son doing bare minimum for A levels - told he will fail if he doesn't work harder - he doesn't seem to care

[bargainmad]

My son did the bare minimum for his GCSEs also but scraped through to get enough to do A levels. Trying to get him to revise was like starting world war III but I persevered.

I have laid off a bit since he started sixth form college in September and as a consequence he never opens his bag. He has done very little homework at home and says he is doing it a college.

He started off doing 4 A levels,Eng lang & lit, sociology,media studies and law.

He dropped media studies after a month and then dropped law as it was too difficult. He is now doing BTEC law instead so compared to others he is not overburdened with work.

It was parents evening last night and his teachers said he is very bright but coasts along which is the same old story we have had over the years.

His sociology teacher said he won't get anywhere (university or employment) with 2 Ds (or even Es) as there will be more competition than ever next year so he really needs to get a work ethic.

I was absolutely fuming when I got home after work this evening and asked him what he was going to do when he failed his A levels. He just told me to stop hassling him and that he was working.

I don't feel like giving him any pocket money any more until I see proof that he is at least doing some college work even if just Monday - Thursday.

And then he's asking about festivals - I can' see me funding this with him doing extremely little at college.

I know teenage boys are very lazy but it drives me mental - am I being unfair to stop the pocket money?

I have warned him that our financial obligations to him will end next June when he is 18 and he had better prepare himself.

Littlefish, your route in life reminds me of my own. Two poor A levels but managed to get to teaching college and passed my degree through grit determination. I think I'm partly overly stressing at the moment as there are very few low paid jobs near us even. A friend managed to find work in a department store for one day a week and said that 2 thousand(!) people applied for it. I'm sure bargainmad and other mums feel this extra stress with the current climate?

Sorry folks you have to get school or collage to put the rocket up your DS backsides parental nagging will be resented and ignored.
Think back to when you were 12 let alone 16, did your parent monitor your HW?
Mine certainly didn't.

I had spellings at primary I never took home, but I was a rebellious preteen.
It's not that our parents didn't care, it just wasn't the done thing.
School was school and home was home.
Reports twice a year were about it.

I got very good O'levels and spent Y12 doing very little. My form teacher simply wrote me a brutally honest report and gave it me to read.
He said " right star you've read that, put it in the bin and I'll write your parents a slightly less honest version".

Watching with interest

I had a long thread here about my 16 yo dd who is an absolute nightmare wrt studying

Currently trailing D's and E's at GCSE level (was predicted B's at one point)

My hair has gone much more grey in the last 4 months

My son is the same. We are in the middle of a relocation and he is completely demoralised about the move and appears to have given up.

ha!

this thread made me look over to her

she is supposed to be studying for a test tomorrow at the dining room table

she happened to glance to the side, I checked, and there was her phone half concealed in her school bag, deliberately out of my view

Well I'm meant to be doing 100 things that are not MN, so your DD is not alone

but do you have a very important test tomorrow ?

My youngest son did this too. Coasted all the way through school. Got mediocre GCSEs and was given a second chance by being allowed to stay on to 6th form on the condition he worked, and just didn't bother. I then had to relocate for work leaving DH and the boys behind, and he dropped out altogether.

In our case he'd seen his 3 older siblings work, get good grades at GCSE and A2, go to Uni and then get nowhere (one got a 2:1 and has just had odd PT nothingy jobs ever since; one dropped out of Uni after one term; the other hasn't finished uni yet but had to repeat Y2). His argument was what was the point. I did explain that the point was to have a choice later in life, but he wouldn't listen.

It is very hard but you can't make him work, and you can't make him want to.

No, but if I had I'd be doing it at 11pm.
I am not a good example

Stop giving him money.

Make it clear that if he doesn't get any qualifications he will have to get a job of some sort as soon as he finishes college.

Ds1 was very similar.

Time spent working on a building site in all weathers, plus evening work in a call centre really concentrates the mind on considering the fact that it is worth putting in a bit of effort to have more choices.

There is nothing wrong with building sites or call centres but ds1 definitely realised he didn't want to spend his whole life doing it. It motivated him to get some A levels and go to university.

AnyFucker - Could you ask your DD to switch off her phone and pop it in a drawer in the kitchen during homework sessions?

Mind you, I would just remove all those gadgety things: if they can't prioritise their work then you have to prioritise if for them. Saying things like: "You'll thank me one day"

MrsJ, I usually take it off her while she is "studying" (I use that term loosely)

as soon as I relax my hawk-eye supervision, she starts pissing about on FB or some such bollix

it is in my pocket right now, and will stay there until I think she has at least tried her best this evening

the problems come when her version of "tried her best" is a very long way from mine...

she takes baths that last 1.5 hours

needs to keep having "snacks"

remembers important tasks she never usually bothers with

shows a keen interest in tidying her bedoom, never before demonstrated

picks argumens as a time wasting and diversionary tactic

need I go on ?

has a headache but doesn't need painkillers

is too tired to work but still watching shite American films at 1am

will do all this instead of simply knuckling down for an hour of useful studying

gah

AnyFucker - I always disconnect their computers and gadgets from tut Internet while they're studying (via the router). And the whole internet gets shut down at 10.30pm Sun - Thurs. They know this and after a couple of days grumbling they were absolutely fine with it.

i have posted on these threads before (and probably will again in the future) about my ds

please don't give up on trying to help op - it is sooooooooo tough i know.my ds and i have had heartbreaking times really over all of these issues - revision,exams.homework all through school and college.he too was a coaster who really peaked work wise in junior school.for the first year of a levels he had to be nagged every day to keep attending college.

i worked so hard on his bloody gcses i felt like i could go and sit the exams for him.

anyway he has now got two offers (so far) for uni and is happily doing (some) work to try and get the grades he (now realises he) needs.i have said that we need to spend half a day at weekend working together (me supervising) so that he does put the effort in.

my ds will be 18 in the summer - i think he is just not mature enough to see that what effort he puts in now will affect his future.i am hopeful that very slowly we are getting there though.

i agree about withholding cash though - it is hard but you have to have something to barter with.good luck op.

I am dealing with most of those

the constant arguments, diversions and having to be persuaded over and over and over and fucking over again is getting me down though

have you got any magic solutions to that, Mrs J ?

oh yes, I could sit every one of my dd's gcse papers tomorrow

I haven't done maths for 30 years, but I could pass a maths gcse paper, no problem at all

af it will improve just a battle of wills

I'm going to go on Dragon's Den with my "Teen Power Down- Horse Ketamine Gadget". It basically allows you to press a button and power down the whole of the teenager's world while simultaneously firing a horse tranquiliser dart into their arse which makes them sleep soundly and wake up at 7am, all cheery for school.

Fairly often DS2 (16) has no homework and I am really fine about that. But when he's doing homework I like him to do it, not faff around on BBC sport or Facebook. And if he has an exam, I'm trying to impress upon him the value of doing a few hours preparation for it, in the two or three weeks leading up to it. A spare night with no homework could therefore mean 20 mins German vocab or something.

It is about working smart isn't it.

that's my mantra at the moment

mrsj - you have an obliging child - they are so not all the same

AnyFucker - I think a written contract works really well. SIGNED by both parties.

Homework at a set time each evening 5-6.30PM for example.
The internet will be switched off during those times.
Her phone will be in the kitchen drawer switched off.
You won't nag.
You will take her a cup of hot choc and a biscuit at 5.45pm.
If she needs to change the time she will write down (on a blackboard or soemthing?) when exactly she is going to make up the time.
If she has no homework she will spend the time revising for something.
She will not have baths or showers between the hours of 11pm and 6am.

It's an hour and a half - 4 days a week - sitting at a chair in a warm room. Why do they make it so difficult?

mycat, you are absolutely right

it is a constant battle of wills

who gives out first ?

at one point we were arguing for an hour, with all kinds of crap being dredged up (as an example...."you always preferred my brother to me, he got to play out before me..." WTAF ????? ) before she would knuckle down

These days, I manage to cut the crap down to...

me; "Right you have a French test tomorrow, time to get some work done. Hand over your phone and laptop forthwith"

dd : "Stop trying to control my life. No other parents do this, why don't you leave me alone"

me; "study now or the phone goes in the dustbin permanently"

dd: "I hate you"

me; "that's fine"

and so it goes on....

until June ?

I will have killed myself or her by then

written contract ?

worth about as much as the study timetable I made her write

I still have to cajole and bully her into doing anything at all

kids who have to be bullied into it, are not trying properly

if I don't bully, she does nothing at all

is there an alternative ?