DS (15) at wit's end, totally disengaged with school

[bunbun69]

I'm posting here as at my wit's end - literally don't know what to do. This past year my son's been really struggling with self-esteem, low confidence, body image etc. He's very down on himself. He has fairly regular meltdowns (tears, lots of negative/hopeless words), but in between he is his normal sweet, polite, affectionate self.

He was a shy child but overcame much of this through beavers, sport etc - his shyness has come back with a vengeance tho. Compounded by lockdown, he feels overwhelmed with schoolwork - in a classic cycle of 'there's so much to catch up on I can't do any of it'.

I've been in touch with school before now, massive waiting list for counselling which he hates the idea of anyway. They carried out 'check-ins' with him which he also hates (makes him feel singled out). I try supporting him every which way from one end of the spectrum to the other, but he's just not open to being supported, I think he sees it as failing. I've got a background in education but none of it's helping in terms of helping him turn things around.

Before lockdown we joined a gym together, now he refuses to exercise in front of anyone. He's just gaming/chatting to friends and won't engage with schoolwork at all and minimal family stuff. School have been in touch to let us know he's not submitting stuff. I have his google classroom login but lots doesn't make sense without context or a conversation.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone's been through this, going through this etc. There are limits as to what I can do re outside help atm obviously. Given his reticence to consider counselling tho... And just locking the PS4 away is not the route I want to go down as it doesn't address the cause and increases his isolation from friends (who he belly laughs with fairly frequently online).

I wish he'd be kind to himself but he seems to be locked in a cycle of low self-esteem/demotivation... I feel like he needs some kind of epiphany to draw him out of this, a new purpose of some kind... I don't know. DS (13) is getting on with all this ok atm but feels upset about how sad his brother seems sometimes. Sorry for this very lengthy post, thank you if you're still reading, I really mean that x

My DD is a couple of years younger, and has been totally unable to manage her own workload on google classroom. I think what is being asked of these kids in lockdown is far too much. She had a mountain of work accumulating, teachers chasing her, new work continually being set, and there was absolutely no way she could get through it. She was totally overwhelmed to the point where I’d say it was starting to have an effect on her mental health tbh. We were providing her with a lot of support, but she just couldn’t organise herself to get it done. Some kids just can’t teach themselves new material, prioritise tasks and manage a workload. It’s just asking too much. Some of the work being set was inappropriate for her ability level too.

It reached sort of crisis point and I spoke to her Head of House. She has written off all the work that hasn’t been done up to now - there was literally no way of catching up - and has given DD a plan of priorities moving forwards.

I think the burden home schooling is putting on some kids and their families is totally unacceptable and even damaging, and I wonder how much actual learning is going on for a lot of kids.

I can't give much advice but I would ask @MNHQ to move this over to the Teenagers Section, where you might get a few more responses.

If he doesn't want to engage with a counsellor, would he be willing to do a CBT course online? If you have a google there are sone which are aimed at teenagers.

Instead of locking away the PlayStation, could you set time time limits by maybe changing the WiFi password?

My 16yo is much happier if he games less and has some family time so we've been trying to have tea in the garden. Last night he finished tea and then went out on a bike ride with his sister. We are also trying to get involved with some stuff around the house too, but that doesn't always work.

How's his sleep? Is he coming off all of his devices at reasonable time?

We are asking them to come off by 11. DC2 doesn't have lessons that she had to log into, she gets work sent home to do each day. We don't mind her starting late but tell her it's still the sane length of fine so if she starts late, she finishes late.

A Mighty Girl usually recommend some good books. I've just searched teen and it's come up with these ones which includes books for him and books for you. I've found the books they recommend really helpful in the past.

As agree with the PP about taking to his Head of Year/college and letting them what's going on and seeing if they can help you to come up with a solution

Thank you @CherryMaple and @JiltedJohnsJulie so much for your kind and helpful responses. I'm not a regular visitor to mumsnet and was relying on notifications to tell me of any responses. Having had no notifications (despite clicking 'watch this thread'), I came on here to delete the post and saw that you both had taken the time to respond so kindly and with lots of practical help. It's truly appreciated. @CherryMaple, I totally agree re what schools are expecting.

I work in education (not as a teacher) and know that the primary model of home learning is working really well, but in secondary, in spite of enormous efforts from the school, home learning independently the year before gsce's is just not realistic for many children. My son has never pushed himself to his absolute limits, but prior to lockdown, he was conscientious and always handed work in and was keeping on top of it in the main. I'm hoping they write-off his work debt too as that will demotivate him further.

@JiltedJohnsJulie I love the idea of an online CBT course. He might be willing as it's online and he could do it with headphones on!
We've been having BBQs to lure him to the table and linger longer with us but we clearly can't rely on that or do it every day. We have started to doing curry nights on Friday to engage him in family cooking time. It worked well one week but last week, he just walked out (but came down later to eat it!) But I'm chalking up the little wins - on a bad day (which are a little less frequent atm) he often just can't be persuaded out of his bed room.

Sleep - he's pretty nocturnal. Not helped by his friends staying up late too. We're trying to slowly bring that back to normalish hours in readiness from some school learning being done on site soon. He has actually said he wants to go back - I think he has a sense about the how lack of structure has affected him now, I'm pleased he's gained that perspective. A baby step of progress...

We have spoken to the school, but realistically I don't think he will engage until he's back on site. He's so camera shy and self-conscious, he doesn't feel he can do google hangouts (tho I wish he would as I know the interactions would be such a boost for him) and he's not comfy emailing teachers either.

@CherryMaple, @JiltedJohnsJulie thanks again both of you for taking the time to respond and my apologies for not checking sooner that you had. @CherryMaple I hope your daughter's doing ok, and you for that matter! It's such a lot of pressure being responsible for our children's education... @JiltedJohnsJulie I hope your children continue to do ok too. Thanks too for the book recommendations - I will check them out.

Thanks 1,000,000 both of you xxx

My ds is a couple of years younger but has anxiety linked to ADHD.
He has been doing zoom CBT sessions. He didn't want to but they are helping and he is ok with them now after a rocky start.

in a classic cycle of 'there's so much to catch up on I can't do any of it'.

@bunbun69

Have you asked school how he would be best to prioritise? You ask I mean, not him.

My 14yo DS got into a similar cycle in the first month if lock down. When i realised (he'd been ticking off tasks so I didn't hassle him to do them, but not actually doing the task) I contacted his tutor.

The problem was, with 5 tasks per day coming in and a backlog of 20 days worth of work (So 100 tasks) he was overwhelmed. This in itself was a barrier to starting.

School suggested drawing a line under missed work (they are going to repeat it next school year anyway) and to start each day with the expectation he does all the tasks that come in that day.

He did that for a week and soon felt better about himself and his ability to do the school work.

Then, because we found that some take were really short (5 or 10 minutes only), one day I sat with him and said let's see how many of these 100 backlog we can do in an hour (incentivised - take away tea if you do an hour). On the basis that he can skip over any task that will take him more than 10 minutes. He in fact managed to tick off over 60 of the tasks!

Turns out many were English "word if the day" where he just had to write a sentence using a word in the correct context. Or France vocab practice - learn these five verbs or whatever. Things that took next to no time. Getting the kudos and praise from teachers helped him feel good about himself again.

Our trawl through the backlog also found loads of easy homework which he didn't mind doing. For example there were 10 BBC iPlayer programs to watch for DT - so we saved these on the tv and together we watched one per day.

Then, without any pressure (since school had said it was ok to write off the backlog of work completely) I incentivised the 30 or so backlog tasks that were left. I offered cash for new trainers if he was to manage to do all the backlog. But without any punishment or pressure if he didn't want to (my only punishable expectation was that the new work set each day/week must be done in full by Friday 3pm). With an incentive and no pressure, he did one or two of his backlog on top of his daily work each day (no longer than 2h work in total anyway) and managed to earn his new trainers.