My 15 year old son will be starting his exams in May and has gone from being in the top classes most of his school life to dropping down classes to the point he's now being told he isn't being presented for maths, history and biology as he's not going to pass them.
In all honesty I'm not surprised, he puts little or no effort into anything. I know he thinks he's going to walk out of school into a job and everything will be great, he doesn't seem to realise that he'll need to actually work at work.
We have tried everything for him, probably held his hand a little too much and for too long if I'm honest with myself.
The problem is, should I be taking privileges away from him, if he's not going to study and at least try, why should he have his playstation or phone or netflix. These are all things he completely takes for granted.
I'm so lost, do we leave him to it and let him suffer the consequences or do we push him to try harder even though it's not working and seems to never have?
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Teenagers
Too lazy to try
WeeCC · 13/03/2024 18:00
Geebray · 13/03/2024 18:08
Not having a Maths GCSE will shut him out of a lot of jobs, at all levels.
WeeCC · 13/03/2024 19:39
So I should have put some context in.
We're in Scotland so it's national qualifications they sit. He was in a Nat 5 class (one of the top) so would be taking the exam however at his parents night a few month's ago, they advised he be put in a separate class that had been made for kid's struggling with NAT 5 and it would give him more support. Now his teacher's reckon that he'll still fail it as he's still not meeting the requirements so he's been presented at Nat4 level which doesn't require an exam, it's based on school work.
This year he's just given up on school and it's completely down to his attitude "don't want to so I won't".
We have tried everything with this boy, consequences, chats, trying to compromise, incentives, even tried having a meeting with his head of year but that didn't seem to phase him either. He's not a bad boy, he's great with his wee brother and is a kind loving big hearted boy, but he just makes bad choices, vaping, drinking, cheek, usual teenager stuff, we're not easy on him but I've found it's not making a difference.
I have told him that he's not going to be getting it easy if he fails his exams, no fortnightly barbers appointment, no paying his phone, no paying for his treats and takeaways but he just doesn't seem phased, he's very much "deal with that when it happens"
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