How DO you get the message through to your teen that THIS IS IT they have ONE CHANCE to try their hardest at school

[cyb]

Because my D (nearly16) just does not get it.

La la la , yes I'll do it tomorrow, no on else is doing it, it DOESNT MATTER MUM, I've got ages before it has to be handed in, I'll do it when I've finished that other thing,I've lost the piece of paper la la la if I hear ONE MORE airy fairy wafty reason why she can't do her work .....

She's a clever girl, really clever and I think that's part of the problem, she can coast in subjects and do well but others are slipping.

She's part of an intervention programme her school have initiated to support girls who aren't achieveing their potential and even serious chats from head of years or Deputy heads only seem to elicit the same nods and 'yes I' will's' that never materialise.

TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Cyb... i had a similar thread a good few years ago about DS. He was set to fail the lot despite being clever and predicted As.

I got tons of excellent advice off MN and got him into a catch up Easter cramming session.

He is now at Lancaster university getting 1sts for all his modules and loving it.

I'll try to find my old thread coz it had some excellent stuff in from teacher MNers.

(have named changed since)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/teenagers/303177-ds-set-to-fail-the-lot

A few years ago now, but hope it helps you OP.

try having a school which makes them start gcses in Yr 9...try motivating a 13 year old to write essays (when last year they were drawing fucking pictures and doing mind-maps and pissing about ) which are being assessed for his final grade....try keeping up the momentum for 3 whole years, (sigh)

thanks for further messages, just catching up after being away the weekend

thanks for coming back to your thread, cyb ...I get what you are saying about backing off, but my Gawd it's a very fine line innit

thenightsky I will have a good read of your thread

tsc thanks for the sympathy, very much appreiciated ... however A's and B's are not even expectation in this house. C's are the best we can hope for....and she is sliding away from even that. I don't want her to close so many doors by slipping below C's in case she suddenly decides to pull her socks up...it will be too late then.

5 GCSE's at grade C and above is my hope for her. It still leaves doors open to do A levels and some of the more useful courses at college. She isn't on course for that at the moment though

I really, really feel my expectations are not unreasonable (even though I was a straight A's student myself). I just want her to try her best, and have always said just that. She knows that, but still seems to want to throw it all away just to prove that she can't do it IYSWIM.

That last sentence looks a bit silly typed out, and paranoid. It's how it looks though

I think this year is going to be a difficult one.

tsc I have read and sympathised with your problems with dd1

I see a similar course ahead for us, unfortunately

It seems somehow inevitable and I don't know how to prevent it

DS also ballsed up his GCSEs, he wanted to do medicine for which he'd need 5A, but only got 5As, 5Bs and a C, so nowehere near, but in a way it's the best thing that could happen because he was already having cold feet about medicine, he didn't work anywhere near hard enough (spent most of his time on PS3 or at parties in May and June), and at least he knows now that he just doesn't have what it takes to get upteen A.

He's now focussed on a degree in Politics and International relations for which he can get by on just ABB or even BBB, so much more his style.

Better to mess up at this stage than later, I think.

Is it worth starting to look at this from a different direction? Part of being good at something is having the application/enthusiasm to stick at it. If they are starting to fall behind now is that really a sign that they arent as good at whichever subjects as you and perhaps they were led to believe?

Is it worth contacting the school and see if they will give realistic grades? Not, if DC works like a trojan from now until May but instead this is what the current effort level is likely to bring....

Then you can start to say - 'with those results, these are your options...'. IMO what is important here is tone, this isnt accusatory it is about information. The conversation (possibly one sided!) goes on... 'what will you be doing next?' The key message here is that 'nothing' isnt a genuine option.

The important message is that with lower grades the 'what type of job do you want to do?' questions comes along an awful lot quicker than if the academic option stays open. If they are going to need to be part of the annual raffle for a job at the job centre then they will need to buy a ticket early. The people with more realistic expectations will be in there, snaffling the good apprenticeship roles before the lazy ones with their heads in the clouds have got out of bed.

At the end of this academic year the year 11s will not get a place in the next stage as of right. No one is going to have to find them a place to sit.

Apologies if the above sounds hard but I think that the people who have never had to put too much effort in to achieve in the past but are lagging behind now are the ones who get the nastiest shock when reality hits. If you already have realistic expectations then you are making plans based on those not a pie in the sky.

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, gnome

We have had some of those kinds of conversations. She is in massive denial (outwardly). I hope some of the messages are making her think though.

We have had fewer rows this week about actually doing any studying but I think she is just playing at it. I cannot make her do any more. < sigh >

It is an improvement, though.

That is progress AF, I think that year 11 comes as a shock sometimes. DD1 has reported that a number of her year 11 colleagues are starting to wake up and think (if not yet say to parents) 'hell's teeth, this is it'.

I think that this is the year that they start to see the end in sight. After this year there are fewer certainties.

You have done your bit, can you get her to acknowledge that? That she can work or not work but that is really her choice from now on?

Yes, she does say it is her choice whether to work hard or not

And then follows that up with "and I choose not to"

< inspects burgeoning grey hair in mirror >

We are so alike. She could argue that black is white all bloody day long (and win the argument)

if there was a GCSE in "debating" or a GCSE in "how to keep going until you beat the other person down with exhaustion" she would be a grade A* stoodent < sigh >

it really isn't easy, is it?

thanks for this thread.

if there was a GCSE in "debating" or a GCSE in "how to keep going until you beat the other person down with exhaustion" she would be a grade A stoodent < sigh > *

I said more or less exaclee this to ds today (Y10)

he apparently spent most of the last 18 months at school talking to his friends/classmates. Lord knows how- he hardly makes a squeak at home- apart from yelling at his sisters. Or me, when I ask to see his homework journal. He never contacts friends out of school, either- but apparently at school he's a glittering socialite type

I saw what Hully said upthread, about providing support and Fun Things, and their side of the 'contract' being doing their schoolwork. Trouble is, we really value family time, holidays, going out - whereas ds wants stuff. Lots and lots of stuff, mostly from JD sports. Or Game. Or the like. He says he values that much more than Doing Things. We can't really run to fun things and stuff, nor do I really want to...

looking at that paragraph, maybe I have to bite it, and go for the bribes incentives

just marking my place here, really, with bibble babble- just in case have a damascene (?) moment later on

(actually- hard to say, as he hasn't been back a week yet- he hasn't been too bad this term so far. Think my suggestion of sending him to Summerhill- I showed him the website and watched him blench with horror- might've had something to do with it)

I was always really motivated at school- well, possibly a bit lazy, but panicked when O levels loomed. I lived somewhere really crap with not many opportunities, and so I knew that I had to work to get out.

I do think, though, with all the "we're doooomed" talk of late, what's to stop kids thinking "oh, arseholes to this- there's people with degrees working as trolley boys in Sainsbos- I'm going to watch repeats of Top Gear on Dave instead of investigating plate techtonics"

thanks for bumping, SHJ

perhaps we should have a GCSE year 10/11 support thread ?

only found this one as was about to start a more-or-less identical one, but thought best to look in Teenagers first

if it dies, I shall no doubt be digging it up again before the end of the week

I am going to keep it bumped, if only to have a little rant/hair pulling session whenever I need it

DD is 16 in a few weeks time

She is in a strop at the moment because we "won't" buy her the latest mobile phone for hundreds of quids < sigh > We ae selfish, apparently.

If it's any consolation AF, I was just like your daughter at 16. In fact, I failed my O and A levels just to piss the folks off. Well, I did O level retakes and got 9 but the A levels got lost in a haze of smoke partying. And I was / am way bright enough to have passed them with flying colours.

In hind-site, I was terrified of leaving home and going to university (I'd been accepted at one a very very long way from home.). But because it was and always had been so expected of me, i was to scared to tell my (demanding) parents (but not suggesting you are like them!). Not going to Uni meant I had to get a job. I left home but lived locally with mates and worked in shops and in another place that I loved (might out me but creative field). Had a ball. Lived the student life without being a student. Then got a job as a secretary and it began to dawn on me how much I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life.

Then - and this is crucial - I began to realise my limitations due to a lack of demonstrable education. I decided to go to Uni but no A levels meant an Access course and working part time. But I adored the Access course and loved learning. Went to a commutable Uni and worked my socks off. Didn't need to live like a student as I'd done that and having worked 9-5, I had that ability to apply myself. Got a 1st and left with a job in my (highly competitive / high status blah blah!) chosen field. Still there and loving it (but regularly promoted to Senior Management) 15 yrs later.

Now, I know anecdotal evidence does not equal data but this is a long winded way of saying hang on in there!, your kids may just need to find their own route.

Doesn't make it any easier I'm sure and I know I caused my parents many a sleepless night but they now tell me how proud they are of me.

Ds is in year 9 and will be taking GCSE's this school year (grammar school). For the last two years, he's had poor and one average report. He's been lazy with homework (never has any! ) and has driven me mad. Over the last year, he's been saying that he wont be able to go to uni because we can't afford it. True and the understatement of the century so far! but I'm determined that he should go to uni, make the most of education for himself and have a better life than me, so I said to him 'Son, even if I have to take out a massive loan for you, you will be able to go to university.'
Well! his face lit up and the change in him so far ~ and I know it's only the first week, but still...the change is unbelievable. He does his homework every evening. His handwriting is improving no end. He has told me this evening that he's determined to get good reports this year instead of poor or average and we've been discussing what the possibilities that having 2 languages instead of just one will open up for him.
My 13yo seems to have changed! I just hope that he continues and improves because he doesn't get pocket money and he doesn't get phone credit, so I really don't have anything to take away from him.

Hope that it's something in the water and that it affects everyone's Dc's positively :)

bindibhaji - we have this too with DD1, an August born just gone into yr10. First science module in yr9 when just 13, and also some of the English and French CAs.
Whilst also dreading keeping the motivation going, it has so far been better than expected. A bit of a wake up call that it is all for real now!

We had a talk just before start of term, and I suggested a set "study only" hour or two each day. Where nothing else other than schoolwork could be done - whether she claimed to have any homework or not. Mainly because she is poorly organise, claims never to have any homework, and then rushes it through at 6:30am on the day. DD was horrified and asked for a fortnight trial in sorting it her way.

There has been a massive increase in the volume if homework but so far, so good. ....

shj - didn't I mention stuff before?

Hoh yes, there's stuff too.

I think (I may live in lala land here) that it really comes down to all being on the same side. Empathising with them about what a load of boring old shit a lot of it is, but hey ho, got to be done and keep an eye on the long game. Tell them how much you want them to have everything they need and everything their friends have so they fit in, it's just such a shame you can't afford all of it etc so that they get to empathise with you too and learn about choices and all that jazz.

Is that lala? I dunno

well, things are looking a bit brighter today this end...

ds went to school with one set of completed homework

he did, however, leave his marmite sandwiches on the kitchen table

Mine is - How do you eat an elephant?

One mouthful at a time One mouthful at a time

have tried that (sort of) Hully- thing is here it's more of a sort of puritan thing. We have largely forsworn stuff and Do Things instead. So DS knows that, even if we had more to spend, he would still have the same measly amount of stuff, and that we would spend the money on doing even more annoying things instead.

DS is, of course, baffled by this. Also his dad (separated) swears by stuff, so when he's there he's in a teen paradise of xbox online, etc.

I did cave recently, though, and got a flat screen tv. He was my friend for quite some time. Specially when he got to stay up later than his sisters and watch untold episodes of the Inbetweeners with me

funny thing is, my parents brought us up in a v similar way- they were tv deniers, and we spent summer holidays moaning up on fells. We hated it. Though I can't deny it was v valuable, now.

I'm going to nick that elephant one. tvm!