How do I make my 10th grader care?

[Rita]

I have a 10th grade boy who is driving the family scatty. He simply is unmotivated and doesn't care about his grades, school, studying, anything. He's not depressed...he's perfectly content to play with his friends and to do his own thing; it's just school. He's taking Latin with the Lukeion Project, and is not doing well. He was allowed to take today's quiz twice, and he took it once, got a 62% and moved on to the next thing. When asked, he admitted that he simply didn't care. His math scores are not good (mid 70s).

He has no idea what he wants to do with his life, and therefore doesn't see how school factors in.

Suggestions on how to motivate my child? BTW, taking away "stuff" doesn't seem to motivate him either :(

Rita

[mom2bee]

Removed by the Author.

[regentrude]

I don't know... but if my kid was refusing to be engaged in school, I would make him get a job. Teens should not be idle all day IMO - they should either work on their education, or they should just... work. Maybe seeing what kinds of jobs are available to somebody without a good education may motivate him? If he can't get a paying job, I'd require him to volunteer. Anything productive for a major part of the day. On the plus side, volunteering may show him how fortunate he is to have parents who care about his education.

 

What kind of ongoing conversation about jobs and careers did you have over the last several years? What were his interests and plans before he stopped caring?

[AnitaMcC]

I have a 10th grade boy who is driving the family scatty. He simply is unmotivated and doesn't care about his grades, school, studying, anything. He's not depressed...he's perfectly content to play with his friends and to do his own thing; it's just school. He's taking Latin with the Lukeion Project, and is not doing well. He was allowed to take today's quiz twice, and he took it once, got a 62% and moved on to the next thing. When asked, he admitted that he simply didn't care. His math scores are not good (mid 70s).

He has no idea what he wants to do with his life, and therefore doesn't see how school factors in.

Suggestions on how to motivate my child? BTW, taking away "stuff" doesn't seem to motivate him either :(

Rita

 

Sorry I am of no help here... I am in same boat with my Ds. Maybe the only difference is that he does care a tiny bit but he can't seem to get motivated and he just doesn't know what he wants to do anymore. He is border line genius and is thinking that being a UPS driver will be good....

[Gwen in VA]

Sympathy.

 

Do make sure he is spending as much time as possible OUTSIDE the house -- volunteering, working, involved with church or sports or just long-distance bicycling. Whatever he wants to do that gives him involvement with the adult world or time to think on his own is GREAT!

 

Try to figure out what his strengths and interests are. Then try to figure out where he wants to head. (Lots of talk time!)

 

We've been pretty clear that working at Starbucks is not a satisfactory life goal, but there are other paths out there that are worthwhile and do not necessarily involve lots of schooling.

 

I think the Bachelors degree becoming the new high school diploma is hard on active boys who want to do -- they see nothing but academia stretching into the indefinite future.

[Brindee]

Our oldest did that in 10th grade as well! We'd had friends move away, so kids he'd hung out with weren't around anymore. And, I guess he just got to the point where the homeschooling wasn't motivating him enough. We had a very tough year! Weird thing was, that was right after a really great year!

 

There are some Christian boarding schools that we looked into that have wonderful Christian environments and motivated kids, jobs, community service and a mission trip each year. We came up with two that weren't horribly expensive, and visited, and he picked one. It's not like a military school where they go if they're bad at all. It's a beautiful atmosphere!

 

That brought out his motivation again! He and a girl that went there had a friendly competition for highest grades in their classes. They did all the extra credit projects and questions and studied hard! He ended up with a 4.19! He lost, though, her gpa was a few points higher! :D

 

He met kids there whose first language was Spanish, and he "fell in love with" the language. While at home he was doing German, but jumped whole hog into Spanish there, with his friends helping. The school Spanish Teacher got very sick and had to quit, so after the first month, there was no Spanish class offered. But after two years at the school, he tested into 2nd year Spanish at a college in Washington State.

 

He is now fluent in Spanish and at a college in Mexico.

 

For my ds that school was a huge turning point in his life! He was never a rebel, he just wasn't motivated, and going to that school was what he needed! That may not work for you, but just thought I'd throw it out there since it worked so beautifully for my ds! :001_smile:

[AnitaMcC]

I don't know... but if my kid was refusing to be engaged in school, I would make him get a job. Teens should not be idle all day IMO - they should either work on their education, or they should just... work.

 

See my son isn't refusing to be engaged in school... He can't make himself get engaged in it. He wants to do well, he wants to learn. But he just can't seem to get himeself motivated to do the assignments and get them done well in an efficient time/manner. He asks for help, he asks us to "fix" his brain. My Ds is Asperger Syndrome/ADD while being border line genius.

 

He isn't idle all day. He is always doing something and mostly it is educational. Just isn't getting his school work done (the written stuff).

 

He had a lofty goal of being an astrophysicist... but now he seems to have given up on that. He has gotten very interested in computers and is doing a lot of self learning with that. He took a course last year at CC and earned a C because he didn't get some of the essays done (yep, he had five essays to write for a computer class). He still loves to learn all science related materials (except biology-LOL) and he reads a lot. But getting him to make progress in the other subjects is very hard.

[Susan C.]

10th grade was a turning point for us. I was able to get dd to see that this (school) isn't for me, it is for her and her future. She is a good student, but was drifting and moving so slowly... Looking at colleges online, their entrance requirements, their courses helped her to see that she needs to do to prepare for that.

[regentrude]

See my son isn't refusing to be engaged in school... He can't make himself get engaged in it. He wants to do well, he wants to learn. But he just can't seem to get himeself motivated to do the assignments and get them done well in an efficient time/manner. He asks for help, he asks us to "fix" his brain. My Ds is Asperger Syndrome/ADD while being border line genius.

 

OK, then I misunderstood.

I have no experience with Asperger's; have you asked your question in the Special Needs forum? I'm sure parents there are more knowledgeable about your son's particular challenges.

 

Would it help if you imposed more structure? If he can not get motivated to do things, what would happen if you gave him detailed short term assignments and were available to enforce their completion? As in: in the next hour, read this section in the text and work problems a-c - and then you check that this is done? Maybe having more structure and being held accountable for short term goals would make it easier for him to become organized and focused?

 

Also, did he have a chance to talk to people in his chosen field? Can he just dabble in astrophysics a bit and become interested again? Talk to an astrophysicist, or watch videos, or something? So that his desire to do that becomes rekindled and will help him develop motivation?

[Tressa]

I have a 10th grade son too. He is fairly unmotivated. He does very well when he is motivated. I think that is the most frustrating thing about my son. He can do very well if he wants to.

 

There are a couple of things that I have let him drop. That has helped. I also find that he does much better in the day if he has had physical exercise or hard labor. He recently helped a friend clear blackberries and it improved his attitude that day about everything. He has also recently started driving. That has also improved his attitude. It is strange. I don't know if it is the responsiblity of it or if he just feels more grown up.

 

We still go head to head about many things, but I think he is tired of listening to me. Heck, I am tired of listening to me. I think some kids just have a hard time finding their inner motivation. Unfortunately, life is about finding motivation for things we don't want to do. My son tries to tell me that he can't stay focused on things he doesn't like. I tell him to try harder. Loving, I know. :tongue_smilie: We all have to do things we don't want to do. It sounds like your son is finding what interests him and can stay focused there. That is great! But, they have to learn to do the things they don't want to do and I don't think there is anything we can do to fix that for them. We all have had to figure that out on our own.

 

Another thought..

I was thinking about this a little more. Maybe you could help him develop some tools that will help him stay on task and get more motivated. For example, he could tell himself that he will work on such and such for 30 minutes and then reward himself with something that he wants to do. Help him make some goals for himself and write them down and put them in a place that is always visible. As adults we reward ourselves all the time. Why can't a teen? Just a thought.

Edited February 15, 2011 by Tressa
another thought

[Rita]

thanks for the replies, and thoughts, about having an unmotivated teen! We have done hard physical labor before (mucking horse stalls at a friends' barn), and he does have a part time job as a life guard, but that's very part time.

We'll see how this next month goes.

Parenting. It's not for wimps.

 

Rita

[Margaret in GA]

thanks for the replies, and thoughts, about having an unmotivated teen! We have done hard physical labor before (mucking horse stalls at a friends' barn), and he does have a part time job as a life guard, but that's very part time.

We'll see how this next month goes.

Parenting. It's not for wimps.

 

Rita

 

:iagree:

 

I have two teenagers (9th and 11th) and truer words were never spoken. Honestly, I have come to the conclusion that all the talk in the media about how horrible our future is and that there are no job prospects for graduating university students has really influenced many of today's kids to just give up. I wish my kids had the inner motivation to study and work hard at school. But, alas, I must stand behind them threatening them like some sort of "Tiger Mom". :glare:

 

Margaret

[Yolanda in Mass]

Yes, indeed, certainly not for wimps! My ds20 did do his work when in high school (home schooled all the way through), but with much prodding, no - LOTS of prodding - as he just didn't see the relevance of any of it, well most of it anyway. Yes, we did discover when he turned 20 that he was ADHD, but even on meds he still absolutely loathes the idea of sitting in a classroom to learn things when he says he can do it so much better on his own (okay, show me!).

 

On the one hand, home schooling was a success because he knows he doesn't need to be in school to learn, but on the other hand he seems to think he doesn't need school at all except for the "stupid piece of paper" as he calls it! Meanwhile the kid is brilliant and can pull A's with one hand tied behind his back. He transferred to the state U's honors college after 3 semesters at a cc. He's not in school right now as he withdrew for medical reasons (back injury and a whole lot of other medical stuff), but says he doesn't know if he wants to return. He has a PT job and is reading up on stuff like: microeconomics, marketing,and tax law. Calculus is next, and he's working with someone who also thinks school is a waste of time and is developing some software for schools. Sounds good on paper, but ...Plan B?

Edited February 17, 2011 by Yolanda in Mass
missing info

[LidiyaDawn]

 

We've been pretty clear that working at Starbucks is not a satisfactory life goal,

 

Isn't the "life goal" supposed to belong to the person pursuing it, not the parents?

 

What are you going to do if your child decides that a career in hospitality/food services/etc is exactly what he or she WANTS?

[CherylG]

See my son isn't refusing to be engaged in school... He can't make himself get engaged in it. He wants to do well, he wants to learn. But he just can't seem to get himeself motivated to do the assignments and get them done well in an efficient time/manner. He asks for help, he asks us to "fix" his brain. My Ds is Asperger Syndrome/ADD while being border line genius.

 

He isn't idle all day. He is always doing something and mostly it is educational. Just isn't getting his school work done (the written stuff).

 

He had a lofty goal of being an astrophysicist... but now he seems to have given up on that. He has gotten very interested in computers and is doing a lot of self learning with that. He took a course last year at CC and earned a C because he didn't get some of the essays done (yep, he had five essays to write for a computer class). He still loves to learn all science related materials (except biology-LOL) and he reads a lot. But getting him to make progress in the other subjects is very hard.

 

My oldest is an astrophysicist...contact me privately and maybe we could long-distance hook them up. My son home-schooled through high-school into UCLA.

[Yolanda in Mass]

Isn't the "life goal" supposed to belong to the person pursuing it, not the parents?

 

What are you going to do if your child decides that a career in hospitality/food services/etc is exactly what he or she WANTS?

 

 

I'm not the one who posted the "Starbucks" comments, but I think they are referring to a dead-end job, not necessarily a career in food services. Otherwise, I certainly agree with you that it is the child/young adult who must decide what their "life goal" is. Hopefully, they will listen to the counsel of adults who know them and care.

 

Yolanda