Every now and then I stop to read a magazine on parenting teens, or listen to mothers discuss their newest issues in raising their children. Early today, I over heard a parent ask her friends this question about her underachieving 15 year old---
" What do you do with a 15 year-old freshman who has been described by a teacher as "sometimes almost brilliant" and who just brought home 3 C's on his report card? With the note "work turned in late/incomplete."
and then she had specific recommendations--- asked as questions...
A. drag him to a psychologist to discuss his feelings about his father's mental illness and disappearance
B. punish him (how?)
C. set up a reward (bribe?)
D. make him go to summer school, missing the family vacation, if his final grade is a C (this would go against other family values)
E. other ______________
F. all of the above
His only input is that the teachers involved don't like him/he doesn't like them/or the work is boring.
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions. I'm not feeling confident in my "parenting of a teenager" abilities.
Another mother commented -- "Last report on my son's card had two D's on it, one in Ceramics, if you can believe that. My smart 16-y-o son has been utterly unmotivated since Middle School. and his 13-y-o brother is close behind. I don't know how to solve this problem but I will tell you what I've tried, and what the result was. Maybe others on the list will have ideas. If not, we can at least cry together on the mailing list!
1. punishments - I've tried all these for periods of a week to an entire grading period: come straight home after school, no TV, no video/computer games, no weekend sleepovers, no more allowance Result: no noticable results
2. rewards - instead of allowance, hefty bonus for A's and B's, nothing for C's, deductions for D's and F's. Extra bonus of TV in his room for all As and Bs. Result: slight improvement first grading period but zero profits all grading periods since then and he never qualified for the TV
3. nagging & lectures - "Where do you want to be in 2 years?" "How will you live in the Bay Area on miniumum wage?" "How will you get into college with a 2.3 GPA?" "When I was in High School" "All the Things you Have that I Didn't Have" etc. etc. etc. Even his friends nag him about his crummy grades. Result: if he's feeling happy, he says either "I guess I'm just lazy" or "Mom - think of what you're doing to my self-esteem" If his self-esteem is low, or I push him too hard, he says: "You just want me to be perfect! I'm not like you were!" and there is a big screaming fight and we both feel terrible for days .... I know self-esteem does come into this, but how do you preserve their self-esteem while still trying to prevent them from making huge mistakes?
4. private school - my son takes this as a threat. Very possibly this might have helped, but he loves the social life so much, and it is so important to him to be with the friends he's known since kindergarten, that I have never seriously considered this.
5. tutoring - this is about the same as trying to get him to do regular school work, only there is an additional person also trying, and you have to pay them to do it. The problem is not that he doesn't understand the material - he doesn't want to do it. The tutor also wasn't able to convince him to do it.
6. phoning/meeting with teachers - Result: predictable ("He doesn't turn in the work") This can also have the undesired effect of turning the teacher's attention to a previously unnoticed poor student, which has a couple of times for us meant even WORSE grades - now the teacher is expecting lousy performance from your kid so even if he improves, he may be already tagged for failure. On the other hand, I think it's good to meet with the teacher now and then so your kid knows you are interested, and that you care about his school work and are trying to find a way to make things better.
7. meeting with the school counselor - This was beneficial. The counselor listed all the classes and credits he's taken and he is actually not doing as badly as we thought, even though his grades suck, as he puts it. She had some helpful suggestions (find a study group). We felt encouraged. She also suggested we NOT take him off his jr. varsity team, something we had considered, because outside activities help with college applications. I also realized that being on the team is a big part of his identity, and that it helps him feel important and useful, so it would be devastating to have that taken away even if it interferes with his academic performance, which I am not so sure about.
8. talking with my friends - this helps a lot. Everyone has stories of the sister/nephew/husband/son who went thru high school with a C average and then blossomed in college when he found his niche. Or even later than college. Or maybe never, but "he's a really nice guy and everyone loves him." Seriously, some of my friends have teenagers who are brilliant in school, same schools as my kids all the way through, have fabulous GPA's and all sorts of extra-curricular activities, and are highly self-motivated, seemingly right out of the womb. That does get discouraging and it's hard to acknowledge that my kid just isn't like that. But it still helps to talk to other parents, because there are all sorts of kids, some better off than yours but some worse off too.
9. focusing on his good points - He's a personable guy, enjoyable to be around, has a good bunch of friends. These attributes can sometimes be more useful in life than stellar grades. And we have a pretty good relationship and he has never given me any problems with bad or risky behavior, which I am grateful for. I hardly ever tell him I appreciate these qualities, and I should do it more, now that I think about it - it seems like they can't get enough praise. He doesn't say anything back, but if I just say "You look nice in that shirt" his face lights up!
Anyway, I hope you don't put too much blame on yourself, because there are a lot of us out here struggling with the exact same problem, and there don't seem to be any easy solutions, at least not that I've found. But I'm always open to new ideas, so if anyone has something, send it on!"
Then the third mother chimed in and said "This situation sounds just like my 14 year-old, down to the "sometimes almost brilliant" who just brought home 3 C's "work turned in late/incomplete." First, the parenting of teenagers just isn't something to feel that confident about unless your child is a mutant. Having a child who is brilliant but won't do the work is a constant struggle! Don't give up."
I see a lot of kids, and sometimes the issues are real, and sometimes, they are just being teens. You can not force a child to do something they do not want to do... so you might have to look to other ideas not mentioned here.
There are therapist who work with teens, and you can find them at PsychologyToday.com - find a therapist. There are many therapists close to you who can work with your child and determine quickly is it might be worth screening him for a brain disorder/mental illness; or if the material is so boring to your "almost brilliant" child should be put into a more challenging program.
If there is mental illness in the family, you need to accept that sometimes these conditions are hereditary. If that is the case, treating the underlying illness might help him get back on track. Another issue may be that in fact he is coping with a learning difference that has gone undiagnosed or he is bright and he needs a more challenging and engaging environoment. Testing is very important here.... either with a therapist or educational consultant.
The only thing that is more challenging than parenting a teenager is parenting a teenager with learning differences or personality disorders, but these issues can be addresses and treatments offered to help. Finding out if there is anything going on with the brain chemistry can really help.
Parents need to find out what the core issues are, and then you will see improvement most of the time.
