My son and school
 

My son who is a junior in high school is struggling once again. He seems to have a hard time focusing and settling in and getting the work done. I have tried everything from the hard ass route to a very kind and loving father. I'm running out of ideas and wondering if anybody here struggled terribly in high school or have children that did and what helped solve the problem.

Asking obvious questions. Is he involved in sports at school?

Does he have ADD? I was diagnosed with ADD when I was pretty young and as soon as I started taking Ritalin it really helped me focus. Or is your son just not doing well because he is to busy dicking around?

He has tried cross country, baseball, basketball and tennis. I've spent countless hours with him trying to help him but he gets into it finds that it's not coming easy to him and he quits. He needs to learn that hard work and sticking to something will lead to success but I'm having a terrible time trying to get him to realize that.

He sounds exactly like my son, only a few years older.

*Don't tell my children* but I absolutely hated school, especially elementary and Junior High. In retrospect I was bored to tears which fueled laziness. Honestly, there was very little in the curriculum that interested me or motivated me. In many ways I felt trapped, like a round peg in a square hole stuck in a vicious cycle of thought; "Man, I'm bored. Why am I doing this work; I'm not doing it very well; what does it matter any way ... man, I'm bored." In comparison I was very active in sports: baseball, football, basketball. Admittedly sports came naturally to me and I was motivated to excel.

My biggest fear for my children is that they will struggle like I did. Fortunately they've all done really well, though we have had some struggles with my oldest who just started high school. His issue is getting overwhelmed too easily. We've helped him through it and he graduated 8th grade on the honor role.

In all honesty I would ask if you really know what your son's interests are? As a boy my true interests were often misunderstood or dismissed (sob story that Mormon Red Death will tease me about). I have 4 siblings all of which excelled in school and are now respectively: a doctor, lawyer, nurse, hospital administrator. I'm an artist and I live in Canada!

I'm not suggesting you are neglecting your son, or haven't listened etc.; or even that he's an artist that is going to move to Canada :p I'm simply suggesting that maybe the current social and educational environment he is in is mostly geared to producing lawyers or doctors or businessman and perhaps your son does not see himself as one of those things ... and if he is not one of those things he likely feels there's no hope, so why bother.

*yes, I'm relying on BarbaraGordon's * shtick

Mine too. I imagine this post could come from me in a few years.

The kid wants to be a famous chef. When we went back east this summer the two places he wanted to see were Fenway Park and Bobby Fay's restaurant in New York City. I'm fine with this if I knew he would really do his best. He just needs to realize their is a huge difference in effort between having your own place and flipping burgers. Thanks for you thoughts.

We had a rule growing up in my home -- you finished what you started, especially sports. We were not permitted to quit. A lot of that had to do with the fact that my parents made sacrifices to pay for the sports but it was also to teach us about life.

Early in our marriage my wife did not agree with that philosophy. I insisted and it's one of the few battles I have won :) My children are not permitted to quit, even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming.

I agree with this approach. Much of what we do in life is going to suck....seeing things through builds character.

I do find it funny that your wife argued against teaching your kids not to quit...and then, true to form, she eventually quit! I am sure she is a hard worker, but the mental image was very simpsons-esque.

That's our rule too. Saturday is my son's last soccer game for the season (and probably for life). He would have quit 2 months ago.

What do you expect tooblue... she's canadian ;)

She had a different philosophy that's all.

If it make's any difference I'm the best artist living in Canada I can be!

We never let him quit during the season and he never asked to. He just wouldn't go out for the team the next year. He told me last night that he has always chosen the path of least resistance so it's part laziness and part not being able to settle into anything.

Since he wants to be chef why not get him into cooking class or maybe a cooking competition? Maybe get him a job at a local bakery. Its not sports but it might be somehing he could settle into.

I didn't mean to imply that you let him quit, I should've been more careful with my comments.

You don't sound grateful.

I certainly wasn't a path of least resistance type but I was lazy. Despite my frustration at being misunderstood I am extremely grateful for the way I was raised -- my mother and father are good parents. I'll tell you one thing, in retrospect, I especially appreciated about how I was handled. If my laziness or attitude became too much to bare on my parents they had no trouble making my life miserable in return.

My mother would tell me that if I wanted to act 'that way' then I would be treated 'that way'. She wouldn't do laundry or clean up after me etc. Any protestations were met with 'tuff'!

RC, have you tried some sort of a reward system? Money talks you know. And if you offer smaller, but more frequent rewards, you may get results. (Offering a big reward at the end of a term for good grades only works for kids who are already motivated. It's mission impossible for for the rest.)

We do a reward system with our son. He's almost 7, so quite a bit younger, but rewards work for any age. He gets poker chips for good behavior at school, at church, doing his homework in a timely fashion, being kind to his sister, getting his chores done, etc. He can trade in his poker chips for computer time, TV time, trips to Sonic or Blockbuster or even Transformers and other toys when he saves up enough. (We also take away poker chips for bad behavior.) Your son is probably too old for the poker chip system, but you could probably come up with something similar that would appeal to him.

As much of a pain as it is to get him to the games on Saturdays, it is worth getting him outside playing with kids and getting exercise. He gets bored with soccer. He'd rather build something or take something apart and figure out how it works than run around and kick a stupid ball.

Buy him a tool set and calculator for Christmas. You have an engineer on your hands.

And thus was laid the foundation for his future gambling problem.

RC, I agree with junkie. I would have him evaluated by a qualified professional. He's showing some symptoms of adult ADD.

In large measure due to rampant overdiagnosis, ADD is misunderstood by a lot of the general population. I was surprised to read when I was at the medical research foundation that it's an actual physiological disorder, involving suppressed presence of neurotransmitters in the brain. Up until I found out about that, I always kind of assumed ADD was either imaginary or due to bad parenting.

Anyhow, that's neither here nor there. You might have him checked out just because if nothing else, it would rule out one possible cause.

Put him in an environment with better peers, where doing well in school is cool. At his age, your son is in the thrall of his peers.

This might work, but I bet it won't. My kids go to a school like this and my oldest reacted just like you might hope. My second, not so much. I am not sure if there is any answer to give except be patient, longsuffering, willing to withhold privileges and hoep they get the point through their thick teen age skull before it becomes too late to easily recover.

I've wondered about this. I believe they have some programs up on campus so I may check into them. This is a good kid, with good friends, all active, all planning on missions, he doesn't play video games at home, he's respectful to others, he's just can't settle down and get things done.

As your son's father, I'd share your concerns. As an ill-informed third-party, I'd say you have a very fine son on your hands. What it means to achieve and accomplish in modern life can be very stultifying and stupefying for some. As long as your son stays emotionally engaged with life and curious about the world around him, I'd say he'll find his way.

I let my kids quit, whenever they want. My ten year odl wants to all the time. "That's fine", I say, "but you need to go to practice/lessons today so you can tell your coach/teacher that you are quitting....Oh, and you will need to reimburse mom and I for the money we've spent on this, so once you've reimbursed us, feel free to quit."

For some reason, he always changes his mind. But two weeks later, we go through the exact same routine again.