another How do you handle an intentionally difficult high schooler? thread

[Arcadia]

DS says the only thing that would motivate him to want to do school work would be if he were paid.  I might actually consider this, but am concerned it might make things worse.

  

Ds has said he would like to get a job. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any job, "meaningful" or not that he could get currently.

Do you think he wants a job for the sake of having money for wants (fancier shoes/phone/stuff in general) or is it for the self esteem boost of earning some money? Or even for both reasons?

 

I have a male cousin who was a spendthrift and liked to spend on expensive stuff like branded cologne for example as a teen. For example a good quality $20 cologne would work but he would rather spend on a branded $80 cologne. He rather work after school than study but he wasn’t “academically advantaged†enough to cruise through high school and still be able to qualify for college. He just didn’t see the point of having an associate degree or a bachelors at that point in time. After a failed marriage (he and his ex-wife were alcoholics), he went back to college and got an associates degree and then a bachelors and his second marriage was less rocky due to maturity.

 

My dad while stingy would pay for all my wants as there were less inner city jobs safe for a teen girl to do. I worked in safe retail/tutoring places part time for the self esteem boost.

 

The bad influence part is really tough. Would increasing track practice be possible as a means to get him socializing more with his track team mates then with the bad influence?

[fralala]

I'm not sure this will be helpful-- I don't have kids this age yet-- but my sister did pay all three of her kids for good grades when they were in high school. Her girls went on to graduate and get college degrees (without cash incentives), but her son still dropped out at age 16. With that said, perhaps part of the problem was the unfairness of being paid for good grades when he might have to work a lot harder for that goal than they would? Who knows.

 

By the way, he is now a pretty successful and happy guy-- owns a home and has a job and is a nice guy (although I think the thing that suffered in his lack of education is his political views, but I could very well be biased!). He just had to get past that stage in his life. And it was a good thing he had the safety net of a supportive family.

 

I also had a rough time early on in high school-- slightly different but also hung with the Wrong Crowd and I accrued so many absences I was in serious trouble. However, one of my teachers (also my cross country coach) made lots of exceptions for me and did many things that definitely weren't "loving and logical"-- he didn't allow me to suffer the consequences of my Bad Teenage Decisions, and as a result, I was able to reach senior year and actually do well academically.

 

Like I said, my kids aren't in high school yet and I have no idea what I'd do in your situation (beyond worry and fret and suffer sleepless nights and ask for advice). But I did want to say that it is support from caring adults that helped me through my tough days, and as long as your son is still talking to you (as it sounds he is), you're already giving him something extremely valuable. It is good to know there is someone on your team when all those hormones are sometimes making you feel like sometimes you aren't even on your team and have no idea why you're making the dumb choices you regret as soon as they're done.

Edited December 12, 2017 by fralala

[eternalsummer]

You know, in retrospect and I'd completely forgotten about this, I think my parents paid me for good grades.  It was like $5 per A per semester, and I got all A's all the time anyway for other reasons, so I don't know that it made any difference - they could have paid me $300 per B and $5 per A and I would still have gotten all A's - but it did make a difference for my sister, who couldn't have cared much less about school otherwise.

 

I don't know that it's enough incentive at this point to worry about end-of-semester grades, though - I might instead incentivise doing homework every night, or working for an hour per day on school work, or something.

 

 

[hermione310]

My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but have you heard of Civil Air Patrol? This was an extracurricular that was popular with many homeschoolers I know that were interested in a military career. It offers structure, physical challenge, and "real life" military exposure for teens.

[Pen]

I would have him set up his weekend with the National Guard guy. Or I would let him not go. That is what I would think with my son, at least, but I know my son would probably end up calling, or else regret missing it and then call the next time.

 

I do think you know your son, too, but if you take over too much it makes it yours and not his. Even if he misses something that would be a good opportunity for him, for my son it would be worth it for him to have buy-in the next time.

 

This has been really hard for me but I have seen that the more involved I am the less ownership he takes, so I have to be aware that he is like that.

 

Yes. The ownership thing is important.

 

What I am now thinking is that the idea of trying to determine an unknown " guidance counselor" which might possibly either be the scary principal or a teacher ds does not hit it off with in order to get access to the Nat Guard recruiter--and then to have something that seems like a scary interview-- is part of the stumbling block on this.  

 

If it were making a direct call to the recruiter, DS may be able to handle that better--and that might be possible by waiting till summer if he still wants to do this then.

 

Or if he were to be able to talk with the recruiter less formally when the recruiter stops at the school next fall (assuming that happens yearly), that would probably be easier for ds.

 

My parents required a minimum 3.0 GPA in order to take the driver's license test and then to have use of their 3rd car.

 

There was dangled the carrot of a new car as a graduation gift for all A's or higher (not A-) in every academic course every quarter for the full 4 years of high school. I was on track to earn the latter until pre-calculus in 11th.

 

The latter was a big motivator for me, while the former was a motivator for my brothers.

 

 

The exact thing your parents did, would not fit for us, but in terms of reward motivators, were there any negatives that you are aware of?  Would you do something like this for your own kids?  Did you feel discouraged when pre-calculus got in the way of your earning the car?  And once you were no longer on track for the car did you lose motivation to do as well as you could in all your classes and figure you might as well just get the minimum 3.0 needed to have use of the 3rd car?

[Pen]

   Do you think he wants a job for the sake of having money for wants (fancier shoes/phone/stuff in general) or is it for the self esteem boost of earning some money? Or even for both reasons?

 

I have a male cousin who was a spendthrift and liked to spend on expensive stuff like branded cologne for example as a teen. For example a good quality $20 cologne would work but he would rather spend on a branded $80 cologne. He rather work after school than study but he wasn’t “academically advantaged†enough to cruise through high school and still be able to qualify for college. He just didn’t see the point of having an associate degree or a bachelors at that point in time. After a failed marriage (he and his ex-wife were alcoholics), he went back to college and got an associates degree and then a bachelors and his second marriage was less rocky due to maturity.

 

My dad while stingy would pay for all my wants as there were less inner city jobs safe for a teen girl to do. I worked in safe retail/tutoring places part time for the self esteem boost.

 

The bad influence part is really tough. Would increasing track practice be possible as a means to get him socializing more with his track team mates then with the bad influence?

 

I think he probably wants a job for both reasons.

 

I am trying to get him to go to as many track practices as possible. During the winter the practices are voluntary, but also a particularly good time to cement friendships with the core group of boys. Today DS said he is not going and I did not push him due to ice on roads, however.

 

Alas, there are no other 9th graders on track teams, and during school the kids largely segregate themselves by class year.  The current 12th grade is a pretty good class. The current 11th grade --especially boys--is awesome, with most all the kids doing multiple ECs (like a sport and band, or a sport and theater) as well as large numbers being highly academically motivated, and nearly the whole track group are 11th graders. I should add that last year, this group of track boys appointed ds to be an unofficial classmate, and a couple have told me that ds would be welcome to join them at lunch, that they'd be happy to help him study etc. Aside from social influence, ds was put on Varsity in part to be with the 11th graders with a possibility of being part of the school team that has a shot at State next year. So the athletic reason is itself a reason to keep going.  Also, if ds will shape himself up, once the 11 graders graduate he will be the most likely team captain and/or MVP.

 

His Spanish and Art classes do have kids from the track team as well as 9th graders, and two of his teachers said in conferences that they would steer him toward those track team classmates for project groups whenever they could and away from the bad influence boys he is gravitating to. Also one teacher who has none of the bad-influence boys noted the fewest problems from ds in his class (as in ds was paying attention and getting his work done). As well that teacher is one of the track coaches, is a good teacher, is male, and is former military, all of which probably help.

 

My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but have you heard of Civil Air Patrol? This was an extracurricular that was popular with many homeschoolers I know that were interested in a military career. It offers structure, physical challenge, and "real life" military exposure for teens.

 

 

Yes. Thanks! Lori upthread mentioned it.  I made calls and found that it is something that exists within a drivable distance. Ds has said he is "maybe" interested.  I was surprised he didn't sound more interested since he is intrigued by planes and space travel ideas. I wish I had realized this was a possibility back when we were still homeschooling.  Anyway I learned when they have general CAP meetings, and we may show up and see what it is like when the roads are less icy.

 

He is "maybe" even more interested in the Sea Cadets idea, but so far I've not found anything reasonably close for that.  I did find that a group out at the coast is actively seeking more members though, so maybe there'd be some way to work something out.  But we definitely cannot get there for a weekly meeting.

[Pen]

I'm not sure this will be helpful-- I don't have kids this age yet-- but my sister did pay all three of her kids for good grades when they were in high school. Her girls went on to graduate and get college degrees (without cash incentives), but her son still dropped out at age 16. With that said, perhaps part of the problem was the unfairness of being paid for good grades when he might have to work a lot harder for that goal than they would? Who knows.

 

By the way, he is now a pretty successful and happy guy-- owns a home and has a job and is a nice guy (although I think the thing that suffered in his lack of education is his political views, but I could very well be biased!). He just had to get past that stage in his life. And it was a good thing he had the safety net of a supportive family.

 

I also had a rough time early on in high school-- slightly different but also hung with the Wrong Crowd and I accrued so many absences I was in serious trouble. However, one of my teachers (also my cross country coach) made lots of exceptions for me and did many things that definitely weren't "loving and logical"-- he didn't allow me to suffer the consequences of my Bad Teenage Decisions, and as a result, I was able to reach senior year and actually do well academically.

 

Like I said, my kids aren't in high school yet and I have no idea what I'd do in your situation (beyond worry and fret and suffer sleepless nights and ask for advice). But I did want to say that it is support from caring adults that helped me through my tough days, and as long as your son is still talking to you (as it sounds he is), you're already giving him something extremely valuable. It is good to know there is someone on your team when all those hormones are sometimes making you feel like sometimes you aren't even on your team and have no idea why you're making the dumb choices you regret as soon as they're done.

 

 

You know, in retrospect and I'd completely forgotten about this, I think my parents paid me for good grades.  It was like $5 per A per semester, and I got all A's all the time anyway for other reasons, so I don't know that it made any difference - they could have paid me $300 per B and $5 per A and I would still have gotten all A's - but it did make a difference for my sister, who couldn't have cared much less about school otherwise.

 

I don't know that it's enough incentive at this point to worry about end-of-semester grades, though - I might instead incentivise doing homework every night, or working for an hour per day on school work, or something.

 

 

 

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PEN replying:

quote feature is acting weird--don't know if this reply will work...

 

I went with first experimental trial of monetary incentive today.  Just for one test that ds has today.  I'm still reading online about studies on pros and cons of money for grades, and trying to figure out what might work for ds.

[Pen]

And, National Guard will still be around when your son is a Sophomore, Junior, or Senior. It's not going anywhere. It can wait until your son can show some more initiative on it. It won't hurt anything.

 

It wouldn't keep him from doing other things that sound like a good idea :)

 

Yes.

 

I've just been thinking that it is also possible on "ownership" that I was supposed to say "No" to his Nat. Guard interest. So that he could  contact them over my objection.

 

When I offered a monetary incentive for a grade this AM, his initial reaction was to say, "No."