I'm making myself ill with worrying about my ds's lack of motivation (particularly at school). Any advice???

[fartmeistergeneral]

He's 15 but really immature. His friends all did well in their recent mock exams but he did poor to appalling. I did well academically as did my dh (who is in fact a HT) so this is so alien to me. I've not handled it well up to now - going from encouraging to motivating to nudging to nagging, nagging, nagging for him to study. He didn't do much, hence the exam results. He has more exams in January and has done sweet FA.

Is this just immaturity? I've gone through everything from telling him what his future might be if he doesn't do well at school, but nothing sinks in. In fact, he looked a bit upset for about half an hour when he got his last results, but nothing has changed. My dh just says back off and let him take responsibility for his own life - I totally see the logic in that (and I'm constantly worrying about his lack of motivation which makes me feel genuinely ill) but the idea of him failing is awful. He's a clever boy, did well in primary but is really lazy with one proper hobby (thank God for that) and has a real 'can't be arced' attitude.

Anyone with similar problem? Should I dig in or back off?

Homework isn't everything though. Is it

No, but you have yo "keep up", my mum always said regular homework is better than cramming for an exam.

Seems to be right ?

Yes. Prob. :)

I'd always been against the idea of tutoring until my DS needed help in a subject where a teacher had fallen ill. The tutor ended up helping both my teens and in a very small number of sessions ( 4-5) my DD's confidence rose and she got much much better marks in her tests. Now we have occasional tutor sessions so she knows if she is stuck she has someone to ask. And it particularly helped her to be taught how to answer the questions to get marks.
But I think it really is about confidence. Admittedly I was v lucky with an excellent tutor....

Olive, what a wonderful job you have done! It's really motivating to read what difference parents can make if they do not buy into the 'nothing-can-be-done-let them-fail' idea.

My DS had a CAT result of 83 (gulp!) but I don't think they wrote him off. When the teacher told us about his result I nearly fainted but DS said that he only guessed at this test as everyone who had finished was allowed to go out to play. He had made a lot of crosses without reading the questions in order to go out to play. Bless him! In school he was mostly average with occasional high achievement thrown in.

His GCSE predictions were rather disappointing (I posted 2 threads about it) but he is already getting better (predicted A in chemistry) as we moved a whole battery of interventions into his direction. We discussed the psychological angle (fear of failure), got him to explore universities and entry level expectations and put pictures of his goal on the fridge.

We also organised a revision timetable to which he agreed (he is doing 3 hours a day during the holiday - I am impressed) and agreed that in every hour of revision he needs to produce a neatly written A4 sheet (writing his is pet-hate).

Today we found out that he avoids revision before tests because of fear of failure and hopefully he will get over that one as well.

So far so good - let's see what happens.

Thank you all for this thread - it's marvellous.

Lol at claybury. Are you susan summer?!

AlaskaN. ???

Palika, all those things work if your child is willing.

Unfortunately, if you have a stubborn teenager who simply won't budge, then sometimes the only thing to do is to take a step away.

Oh another thread. About tutoring. Trolling but funny

Ds2 used to whine, scream and throw things for about an hour before he would settle down & do homework. If a sibling was in the room he'd either rage at them, or try constantly to distract (play) with them, or maybe attack. Or he'd start playing with something else. Really, he'd do anything to avoid homework. We could only get homework done by shutting all other children out of room for 1-2 hours & physically restraining him from doing anything else (so I needed DH at home,had to be weekends when no clubs on).

DS2 doesn't have friends so playing out, access to clubs, sleepovers or outings etc. not good incentive. Does like food & computer time, but has learnt to deny those to self to make an angry point, too.

So the whole idea of "sitting down daily to calmly talk thru homework every day from a young age to set the habit for life"... hahahahahahahahaha. Sweet. Must be lovely if it works.

DS1 learnt at primary-sch age to merely lie about having homework at all.

I'm not sure how useful it is to say something like 'work hard' or 'make an honest effort'. They're vague phrases. I think sometimes a more concrete and structured approach is needed. (If the child is willing as pointed out)

Maybe ask that he spends a solid hour every day working (start small and manageable) in a place where you can see him, not holed away in his room but not somewhere with you breathing down his neck either. You could ask him to tell you what he would be working on beforehand and then afterwards ask him to show his work or ask to quiz him if he has been memorising.

I didn't get to do this with DS as he just wasn't willing in a quiet and stubborn way, but this approach is going ok with DD4(12) who is both lazy and afraid of trying for all the reasons Arti enumerated.

DS went to school with the intention of having a good time, and ended up being voted funniest boy and class member most likely to become a famous hacker. He turned in homework sporadically but studied enough to get the odd B+ or even A in exams. Unfortunately as he was in a system where grade point average is the name of the game (in the US), all that missed homework and so-so results in exams meant he averaged a C+ . He was really good at standardised tests, and seemed to thrive on the adrenaline of exams. The slow but steady 'do your homework daily and do the occasional long term project' was what killed him. School was great - but naturally I only heard about missing homework after it hadn't been handed in. DS would flat out lie to me about homework. I felt it would be counter productive to have his teachers email me a list of assignments daily (they were willing to do this). I thought waiting for him to come around would give him a bigger sense of achievement, if it ever happened. Also, I didn't want him fighting me openly and refusing to do the homework I had found out about. You can take a horse to water, etc.

I also had a nagging sense that DS might have had problems processing written English. Not enough nagging for me to have him tested for any special ed measures, but some little problem where his brain wasn't processing written language easily. He could recite chunks of Simpsons and South Park dialogue but English Lit bored and frustrated him. He had placed in honours classes in maths and science in his high school placement exam (an aptitude exam, not subject material based) but was mediocre in English language aptitude. I started advising him to look into aviation as a career since he was already interested in planes, flying, WW2 technology, etc., and he seemed to be able to manage adrenaline well. He applied for two universities where he could get a degree and qualify as a pilot. He was accepted in both and started out with the intention of doing psychology and getting his licence. However, he had severe seasonal allergies and another health issue and that precluded passing the FAA medical necessary for flying for a living.

The first year in university was the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to him. It was a mediocre US university full of people with GPAs like his - the only attraction was the great aviation programme (and a lovely rural campus complete with a huge lake where many students went fishing for their breakfast every morning). His roommate was a pothead who rapped in his sleep (and is now serving a custodial sentence for a violent crime) and all DS did was go to class, go to the library, do a little fishing, eat, and sleep when the roommate wasn't holding parties in the room. The lecture and labwork format of a lot of his subjects was ideal for him and he found he remembered so much from his honours science and maths courses in high school that he quickly got on top of things. He only got one B that entire year - his academic advisor sat him down and asked him if he had ever considered a career in medicine. I want to snog the woman.

After finishing the year he transferred to an excellent university, where he has gone from strength to strength. He has been able to do required arts courses along with his degree courses in science and maths (his degree will be in biology with a minor in chemistry) by carefully choosing options like History of Film, Depictions of African Americans in Film, etc, types of courses to fulfill those requirements - so he is basically looking at a screen for coursework and homework, and not wading through piles of written material for essays which he would have to do in some course like The Roman Republic. He has also been able to download apps that allow him to tape chemistry and other science and maths lectures and some of his courses are available online.

So I guess my advice after all that is:
If your DS is not causing any problems for himself or others outside of your home (drugs, hooliganism, etc) and if he has friends and some interest or hobby, don't worry, and step back from it personally as Maryz and others have said, but try to get him doing something achievable and concrete daily.
Have him do some daily chores around the house, ideally with you or your DH, where you get along amiably, and talk together in a friendly way about stuff other than school. I hope I always gave DS the impression I liked him, and was interested in things he was interested in (tanks of WW2 and Lord of the Rings - he wouldn't read it but the films are a different matter). I always thanked him for help around the house and garden and fair play to him, he was always willing to help.
If you have any suspicion of some special ed need, get it diagnosed. I really regret not doing this with DS, but otoh, I think he would have felt bad about being singled out for any special ed measures. I know that is not how it works but that is how he would have felt about it.

Also, there are good, solid careers outside of traditional academic avenues.

It is easy to advice other people that there are solid careers outside academia with your own child firmly ensconced in University.

Agree. All well and good saying happiness, emotional well being is more important. Perhaps in 10 years time it will all level out but naive to think that leaving school at 16 or 18 with no qualifications isn't a cause for concern.

Lol you could have been talking about my DS 3 years ago. He is now at Uni in his final year and has really grown up . I made it clear that if he left school he needed to get a job. I didn't care what it was but he would do something . His options were 1: leave school get a job and pay a third of the household expenses. 2: go onto further education 3: leave home and live in the big bad world. What was not an option was to leave school go onto the dole and live at our house and doss. If he choose option 1 he had three months grace to find a job or he had to take one of the three options . Risky strategy I know but it worked

We have told ours that we will continue to provide accommodation for as long as they are in full-time education. After that, they need to find some sort of job.

DS1 has already done some paid work (quite boring, low-paid work as he doesn't even have GCSEs yet) and I found that motivated him to study more than anything else.

Just got mine to stick her year planner on her wall and look up the school website to check the assessment timetable (which she says she lost or isn't sure whether she wrote down). There is a lot of avoidance going on.

Fiscal, my DS was heading for a career as a commercial pilot, not a career that demanded any sort of academic qualification. This was his first choice of career. What he is doing now is also an excellent idea for him given his personality strengths. If he makes it to medical school I think he would be a good surgeon. Not a GP. He doesn't have the manner for it. He likes intense concentration and work that requires more of that than verbal interaction.

There are two ways to become a commercial pilot in the US - join the Air Force or Navy, or go to a university that offers aviation and do it there. For various reasons, he did not want to go the military route. The university he went to at first offered a two year 'associates degree' (not a full Bachelor's degree, more of a certificate or diploma course of studies) with academic classes that could include aircraft maintenance, along with flying hours, followed by two solid years of flying hours and a full pilot's licence.

DS has a male cousin who is studying nursing and another who is doing a hands-on forestry course that will qualify him for work in that area. Another is a pharmacy technician. I have two cousins who are in the Irish police and Metropolitan Police. My neighbour makes a good living as an architectural technician. His job wasn't affected by the crash of the housing market the way architects' jobs were. A cousin of mine started out as a joiner (after a course in an Irish Regional Technical college; they are now called Institutes of Technology) and after about 12 years on the job is doing an engineering course and may go further and get an actual degree. Maybe not -- he has never been out of work and the course will enable him to get into the management end of construction if he so wishes.

And happiness and emotional wellbeing are not really factors in choosing a path. You have to make money. You have to pay your bills and support yourself. The key is not to shove a square peg into a round hole. If a child is not academic then look around carefully for some area where they can get a qualification and pursue a career. There are courses out there that offer non-academic young men and women a chance to get a qualification that will set them on their feet. I am most familiar with the very useful offerings of the Irish Institutes of Technology but I am sure similar exists in the UK.

Don't wish to hijack thread but really interested to read about the possibility of pilot training at university in the USA. This is my son's dream but not an option in the uk.

Two really good places afaik are University of North Dakota and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Another good one is Lewis University Illinois.

Thanks for that, stupidly never thought of other countries.

Math what was the course that your son did for the one year?

He wasn't able to do the aviation because of failing the FAA medical. He thought he would be able to talk his way out of the severe seasonal allergy problem he had, but as it turned out another more serious issue came up in the very thorough medical.

So he decided to aim for a degree course in psychology instead, and basically he therefore spent his first year fulfilling first year requirements necessary for a BA. He decided to load up on science and maths requirements because of his aversion to literature and writing, and found himself doing really well.

In many American universities you have to take core courses in a variety of different areas before getting stuck into your major. This is why he was doing biology and chemistry and maths as well as one (dreaded) required history course and a literature course, and a psychology course. Even now, having transferred, and at this point (third of four years) far advanced into the biology and chemistry, he still needs to pass a foreign language course before graduating.

That's really interesting Math, I think many students would benefit from doing a foundation type course with careers guidance etc before uni just so they can get to grips with what they really want to do and focus on.

Starting a degree course is a very big commitment to make - great for those that are committed but I'm sure a lot of students really don't know what they want to do as they have up until the age of 18 just been swept along by what school / parents have wanted them to do.

Still trying to get dd to put up her wall chart.

I think that is very true. I like the way students can make a more mature decision after doing a variety of courses in the US (theoretically anyway). Or just simply grow up a little and start taking things seriously.