Horrible argument over school work. Would you back right off now?

[LemonDropss]

My DS is in year 11, he's 16 in December.

Our relationship is good and we are close. He's generally speaking a good lad

But the flashpoint is homework. He won't do it. Just won't. And when he does, it's slapdash and rubbish but I'd say, 70% of the time, he doesn't turn it in so his mocks saw a clutch of 2s and 3s.

He says all the right things, and he's had all the tools to do homework. He's very lucky, has his own study, I've offered to pay for a maths tutor, I've spoken with his teachers, we've put plans together etc etc

Anyway, today he has maths. Was set 6 days ago and due in tomorrow . I told him to do it before any gaming and well... this is where it went wrong. He point blank refused, said he'd do it at 8pm, I said 'no, you need to do it before any gaming and before 8pm or it won't get done'

He then called me 'a bit thick,' 'not listening to a word he says' 'a useless mum'

Yes I know not beyond the realms of normality for a teenager but it was really horrible tbh. I shouted back at him to just stop now, he told me to grow up and ugh ..

I have tried everything I can to help with his schoolwork. He is just .. lazy. The mocks were not the wake up call I expected them to be.

This is our only flashpoint and yes, I should have taken this back a few steps and just let him get on with it. Or not, as the case would be

So.. onto my question. Would you just stop now? Not say another word about doing homework? Let him fail? Let him now fully grasp that his (non) actions have consequences?

It's upset me tonight because we don't have this usually - it's happened because I put my foot down and insisted and he was really rude and well.. still hasn't done it

Yes, but you're lucky you don't need to study. I have one of those, lucky bugger, but DS2 is completely different.

I don't think you can blanket say that you don't need to study for GCSEs - that's not helping anyone.

This was kind of our approach with our clever but lazy DS1. He was on a scholarship to a good, strongly academic independent school and just wouldn’t put the work in.
We framed it around choices - that each piece of work or set of exams, the better he did, the more choices remained open to him. That if he didn’t do well, he would close doors that he might prefer open.
It sort of worked in the sense that he figured out what was the bare minimum he needed at each point to get him towards the goal and did that, but no more.
He got the grades he needed for the course he wanted at his first choice university but my god, it was a white knuckle ride for us as parents.
Hold your nerve.

Hmm..possibly going against the trend here but I wouldn’t let him fail without more effort first. I’m a teacher and parent of 4. If any of mine are not performing well they lose all their privileges. Gaming is far more addictive than I think some realise, if only because of the loss of time in a day. I’d remove all online ability. He may not do homework but he will have to find something to do. Over time, he may eventually realise he will need to put some more work in. He will be in a better place to try again when this thought isn’t being drowned out by screen activities.

@polkadotpixie he does need to do homework yeah. His natural ability only stretches so far and well, he's at the end of that now. He needs to work to consolidate

Sorry but doing homework will not help his learning necessarily.

you say he’s nigh on perfect aside from this one thing……..seems like he is living up to a lot of your expectations already - give the kid a break!!

studying/revising is what helps you pass exams oh and listening in class

Anyway - I wanted to thank you all for your comments. It's been helpful for me to sort my own mind out

Thanks again 💐

studying/revising is what helps you pass exams oh and listening in class

Which is what homework is.

Good luck @LemonDropss

I think you need to show him what leaving school with shit results or no qualifications means and what getting an apprenticeship/going to university means for his life choices and ability to afford things. Sit down with a list of what different careers are paid and tell him to get real. Sounds harsh but it’s realistic and how the world works

Hey OP, I could have written your post! My year 11 boy never wants to do homework either. He’s managed to get by the last 3 years of barely doing much homework and never getting sanctioned, and I feel like he’s going to scrape through his GCSEs with barely a pass in the lot of them :(
reading all the above comments with interest, the thing is we’ve talked and talked about living on minimum wage, paying rent and bills, I swear my son thinks he’s just going to sit in his room gaming for the next 39 years, despite me telling him over and over he needs to be earning and paying board if not at school. He has no interests outside of school, and hardly any friends.
it breaks my heart actually! He won’t do anything without his dad.
no idea where to go or what to do for him 😞

I said to my son that if he didn't do any work in school or his homework he would end up having to stay an extra year to resit. His friends that did do the homework wouldn't have to do that and could move on up and it was inevitable they'd make new friends in their class. I think it was the thought of resitting maths GCSE that got him working at the end.

Can I just say, you sound like an absolutely lovely Mum. Honestly, I wasn't lucky enough to have a supportive mum and reading about how you treat him and your relationship... I think you sound wonderful. My son is still very young but I hope I get to cuddle him and watch films and chat when he's 6ft.

I'm sure your son will be fine in the end as he's got such a secure grounding. I hope you don't have any more bust ups as it's never nice.

Don't talk about life on the minimum wage.

Make him get a part time job and fund his social life with his earnings so he can see for himself how far his money will go, and he can learn to deal with 'difficult people', both bosses and the general public.

Apart altogether from the value of learning the hard way, it will force him to manage his time better.

Did he finish the homework? Perhaps you didnt ask.

Getting a part time job sounds like an excellent idea. If he won’t work on his GCSE’s he will at least be productive and perhaps move past this self destructive stage he seems stuck in right now.

I agree with this and also if he doesn't do the homework, the consequences will come from the school, not you.

I remember saying similar to my son and he has just got all A grades for his GCSEs because he put the graft in when it mattered .

Yes he got a few detentions along the way - lesson learnt (but fully understand and appreciate the anxiety it causes!)

Hi Op - this sounds like 16 year old me! I have inattentive ADD - I'm a female so it went unnoticed although my parents were pulling their hair out - my mum took me to several pscyhologists to see what was 'wrong' witth me - but that was the 90s and girls didn't get that diagnosis. I was also a cheerful happy kid in other ways - just COULD NOT do homework

I remember getting a piece of paper sitting on a wall on my way into school and literally scribbling some things so I had GCSE maths coursework to hand in - I failed maths GCSE even though I got a B in the exam - that is how poor all my coursework was.

All I can say is - I got a massive wake up call during A levels, having scraped 5 passes (including maths that I had to retake) - A levels at sixth form college was a total shock to me - I was spoken to like an adult and the tutor took me aside and just said very calmly we are thinking of kicking you off the course - no talk of detentions/ no talk of punishments - just - you are not grown up enough to do this.

I pulled myself together - and started actual self motivated work.

If he wants to do it at 9 at night - let him. I had to learn for myself.

Just to add - I really wish I had known about my ADD earlier - as it also affected my working life - I'm in my 40s now and still feel it impacts my ability to get / retain jobs. If he can't focus on things he finds boring (the core issue with ADD) he is going to struggle in working life.

You can’t make him do homework, but you can restrict device time, which is what I’ve done. Quite severely restricted. When things get heated I back right off. But I do stand firm on screen/gaming time.

Maybe try offering him money for grades? Short term rewards rather than long term goals.

Yeah, l found money the biggest motivator.

Leave him to it.
If he fails he fails.

Does he actually need to do homework to pass? Does it contribute to his end grades?

Admittedly not quite the same as I’m diagnosed with autism and adhd but sitting down to do homework always ended in tears for me as I would rather chew off my own arm than spend my downtime doing more work after being at school all week, my dad would sit down with me on a Friday and see all the homework I had for that week and we’d decide together whether I wanted to attempt it or not and more often than not I didn’t, this started in primary school and carried on right up until college when homework was coursework so not optional.

I wasn’t naturally smart at all and barely paid attention if it didn’t interest me, I got all my GCSEs I needed though. Doing maths still gets me to the point of tears 😂 but I appreciate that he let me take my own time with it all and decide when I’d had enough.

Have you experience of doing this with your own DC and did they pass or fail?
A friend of mine is regretting not getting tutoring and other help for her DD as she ended up with 3s in maths and english (despite doing ok in other subjects).

My DS is in Y11 and despite what people are saying on here about leaving him to it, I am just not able to. I have told him that I will support his learning until next summer - then his future choices will be his own.

Just an update before I disappear back to another name

We have chatted for a couple of hours this evening. He has apologised for being rude and disrespectful and says he did so because I said the homework he HAD deigned to do the evening before was 'dashed off and rubbish.' (It was)

However I understand that in his mind, he had done the homework so for me to say it wasn't good enough .. well, I get it. I get why he behaved why he did but this does not excuse his behaviour.

Anyway - the plan going forward. I've told him that I will continue to prompt him about homework and ask him if he has any and if so, to ensure it is done in the correct time frame. I will then say no more. I won't tell him he must do it before Xbox / going out / staring a football clips. I will just remind him to check what he has and that will be me, job done.

I also explained that any consequences that came about for not doing his homework were his to deal with BUT I was here for him at any point if he wanted help, guidance, support, whatever and I stressed it would never be too late to ask for help

So that's that.

I'm not able to just 'let him fail' by washing my hands of it all, so I have to still prompt and remind. But this will just take the form of once a day when he gets in and no longer will I turn myself inside out physically trying to get him to do it!

I know he has some homework this evening that's due in tomorrow. So I've mentioned it and that's all I'll do.

I've told him that how he spoke to me was rude, disappointing and not acceptable so we've now parked that one after his apology

So for anyone stumbling across this thread in the future .. maybe it'll be useful to take from it what I've done (or maybe not!) Parenting is about knowing when you've done your best and giving yourself permission to take a step back when you have exhausted a particular avenue.

I've done my best and now I'll do my best again but in a different way!

To be fair I don’t think posters are suggesting refusing to help or support your child. But if you’ve offered help and support which is refused with aggression there’s only so much you can actually do.

I think lots of kids of this age have focus and concentration issues. DD2 spends hours scrolling through her phone at inane nonsense on her phone yet has no time for homework. It's like an addiction probably made worse by so much time online due to Covid. My ultimatum is now no homework = no phone/ sleepovers/ allowance etc