admission) being more interested in booze and girls. After a number of years of fairly low paid jobs, he realised he wanted his life to change, and because he wanted it to happen studied, retrained and got a better job.

I personally say to my DS (who is also of the capable but lazy variety) that working hard now doesn't guarantee his life will be a success, and that of course he could become a success later in life (like his dad). What achieving well in school does give you more choices

... Plus I'm not sure how you push a child that doesn't want to be pushed? You can't do the work for them!

Push away much easier now than later. My DS is so lazy and at an academic school-he just about gets by! I have worked hard with him this year and he is gradually improving his learning skills. He actually thanked me for sorting his revision timetable out and then making him accountable for his time. I am hoping each year gets better YR 9 currently......

Right children can make it look like they’re making a real effort whilst daydreaming. Rewarding effort is good for less able children trying their best but that’s very hard to measure. Achievements are what count and bright children are capable of achieving, if they make the effort.
How? We had tutors to structure homework and out of school learning, money for results, at later stage holiday study centre. If he’d done the work originally he could have spent Twixmas having fun not at a college catching up on Latin, Physics and Maths.

We were absolutely firm about no activities until homework was completed to a high standard. No rugby practice, no youth theatre, no going to friends houses until I’d seen work finished. NoTV on whilst working but music for some subjects was permitted.
Did he ever moan? Yes often. We were parents not friends and wanted to make sure all our children had a completely free choice about university or careers. That meant a minimum of 4As at A level or 40 points at IB. Interestingly, they all chose to follow careers requiring high achievements rather than give up studying to pick lettuce.

Cherry I'm not interested in academic achievement per se. I'm interested in him fulfilling his potential and if trying his absolute best got him D's then so be it. Its the fact that hes not which makes me boil.

Your family values and priorities/ experience sound very far from mine btw.

Sounds like he’s HLP/gifted and lazy.

Possibly but fulfilling potential means maximising academic potential, doesn’t it? I think I’d agree if they were only capable of entry level qualifications then passing those will be a real achievement but bright children getting Cs/3s isn’t an achievement, it’s failing.

I don't know what it would be like to feel like "All I have to do is push hard & this child will respond very well and all my efforts will feel well rewarded."

There are a plenty of MN threads from frustrated mums who are pushing hard & not getting results they'd like.

I'd love to know how you can 'push' a reluctant, unmotivated teenager - my DS is exactly the same, managed to scrape through all his GCSEs but not great grades, now doing A levels but on target for pretty low grades - at the same time he is talking about applying to RG universities, I do point out that he will need high grades to get into these universities but it all seems to fall on deaf ears as of course I am a dinosaur and know nothing about university education. .

How exactly would you 'push' your DS (I did resort to bribes if he got A grades at GCSE but that didn't work, he did get a couple of As but had forgotten all about the bribe).

lljjk that's part of my concern, I don't know how to push him and even if I did, who's to say he'd respond? I guess push might be the wrong way to describe it. More that I would like to teach him the skills to want to do his best.

Maybe I should also have a chat with his school and see what their view o it is from the other side of the fence.

I went for the mutual-benefit approach; you do what I want and I'll do what you want. School did similar. I remember one time in Year 8 or 9 when he was getting rebellious and wouldn't get his hair cut. How do you force a 14/15 y.o. boy to get his hair cut?
Answer: you don't force them, you just hint that they won't get picked for the school rugby team unless their hair is school regulation length. He loved his rugby so he soon complied!
Find what pushes your DS's buttons and use that to your advantage.

Don't stress too much, though. Neither of mine were ever that conscientious but did enough to get to a decent University and, once there and out of the grip of parents, did enough to get a decent classification. They do, gradually, mature.
If he's happy then that is a major plus. Cajole, don't push.

We are currently having this debate about our 9 year old ds. I know he’s young but he’s got into a habit of coasting, and doesn’t seem to agree with the concept of aiming high. Eg I know full well he could get 10/10 in his spelling test but he says “well I’m happy with 8/10”
I’m going to have to find a way to motivate him, I may have to employ some carrot and stick combination!

I think a lot of children deliberately limit the effort they will put into school work because, quite simply, they want to do other things. Frequently it’s boys and gaming that takes up theirs time. DN is exactly the same and has never been required to put any effort into anything so no sport, no hobbies, no musical instrument learnt, just gaming.

I think some children are not mature enough to knuckle down and concentrate so possibly a daily set homework period works best with no interruptions. My DDs has this at boarding school where it’s standard. Limit any gaming time and talk to the school about their expectations. With DN the school are continually saying there’s a lack of effort but so far neither of his parents seem overly concerned enough to be parents rather than mates and do something about his excessive gaming.

At least if you want to do something, you can start by analysing, together, why he isn’t putting the effort in and then doing something about it. Many children over worry about results and he possibly doesn’t want to be like this. He probably sees others doing well but doesn’t want to be like them because he knows they work more on their school work and he’s rather do something else. In the end, it’s virtually impossible to make him do more work unless he sees the need for himself. Not everyone does and he’s happy as he is.

Cherry Can I ask why you felt you needed to get tutors to structure his homework? Was it because what the school was doing wasn't enough?

This is my DS. He is such a lovely boy who gives us no trouble, it feels mean to focus in on this one area that feels like part of his personality. So laidback he’s almost horizontal.

He is 14 and has just chosen his GCSEs- all his options are subjects he likes. I hope this will show in his marks as he’s very capable.

He responds better to a nudge rather than a push. So, for English, I have looked at the texts he’s doing. I will take him to the theatre to see the plays, read the novels so I can ask him about them, find films of the books for him to watch.

He has taught me that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I just keep putting encouraging him to work hard, but he does have to want it himself.

Kesstrel, we used tutors for several reasons. For our eldest daughter who had a chemistry GCSE class of 34, half of whom messed around, and a teacher saying they ‘may’ finish syllabus and she’d definitely get a B. She wanted/ needed the A so we went with tutor to help relieve her stress.
Our son is bright but wasn’t given to enthusing about academic study. He did bare minimum to avoid trouble but his mocks weren’t good enough so we had face to face and excellent online tutors to ensure he put effort in and didn’t wait until last minute. The school were happy to accept fairly good results (a mix of As ad Bs with maybe a C). We weren’t. We knew he could do well if he applied himself.
By A levels he thought he’d decided his career path so was resting on his laurels. We wanted a viable plan B so pushed/pulled/Cajolled with a nice crammed in Oxford at Christmas and Easter. He did 9 hours a day of either 121 or very small group tuition by real experts in their subject whocould enthuse and inspire. It did the trick.

Thanks, Cherry. That's interesting. I also felt with DD2's school that they weren't concerned about pupils not working very hard, along with a lot of other problems that were produced by mixed ability teaching, among other factors.

This is my DS too, down to a tee

He's got As for most of his school life previously because he's bright, but it means that he has got into the habit of coasting and doing the bare minimum...and that has caught up with him, and his peers who have always had to put in the effort are now out-performing him. (To be clear, this isn't about him being "best", it's a comment on how different work habits bear results once the work gets more complicated and need revision and practice to grasp it)

So, watching with interest....