DS 13 not fulfilling potential at school

[rookiemere]

So DS 13 is what I believe to be a fairly typical teen.

He never gets into trouble at school and has friends, some sports and time on the x box. His grades are upper middling, more middling if I'm being honest. I wouldn't mind but he has got brains to burn and his Maths teacher at parents evening said he could be in the top set if he wanted to be, instead he is in the middle whilst other more studious, but not necessarily more able students were moved up.

He vaguely fancies a job in computing and from where I work I know that he's going to have stiff competition in that field.

He does all his homework, but poo poos the idea of going to free lunchtime tuition- which the teacher highly recommended and laughed at the idea of a paid for tutor. My maths is not good enough to help him and when DH sits with him, he ends up doing the sums and not explaining anything to him.

So my question is what to do ? If we leave him, he's unlikely to get the grades he should be capable of getting. He's in S2 ( Scotland) do you think he'll perk up when he's in S3 and the stakes get higher? Should we incentivise him to go to lunch time maths ?

I don't know what the answer is but I could have written the same exact post about my son. Same age same issues.
He just doesn't see school as a priority. And his older sister is the extreme opposite. Very on top of all of her work, loves doing well in the subjects. And goes above and beyond with her work.
My son just hasn't found something that has ignited his spirit yet...just hoping it turns up soon!

Ha ha maybe we'll just end up with a commiseration thread. I'm meeting my friend for lunch and she's in exactly the same situation as you with the hardworking DD and slacker DS- in fact maybe it is you !

It worries me so much as we have a lot of IT folk from India who have moved over here and they are all so clever and have a great work ethic and they are so easy to work with ( sorry for the cultural stereotype but I hope it's ok because it's a positive one)Literally the only advantage I can see DS having is English being his native tongue- and that's not even so good because he refuses to read books to expand his vocabulary.

My DS was similar at that age. He got caught up in a kind of lads group of friends where working hard wasn't seen as cool.

The turning point came around Yr 11 when he realised that GCSEs did matter. He had no idea about a job but was mainly interested in making money so I managed to get him half a day work experience at a financial firm which he loved but the best thing was that the evil banker types impressed upon him the importance of getting good grades and going to a top uni.

Coming from them rather than me did the trick, he's still a bit disorganised and Mr Last Minute but his attitude to work and exams has been completely transformed.

Could you find a "mentor" in the computing industry to give him a boost?

I do like that mentor idea essaymum as he is very motivated by money and sees himself doing jobs like DH and I were we are well paid - but missed the bit in our 20s and 30s where we worked long hours and did additional studying. I do have a few folks at work who could fit that bill - mmm how to do it, that's the question.

Have you looked at A levels and any course requirements? Ds1 is doing computer studies and they say having a 6 in Maths is advantageous.

The issue with that Maths grade is the foundation paper only goes up to a 5 (C grade) and you have to be a very comfortable 6 (B grade) to be put in for the higher paper. The higher paper has a roughly 50% content for determining the 7-9 (A - A**) grades meaning if you are a grade 6 half the paper is unanswerable. Well it is for AQA.

Computing, which it sounds like you are in is very competitive. Dh is also in IT and works with a lot of people from other countries whose English is incredible.

I wonder if the best way to approach this is to ask him who he thinks is going to pay for all the stuff he wants when he is older? ie the computer console, the games, holidays, clothes he may like, trainers. The bank of Mum and Dad should end at some point. To a 13 year old minimum wage job pay of £1000pm approx sounds like a huge amount of money. Both of my children have seen the cost of housing (RightMove shows you a house and the monthly mortgage payments) plus children need to understand council tax, utilities, insurance, food, travel expenses to fully comprehend the more you earn, the more choices you can make about where you live, what car you have, what holidays you have. Show him the cost of a holiday, your weekly shopping bill, council tax costs. My two children are 16 and 13, both boys.

I grew up poor, the humiliation still burns at not having enough food or the right clothes (hand-me-downs) so I worked hard to get out of that life. My children now have a lovely comfortable life but from early on I pointed out, neither myself or Dh live with our parents! If they want a nice life, they have to earn it.

Good idea about the budgeting chat Jetsplane I'm away at the weekend so have asked DH to do it - DS seems to respond better to money chats from him - probably because I can't resist adding the bit about many worthy jobs being poorly paid.