Another mom frustrated with teen boy...

[MommyThrice]

I am tired of all the battles... and his laziness.

 

Ds is a 16-yo sophomore. We constantly battle over school and what he needs to accomplish. His has high aspirations - he wants to study constitutional law - but he seems to think he can get there on good looks and charm. :glare: and I'm a little worried that it just might work. :scared:

 

This is a kid that doesn't do anything until the last minute. He's always behind and does only the bare minimum. He prepares debate and mock trial cases at the last minute, and then does really well in competition. I think this has given him the false impression that he can get wherever he wants to go in this manner. Right now I can't imagine him succeeding in college. Math is difficult - he has a solid B in Algebra 2. His writing is weak. He no longer likes to read. He spends way too much time "doing school" and doesn't have much to show for it. He's getting a decent education, just not one that will get him into a great law school.

 

Let me say that I am finally okay with that... but he isn't. He thinks he is keeping up with his high-achieving friends. You know, the kids that are studying Greek and Arabic, winning all kinds of scholarship competitions, and being asked to intern for think-tanks. It must be the testosterone, but he just doesn't see what his friends are accomplishing that he isn't. (But, of course, they spend their time together talking about iPhones and cars, not school!) He's planning to compete in mock trial this year, but just wound up on the "B" team, instead of the "A" team with his friends. It has never entered his mind that it might be because the coach knows how he works compared to the others.

 

Anyway, he really needs to take more responsibility. I'm willing to let him fail, (okay, not really, but I'm willing to let him make B's and go to a state school) but I'm not willing to let him remain ignorant of his doing so. He's taking a pretty light load this year (so he could do mock trial and take dual-credit science this summer) but when I mentioned the light load today, he asked, "Why do you call this a light load? What else should I be taking?" He just doesnt know. So what I really need are some suggestions for books I can get for him to read. Maybe books on what colleges/law school want - that sort of thing. I really want him to be aware of where he's heading and what he could accomplish, as well as taking more responsibility for that path.

 

FWIW, his friends are accomplishing some pretty "out of the box" things that he won't find in a book. And I really want to stress excellent writing, not just scoring well on the AP English Lang test. So I don't want to over-emphasize a list of advanced-sounding class titles. I want him to get motivated to meet his own goals and quit fighting me.

 

Any book suggestions? Any other ideas?

 

Thanks for listening!

[Teachin'Mine]

I'd ask him where he'd ultimately like to go for college. Then pick the ones you think would be the most selective, and take him to their website. Let him see what the MINIMUM they require is and what most of those who gain admission actually did or how well they performed on the SAT/ACT tests. Let him read for himself what these top schools consider a good high school prep program. As you know, law school requires an incredible amount of reading. Building up to that doesn't happen in a crash course the night before. He should be reading a great deal now so his speed, comprehension, vocabulary, etc. can increase in prep for his pre-law and law schooling.

[regentrude]

I'd ask him where he'd ultimately like to go for college. Then pick the ones you think would be the most selective' date=' and take him to their website. Let him see what the MINIMUM they require is and what most of those who gain admission actually did or how well they performed on the SAT/ACT tests. Let him read for himself what these top schools consider a good high school prep program. As you know, law school requires an incredible amount of reading. Building up to that doesn't happen in a crash course the night before. He should be reading a great deal now so his speed, comprehension, vocabulary, etc. can increase in prep for his pre-law and law schooling.[/quote']

 

:iagree:

 

I was going to suggest something similar. He needs to hear from somebody whose expertise he can not doubt - not from mom (as you know, mothers of teenagers "don't know anything".) Starting on a website is good.

It would be even better if you could take him to visit a university and talk to somebody involved with law school admissions. He needs to hear how competetive it is, and how well prepared he needs to be for his undergraduate years in order to have a realistic shot at law school.

I would imagine that this could be more of a wakeup call than anything a parent says.

[SoCal Sandra]

He must:

Get into college. That means:

 

Score well on the SAT/ACT.

Earn a good GPA.

Show prospective colleges the extra-curriculars of a serious student.

 

Get into law school. That means:

 

Earn a good college GPA.

Score well on the LSAT.

Show prospective law schools the extra-curriculars of a serious student.

 

Get through law school. That means:

 

Study, study, study.

 

Pass the bar exam. That means:

 

Study, study, study.

 

Beat out a glut of competition for a diminishing number of jobs in order to find employment in law.

 

Beat out the most elite applicants from the best law schools to land a job in his chosen legal specialty, constitutional law.

 

Then ask him if he thinks he can accomplish all this with his current habits.

 

Good luck. I hope you can light a fire under this kid.

 

HTH

[MommyThrice]

Thanks for the ideas. He's looking at admissions info right now. My fear is that schools list MINIMUM requirements, not what he will probably need as a white, middle-class, homeschooler.

 

I know he'll be around lots of law students at his moot court contest at Washington College of Law - I'll look for opportunities to discuss law school competition while we're there.

 

I don't know if our local law school - Univ of Texas - will allow a high schooler to come visit, but it might be worth a try. I'll see if I can come up with a good excuse.

 

Thanks again,

Tracie

[Sandragood1]

I recently did this sort of thing - looking at minimum and recommended high school course loads, GPA's, and SAT's for getting into certain colleges. It was not terribly helpful. What WAS helpful were the statistics posted on the university's current Freshman Class: Weighted and unweighted GPA from high school, SAT Scores (usually listed at the 25th and 75th percentile), and other statistics like that.

 

Another site that was very helpful was MIT. Their page on what they are looking for from home schooled students has good advice for all home schoolers looking for acceptance to competitive schools. IMO everyone home schooling high school should read it - students and parents alike.

 

Good luck with this.

 

Sandra

[lauracolumbus]

If you know any lawyers they might give him a good talking to as well.

 

I was that slacker kid and went to law school. And did well. It wasn't until I realized that I wanted to clerk for a federal appellate court or teach that I realized that I had boxed myself into a corner by going to a relatively good school (ranked 26 at the time), but not a tippy-top school (I didn't even realize the difference at the time--I just went to the one that was the closest). One of my friends who went to undergrad at Harvard Law told me that Harvard gets twice as many applicants who have scored perfectly on the LSAT as they have openings. The competition is brutal for the elite law schools. However, in some schools, it really doesn't take much to get in or graduate (except for passing the bar).

 

I now have a teen boy who wants to go to law school, and he has the same slacker tendencies I had. He's a work in progress...

 

Best of luck.

Laura

[cindergretta]

My slacker teen is 17 and a junior. I have no advice. I am just reading along for ideas. :)

 

You are not alone. I swear my ds thinks life is going to magically happen for/to him. :001_huh:

[MommyThrice]

It wasn't until I realized that I wanted to clerk for a federal appellate court or teach ...

 

Best of luck.

Laura

 

So, were you able to do this? Or what did you end up doing?

Ds would like to practice appellate law (I don't know too much about it yet). He has loved moot court and con law.

 

You mentioned undergrad at Harvard Law. I've been hearing for undergrad it is better to be at the top of your class in a lesser school, than a lower rank from an elite school. Do you disagree?

 

Thanks for you input!

[Lucy in Australia]

If you know any lawyers they might give him a good talking to as well.

 

This. Yes, yes, yes. My DS15 wants to be an engineer. He apparently was going to achieve this by only doing well in Maths & Physics, because as we all know, this is all you need to become an engineer. Fortunately, we happen to have about 6 engineer friends of various ages (and therefore at various stages of their careers). A couple of them had some chats with him, and while I don't actually know what was said, he suddenly became very concerned about his weak essay writing skills and a couple of other things. Thank you, Lord! :D It made all the difference - to the point where he is questioning whether this educational programme I have chosen for him is adequate :blink::lol:

[1Togo]

Has your son taken practice ACT and/or SAT tests? If not, have him take a practice ACT or SAT test after you have looked at the entrance requirements, including scholarship parameters, for his target colleges. Yes, he should hear good information about the realities of college, law school, the bar exam, etc. from people besides mom. However, getting into college and paying for it are the first steps in his long-term goals. His ACT/SAT scores will determine acceptance and scholarships. If you aren't planning to pay for his college, figuring out how he plans to pay for college if he doesn't meet scholarship standards may put a little fire into him.

 

In our area, companies who are selling their test prep services offer free practice tests at local libraries, but you do not have to commit to anything to take the tests. If the free tests aren't available, buy a Princeton Review test prep book and give him a complete practice test, not bits and pieces; i.e. you time the sections and grade.

Edited November 16, 2011 by 1Togo

[laughing lioness]

Approaching this from a different perspective;

1) does your kid get regular, hard exercise? In my experience regular, hard work-outs clear the brain fog of adolescents, and teach them diligence in a way that seat work outs don't. Dh and ds job several times a week. When ds isn't jogging he is more tired, less motivated, more grouchy.

2) does your ds contribute "real" work = real value to your home/life in tangible ways? We've had ample opportunities to show our kids the value of their work in the last couple of years (we heated with wood for ahwile- "every 12" log of ash you haul= 45 min of heat for the house"- that's real world accomplishment. Now we are re-buildling our house- our 11 just primed an entire room alone. He knows he did a real world job.

In my experience kids who feel a sense of real world accomplishment (I drywalled part of the basement!) vs. staged accomplishement (I'm on level x of angry birds) have a greater ability to see the need for hard work and what it can earn.

 

My observation is that lots of kids today have a LOT of stuff (middle class rocks) without having to do anything for it. Thier parents have leisure time while earning a decent wage. They have health care and regular vacations and cars that run. What they observe is that a middle class life-style is available to all with little effort.

[Karen in CO]

Approaching this from a different perspective;

1) does your kid get regular, hard exercise? In my experience regular, hard work-outs clear the brain fog of adolescents, and teach them diligence in a way that seat work outs don't. Dh and ds job several times a week. When ds isn't jogging he is more tired, less motivated, more grouchy.

2) does your ds contribute "real" work = real value to your home/life in tangible ways? We've had ample opportunities to show our kids the value of their work in the last couple of years (we heated with wood for ahwile- "every 12" log of ash you haul= 45 min of heat for the house"- that's real world accomplishment. Now we are re-buildling our house- our 11 just primed an entire room alone. He knows he did a real world job.

In my experience kids who feel a sense of real world accomplishment (I drywalled part of the basement!) vs. staged accomplishement (I'm on level x of angry birds) have a greater ability to see the need for hard work and what it can earn.

 

My observation is that lots of kids today have a LOT of stuff (middle class rocks) without having to do anything for it. Their parents have leisure time while earning a decent wage. They have health care and regular vacations and cars that run. What they observe is that a middle class life-style is available to all with little effort.

 

:hurray: Well said, Lisa. Exercise and tangible work plus less screen time works wonders for boys stuck in this, at least it did for my ds and my nephew. Now when my girls comedown with whatever the teen-girl equivalent is, somebody get ready with some help for me if that doesn't work on girls. ;)

[Colleen in NS]

Great thread.

 

Another site that was very helpful was MIT. Their page on what they are looking for from home schooled students has good advice for all home schoolers looking for acceptance to competitive schools. IMO everyone home schooling high school should read it - students and parents alike.

 

 

Thank you for posting this!

 

This. Yes, yes, yes. My DS15 wants to be an engineer. He apparently was going to achieve this by only doing well in Maths & Physics, because as we all know, this is all you need to become an engineer.

 

:lol: My son (not currently interested in engineering, but *is* interested in science and math in general) read this this morning on p. xxvii my WWS IG and groaned (while I laughed): "Basic literary criticism is a type of writing that most students will be asked to perform at some point in their academic career; even engineering students are usually required to take a literature course in the first year of college, and will be assigned 'reaction' or 'literary analysis' papers."

[Nan in Mass]

I would just like to say that with my three boys, there was a huge difference between sophomore and junior year. Sophomore year seems to be a real low point, academically. I just plain waited it out with mine, trying not to let all the nagging I had to do do too much damage to our relationship, and it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Nan

[TechWife]

He's getting a decent education, just not one that will get him into a great law school.

 

Is that what he wants to do?

 

he asked, "Why do you call this a light load? What else should I be taking?" He just doesnt know. So what I really need are some suggestions for books I can get for him to read. Maybe books on what colleges/law school want - that sort of thing. I really want him to be aware of where he's heading and what he could accomplish, as well as taking more responsibility for that path.

 

This book has plenty of information on what top-tier colleges are looking for. Be careful, though. Don't let him get so overwhelmed on the college admissions issue that he gives up, thinking it to be an unobtainable goal. Some schools may be unobtainable for him, but there is probably a fit out there, he may just need to change his expectations.

 

Personally, I am against having students participate in activities just because they will look good on an application or resume. I think that they should participate in the activities that interest them.

What Colleges Don't Tell You (and Other Parents Don't Want You to Know)

 

[TechWife]

I recently did this sort of thing - looking at minimum and recommended high school course loads, GPA's, and SAT's for getting into certain colleges. It was not terribly helpful. What WAS helpful were the statistics posted on the university's current Freshman Class: Weighted and unweighted GPA from high school, SAT Scores (usually listed at the 25th and 75th percentile), and other statistics like that.

 

 

For our state universities, this information is under the heading "Class Profile." It shows you what the students that they did admit brought to the table.

[MommyThrice]

Thanks for all the great ideas.

 

He does get exercise - we all work out at the "Y" 3x/week. He also gets lots of exercise chopping wood whenever he fights with his brothers. And there is almost zero screen time other than school.

 

Right now I'm withholding the drivers' license as a carrot. When he gets caught up and stays caught up, then he will be driving.

 

He's working on goal-setting and organizing his time tonight. We'll see...

[lauracolumbus]

So, were you able to do this? Or what did you end up doing?

Ds would like to practice appellate law (I don't know too much about it yet). He has loved moot court and con law.

 

You mentioned undergrad at Harvard Law. I've been hearing for undergrad it is better to be at the top of your class in a lesser school, than a lower rank from an elite school. Do you disagree?

 

Thanks for you input!

 

Sorry, I'm just getting back to the boards.

 

I ended up doing appellate political asylum law, which is exactly what I wanted to do (I wanted to practice international public law--not many openings in that area). I worked for the Department of Justice and got in through a program called the Honors Program, which primarily recruited from the elite schools. One of my fellow attorneys even said to me something like, "So you paid $20k for law school, and I paid $60k and we ended up in the same place." But, it was a fluke for me...

 

I worked a lot of different jobs while in law school (mostly as a study avoidance tactic). One job led to another job...and the very first case I worked on was a US Supreme Court case, which led me to Washington, so I interviewed while I was there, and I ended up w/a dream job even though I didn't actively seek it out. I joke about how the highlight of my legal career was my second year of law school, and that it was all downhill from there.

 

As for your son's chances to getting into a good law school, the biggest factor will be his LSAT scores, although someone from St. John's University in Annapolis told me that all St. John's grads are accepted into Harvard Law. I'd love to verify that.

 

I'm not sure about the question of doing well at a lower ranked school vs. doing poorly (or less than stellar) at a higher ranked school. It's sort of the same question as getting into a good undergrad, and admissions officers' view of kids who do ok at great prep schools vs kids who are valedictorian at rural schools. There's probably a slight advantage in the latter, but I really don't know. I do know that if it were my kid and he got into a great undergrad, and I knew that he really wanted to go to a good law school, I'd jump at the great undergrad (finances not withstanding).

 

There are very few practitioners of 'constitutional law.' I also worked for a federal court primarily working on habeas corpus cases-a con law rich environment, but not nearly as exciting as other con law areas. Con law is probably one of the hardest area to break into b/c you have to work for a federal judge, teach, or if you're the Michael Jordan of law, clerk for the Supreme Court. I knew one woman who only wanted to hunt Nazis (there used to be a special department w/i DOJ that handled these cases). She didn't get the job and was sorely disappointed.

 

One of the best majors for a law degree is English. Not political science or pre-law. Rhetoric and speech are helpful, but still not as important as English. Learning to do analogies is helpful for the LSAT (and of course the SAT). A person who can write well and is analytical will do well in law school (and practically everywhere else). I had the latter, but am still working on the former. Currently I'm teaching a Bill of Rights course at our local co-op. These kids already know so much more than I could have dreamed of knowing when I left high school (or college).

 

Please feel free to pm me if there's anything else you'd like to ask.

 

Laura

Edited November 17, 2011 by lauracolumbus

[lauracolumbus]

I would just like to say that with my three boys, there was a huge difference between sophomore and junior year. Sophomore year seems to be a real low point, academically. I just plain waited it out with mine, trying not to let all the nagging I had to do do too much damage to our relationship, and it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Nan

 

This is good to know.

Laura

[Trilliums]

I'd consider a semi-formal *workplace development* unit. This might include researching different law schools and recruiters who visit their job fairs, job shadowing several different professionals in law, reading up on educational requirements and pay ranges for various options--starting with paralegals.

 

Also, he might look into the College Confidential website. DS is interested in engineering and reading through posts on highly selective schools was very informative, especially the threads where people post their ACT/SAT score/ ECs/ class load, etc and the school to which they were admitted. The message DS received was that top schools have a glut of perfect looking applicants and having something that sets you apart from the crowd seems increasingly important. We do realize some of those posts are not real, but there are so many that you can still get a general idea.