Should my son work harder for his A levels?

[Leaningtowerofpisa]

So 18 year old son sits his A levels in 4/5 weeks time.

Attends an all boys grammar school which he enjoys and has lots of friends. He is a bright boy but someone who procrastinates about studying. He was predicted ABB but decided to completely change what he wants to do longer term and has offers at good universities for a foundation year to do the subjects he needs to do to get into his chosen field at a low offer of CDD.

He hopes eventually to then do a degree apprenticeship rather than university for various reasons. But the choice will be there to go on to do a full degree if he chooses that ( assuming he passes the foundation).

Frustratingly despite saying he will still work hard to get his predicted grades, it’s quite clear he isn’t bothering as much now as he knows he is changing subjects and the bar is set lower.

Appreciate it’s his life and perhaps in long run it won’t matter if he does well at new chosen subjects. But I feel it’s wrong to not put the very best effort in to do the best he can. He has the gift of intelligence and was lucky enough to go to a great school. Plus he may need those A levels later if his mind changes again.

To be honest he hasn’t really made the most of all the opportunities his school has offered which have been huge. His teachers all say he has lots of potential but he has never really put much effort in. Other similar boys who study harder get A* predictions which he is capable of but in my view he never fully applys himself. An example is for recent mocks he started revising 6 days prior and did do 6 hours a day and then felt overwhelmed with all the material. His grades were then BCD. He acknowledges he should have started earlier.

How do I talk to him about this as he is very black and white in his thinking and unless I have logical reasoning he will just dismiss what I say. Is this really going to matter longer term? He keeps saying he wants to do much better but there is no evidence really of him really working hard. It’s a few hours here and there when I feel he should be working much harder. Am I being unrealistic?

It sounds as though he doesn’t have it in him to be the sort of really hard-working focussed person you need to be to get the top grades in exams. It's up to him to decide of he wants the rewards badly enough to put up with doing the work. It's okay for someone to say, no, it's not for them. Let him find his own level.

Has your DS been assessed for any kind of neurodiversity? Your son sounds a bit like me at that age. I was in top sets for everything and accused of not trying hard enough. I got mediocre A level grades, but they still were good enough to get me to uni, where I went on to excel (1st class degree followed by an MA and a PhD).

I had undiagnosed dyslexia and dyspraxia (finally got assessed by a psychologist in my 30s). I realise that I avoided working much during my GCSEs and A-levels because those assessments really focus on how well you can memorise and regurgitate information, and rote learning is tough for dyslexics. It all just felt like an insane amount of work at the time.

As soon as I was doing my degree in a course where your critical thinking ability (rather than how good you are at memorising screeds of information) was the thing that was being assessed, I was actually better than most of my peers.

Ffs ignore the poster suggesting there’s something wrong with your son. There is not, but there is plenty wrong with the schooling system

we are not designed to sit at a desk. Our worth isn’t determined by how well we do at school or in exams. Unless he’s extremely interested in something, he probably won’t have the inspiration to do well and who can blame him?

i get you want the best for him and for him to do well but unfortunately you can’t force it.

Wow. There is nothing "wrong" with the pp's son, even if he does turn out to have some kind of neuro diversity. Although I don't disagree with your views on current schooling.

I was just like the pp's son, walked into a super selective grammar with no tutoring. Never took advantage of the possibilities, I found it impossible to organise and apply myself and ended up with mediocre grades and severe anxiety. But did well on an apprenticeship (which everyone saw as a "waste" of intelligence).
My kids are all ND, I'm guessing I'm similar.

There's a life skill in knowing how hard you need to work and when you can slack off a bit.

If he genuinely doesn't need high grades for his course, what is the point of over achieving?

I had a friend who got a 2 E offer for Cambridge and very much rose to that challenge. It hasn't held her back!

It’s really interesting hearing all of these perspectives. As a mum who really just wants the best for her son I am terrified of messing up how I respond. I have wondered constantly about neurodiversity as there are certainly traits. However he isn’t dyslexic but he can be quite hyper focused and impulsive at times. So he gets REALLY into something and then knows everything about it. I’ve seen the way he can focus and commit in a disciplined way when he really feels passionate. It just doesn’t seem to fit any of the grammar school type offerings! Example - at about 14 he gave up playing piano and got into music technology buying decks and using technology to make his own beats. However the school only has clubs and concerts for orchestras and jazz bands. His piano teacher helped him a lot but he needed to be around others his age I think to develop the interest. Or perhaps it was just a phase and he does have these phases. I do think he finds it different to organise himself. His room is an absolute pigsty! That said he seems to know where everything is. He just cuts out the stuff that isn’t important to him!