He's 13. What can I do?

November 16, 2005 3:37 PM

I'm the parent of a 13 year old underachiever.

Just came back from a parent-teacher conference. My son's getting a 2.4 GPA. He got a C in Physical education ("no motivation to participate; defensive"). He got a D in Language Arts ("doesn't turn in work; argues"). He got no As, and a number of other seriously bad comments from his teachers.

This is the same kid that, 2 years ago, was in Extended Learning Programs and in all the top classes, making straight As. The teacher had no answers for me, and I don't know where to go from here. We've tried punishment, lectures, working with him on all the homework. He finds ways around everything (i.e. leaving homework at home or at school, whichever is most inconvenient for getting the grade, not writing down assignments, not filling in a supplied assignment book, etc).

The teacher has suggested a 3rd party professional counselor from "The Achievement Center". It bothers me that we're going to have to pay money to solve this problem. I'm worried that it's less what we do and more who we are that's getting in the way of us helping him through this or getting him to change for the better (like, for example, the fact that we're the parents).

Here's hoping other Mefites have gone through this with their children.

posted by thanotopsis to education (88 comments total)

Perhaps a little therapy/counseling is in order. I was 13 when I began screwing up, much like your son. Perhaps he is simply bored to tears with school (as for gym, who in their right mind likes gym?). You describe him in a way that suggests he might be. I myself would not let fees stand in the way of helping my child solve a problem. Don't know what "The Achievement Center" is, but there may be free counseling available, or low cost, particularly for those without health insurance. A third party counselor might be able to get to the root of your boy's problems. Good luck.
posted by scratch at 3:42 PM on November 16, 2005

I think you might have better luck asking other Mefites who have gone through this as children.
posted by Jairus at 3:43 PM on November 16, 2005

When I was at that age I was also in advanced learning programs, but by the time I got to 15-16 I was hardly going to any lessons but would hang around school stealing (and reading) text books from the college library attached to the school and generally persuing my own education. Then again, I'm a bit of a weirdo like that anyway. I go to London School of Economics lectures for *fun* :(

Although obviously you want him to get better grades, all I can suggest is talking to him about in like he was a normal person and asking him what he would like to learn about or be doing instead. He must just be turning into a hormonal teenage brat like we all were.
posted by alexst at 3:45 PM on November 16, 2005

I did the same type of thing at his age. Eventually, I ended up quitting school for a year and working. I did return and my grades went up.

But, I was so bored I wanted to scream. School wasn't challenging, I could finish the work in a few minutes, then had plenty of time to goof off and get in trouble. I wish my parents had pushed for the school to meet my needs.

Push the school, find educational things outside of the standard school day for him. Talk to him about it, without yelling or getting angry. See if there is anything you all can do before you ship him off to a counselor.
posted by SuzySmith at 3:48 PM on November 16, 2005

I was trying to suggest that he will probably get over it, but you might have to be hard on him at times as it's entirely possible to slip too far into teenage angst mode. I guess some kids react differently to authority though, in which case things get more complicated. How does he behave with you?
posted by alexst at 3:48 PM on November 16, 2005

When you asked him why his grades slipped so much, what did he say?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:49 PM on November 16, 2005

That was pretty much me, although my scholastic downfall happened more towards being 15 and 16. I think it was largely due to being in a state of constant anger and depression and confusion with zero understanding of why I felt like that.

I'd recommend therapy, or at least talking to your kid, although this didn't really work for me. It just faded over time. Just keep things honest and cool. Don't try to make him feel like a failure or like a freak who needs help, although at that age I guess most kids need help. Figure out what he feels about being in that school, in that culture, among those kids. Figure out what he's feeling inside and try to work with that, because it seems more than likely to me that this is probably the root issue.

Good luck, though.
posted by xmutex at 3:53 PM on November 16, 2005

alexst: How does he behave with you?

He's pretty defensive. His Language Arts grade is probably the most telling: I spent my time in college as a peer tutor in writing and getting my BA in English. When I ask him to come to me with this Language Arts homework, it's like pulling teeth. Eventually, when I'm able to see it, and offer him some suggestions, he gets angry and frustrated that I didn't agree with what he'd written.

...which pretty much describes our relationship. If I'm not confrontational, and talking about things he likes to talk about, we get along fine. If I confront him about anything, he gets defensive, backs into a shell, or gets so frustrated he bursts into tears,

Optimus Chyme: When you asked him why his grades slipped so much, what did he say?

His stock answer: I dunno.
posted by thanotopsis at 3:56 PM on November 16, 2005

Hoo-boy, does this resonate for me!
I was boredboredbored - and really tired of being told that I "...had so much potential..." I decided that I would prove that I was average, and then maybe "they" would leave me alone.
Of course, this is not what I wanted, but I sure put my game face on. As the only child of a single mom, I got my way, and ending up dropping out at 17, getting my GED a year later, wandering around in my 20's (drinking, lots of sex, some drugs) and finally figuring out there might be more to life in my late 20's.
It took a while, but I turned out okay.
So, what to do? Don't take "I don't know" or "no" for an answer. Challenge the kid - make him do something that is really hard. Mostly, be extremely consistent in your message. By this I mean, if you say "You're grounded for a month.", stick with it - don't give in after 2 weeks.
If you can, have a frank talk with him about drugs/drinking. I started smoking pot at 14, and it sure didn't help my motivation any.
Good luck!
posted by dbmcd at 3:57 PM on November 16, 2005

Has his doctor ruled out ADD?
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:01 PM on November 16, 2005

Keep in mind that your son's actual grades in middle school will stop mattering as soon as he leaves middle school (unless he's taking high school credit classes). Again, with the exception of high school credit classes, and maybe an amazing exceptional teacher, he's not going to be taught anything in middle school that isn't taught again in high school. Exceptional middle school teachers are hard to find, because middle schoolers are horrible people. What does matter is that he learns how to manage being in school and doing work before his grades become important.
That being said, his classes are problably too easy, and he probably thinks he's smarter than his teachers. I did that in middle school. I also outgrew it by 9th grade. Try to figure out if he gets along with any of his teachers. Get the ones he likes to try and motivate him, rather than just the teachers who he really has problems with. Also try finding him a club or a hobby or something so he can stay busy rather than just acting out.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 4:06 PM on November 16, 2005

If I confront him about anything, he gets defensive, backs into a shell, or gets so frustrated he bursts into tears,

To be honest i've never felt like talking to my parents about things I do, i'm not sure why, i've always just found solice in friends or sorted things out on my own. Does he have a lot, or particularly good friends at school? Not that I ever told my parents about who my friends where either.

I think I always preferred to do things which had a point to them rather than some random piece of work a teacher assigned which was pretty directly going to end up in the bin or pinned to a wall and ignored. Like other people have suggested giving him a task with more tangible results might help. Maybe he is privately extrovert and would rather do something which had a tangible effect on someone other than himself.
posted by alexst at 4:06 PM on November 16, 2005

We've tried punishment, lectures, working with him on all the homework.

Have you tried not obsessing over his grades for five minutes, not branding him an underachiever, and actually just having a conversation with him about whether he's happy and what's going on in his life?
posted by chrismear at 4:07 PM on November 16, 2005

More than 20 years ago I was that kind of kid, so let me speak a bit for the other side:

Lectures and punishments are a mistake because they build no real foundation for change. What worked for me was leaving me alone (which, on preview, seems to be what others are sayiing). You might consider just letting him fail. That natural intelligence will still be there when he pulls out of it on his own. In the meantime, while you're waiting for him to get back to normal, pile good things in his life. Go all over the map. Throw events, places, and stuff in his way just in case he might get interested. Cheap or free works just as well (so don't forget about the library). Don't try to find out what he likes, just offer what any young man might like. Not just things but the events or actions associated with the things: cars and bikes and motorcycles, gaming and computers and web sites, shirts and jeans and jackets, novels and short stories and anthologies and poetry, restaurants and new foods and treats and sweets and gardening, stickers and paints and woodworking tools, weight-lifting gear and skateboards and rollerblades, baseballs and footballs and rackets and mitts, DVDs and CDs and video games and concerts, hiking and biking and swimming, and girls (if you're alright with that), maybe in the form of a trip to a poster store with polite pin-ups, or a subscription to a lad mag, or what have you. Deluge the boy with new ideas--new ways of engagement--and if none of it sticks--most of it won't--walk away, wait a while, and try again with something else.

Your goal is to distract him from his moodiness and try to get him interested on the world.

Also, you cannot cure his defensiveness. It simply cannot be done.

Also: It bothers me that we're going to have to pay money to solve this problem.

I realize that I know nothing about your financial situation, and I know money can be tight for any of us at any time, but are you really setting a dollar value on how far you'll go to help the boy? I think you are probably not, but let me say: I hope that if money is an issue you explain it nicely as "I'm sorry, but we can't afford it" rather than "I'm sorry, but you're not worth it."
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:07 PM on November 16, 2005

That was pretty much me in middle school too. School's most likely intensely boring, too easy, or inapplicable to what he's interested in, but he's forced to be there for a good chunk of his life, so he's coping by zoning out. If you figure out what he IS interested in, then you can figure out a way for him to get education that's more applicable to his interests, which will help him suffer through the boring, useless stuff.
posted by fnerg at 4:13 PM on November 16, 2005

alexst, yeah, there is a tendency to over-medicate in our society, but as someone who struggled through 30 years of life with undiagnosed ADD, I can say that it's worth looking into.
posted by Biblio at 4:18 PM on November 16, 2005

I, like many others here, was like your son. I rebelled against doing well because that was exactly what was expected of me. I have an older brother who is THE overachiever of the entire universe. When his old teachers would tell me that they expected great things from me, I absolutely refused to play their game.

If he's not being challenged enough (and school is not challenging at all for smarter kids) then he'll goof off and he may like the attention he gets for being a goof.

Definitely don't harp on him though, that makes you his adversary and he'll withdraw further and further from you.

Good luck and don't rule out outside help just because it costs money to do so. That's extremely short-sighted thinking.
posted by fenriq at 4:20 PM on November 16, 2005

Oh, and I meant to add, I have a 15 year old stepson in the same boat. The boy desperately needs a hobby. If I could, I'd suggest homeschooling him with my own kids, but there's all sorts of custody issues preventing that.

Good luck!
posted by Biblio at 4:21 PM on November 16, 2005

I am currently very much like this. Very much. In fact just today I was lectured at length by an administrator about how drastic the disparity is between my capability and output.

Is he doing other things? Does he have a hobby? Is he involved in some sort of extracurricular activity? A girlfriend? If he is being distracted, it's an issue of priorities. Perhaps he simply isn't in to academic pursuits. Perhaps his aspirations aren't obviously academic. Does he know what he wants to do with his life? Does he have any idea at all? If he does, it shouldn't be hard to point out (not lecture) how his aspirations would be furthered by jumping through academic hoops. Whatever you do, don't try cutting him off from doing what he loves, it won't help anything. Look at the top ranked students at his school... most of them probably do hundreds of other things to pad their resumes for the upcoming matriculation frenzy. Busy people get things done, and seperating him from his passion will only make him angrier and moodier (do not underestimate the adolescent capacity for such things).

If he is interested in intellecutal pursuits, he may be in the same boat I am, he is dissallusioned. He doesn't see the connection (because it probably isn't there) between organized pedagogy and education. For the past 3 years or so I've been dropping steadily grade-wise. It's very much a cyclic thing... the longer you fail, the less you care and the easier it is to give up. Point out that while school may not be teaching him anything, he needs to fulfill it's often painfully innane requirements so he can move on to more important things. Find out who his heroes are, point out that most of their life stories don't begin with "after barely scraping through highschool". A minimal investment of time in tooling during highschool saves a great deal of effort later on.

If he isn't doing anything it's probably time for counselling. Other people I know who went down this path had developed a drug habit. It's a taxpayer sponsored cliche, but you may want to check up on what Johnny is doing in his spare time.

Beware of those who tell you to drug him.
posted by phrontist at 4:22 PM on November 16, 2005

Is he hanging out with new friends, or have his old friends seemed to change in personality over the last few years? I have to admit, drug use was the first thing that occurred to me as a possible explanation. 13 is not too young.

Hopefully that's not it.
posted by BackwardsCity at 4:22 PM on November 16, 2005

Mine is 21 now and I can tell you two things that helped me cope. One is to look at new studies out about brain development...kids really don't have all their brain functions in their teens. They start to think they are complete beings, and we start to think they should act like it too, but in fact they are still works in progress. Reading about brain development made SO MUCH sense when I looked at my kid. And yes, he is coming out of it.
The other sanity thread is to remember that school isn't everything. At thirteen-eighteen it seems like the whole world. But as adults how we did in school may have little to nothing to do with how our life turns out. Think about how you were, or how the people around you are now and see if thirteen was a bell weather time. Chances are that a good kid will be a good adult. Try to chant that. Often.
Having said that, it is important that you keep on top of danger signs, or really poor choices (keep an eye on who he makes friends with), but overall and in your own mind keep saying "This too shall pass". Good Luck.
posted by what-i-found at 4:25 PM on November 16, 2005

1) Rule out drugs and or drinking

2) Rule out depression

3) Try to back off yourself-but see if there are any adults he likes and likes to spend time with whom he can talk to. At that age they don't want to take their problems to their parents but having someone like a youth group leader or grandmotherly figure around to talk to may help quite a bit.

A lot of this frankly sounds like some passive/aggressive stuff is going on too. Not uncommon at all at that age, sorry. But being right on top of him will be the absolute worst thing you can do. Counseling seems like a good idea, as you will be bringing in a neutral party.

I raised three teens who are now 18, 19 and a hair shy of 21, just so ya know. The middle school years are just a time to grit your teeth and get through it. For both you and your son.
posted by konolia at 4:25 PM on November 16, 2005

Oh, and if he wants to stick it to The Man, as he should, pranks (of a non-harmful creative nature) are a much better way to do this than screwing up academically.
posted by phrontist at 4:25 PM on November 16, 2005

My heart goes out to you and your son. I was somewhat like your son as a child, and as my daughter gets older I'm preparing for these same issues myself.

I began to do lousy work at school, because it was obvious to me that the assignments were meaningless busywork. I had already learned through my own reading far more than I was required to master in the curriculum. Schoolwork was the intellectual equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again. I especially hated the paradoxical demand to live up to my perceived potential. "We know you can do this work and get good marks.""Well, then, if you know, why do I have to waste my time with it?""Erm, because we live in a post-industrial society which values completion of assigned tasks to the required standard and deadline more than it values the pursuit of interesting things, and insists that you be incarcerated in school until you learn to comply." (I made that last bit up. I wish someone HAD said that, actually).

Luckily I had great outlet in playing music, and a free run of all the books and electronics gear I wanted, and I learned to accept schoolwork as a more or less necessary evil. Another thing that helped was aquiring a circle of equally nerdy friends - sheer teenage competitiveness got me doing better work so I could keep up with them.

I like the sound of Mo Nickel's advice. I also second the people who are suggesting that you worry less about his schoolwork and more about his happiness and engagement with life. The schoolwork's a symptom. At 13 there is plenty of time for that to come right, and it's no great problem right now.

Are there any other adults in his life he will talk to right now (eg uncles, friends of the family?)

It occurs to me that this behaviour must have some value for him. Maybe he wants you to set lower standards for him to relieve the pressure to achieve. Maybe he's been teased badly at school for being a nerd. Maybe he has some secret project of his own that he is devoting his energy to. His reasoning may be misguided from your POV but it will make sense to him.

PS: I turned out OK.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:33 PM on November 16, 2005

I went through this a bit in 9th grade (age 14, roughly) and started bringing home C's for a semester or two in my good subjects (namely, English, history and math -- honors/advanced level for all). The short answer is that I was depressed and angry (in part -- though by no means solely -- because I was a bit of the outcast/punk rock type, and got teased/tormented pretty mercilessly; also because my sister had just left for Harvard -- see below for the significance of that!), and experienced those emotions as frustration and boredom.

I can't say why I sort of snapped out of it, but I did. That is, I snapped out of bringing home the mediocre grades by about 10th grade (so age 15/16), but I remained depressed and angry for years (which my parents actually refused to take seriously in part because I was getting good grades!). Getting the hell out of junior high into high school helped quite a bit on the grades (note: I went to school in a district where junior high = 7th-9th grades, and high school = 10th-12th) -- the classes were much more interesting and I had a larger pool of friends with similar interests in music, etc.

Again, though: even though I brought my grades back up, my underlying depression/anger remained -- and was not acted upon until I started diligently seeking out therapy once I was in college and grad school. So I guess my point is that I would recommend you indicate that it's not his grades that matter so much (I had the stupid "You have to go to HARVARD! HARVARD! HARVARD!" message drilled into me for many years even before my sister left to start her freshman year there) -- it's his well-being that you care about more than anything else in the world.

I think when I was his age I feared, at some level, I wouldn't be loved if I didn't get good grades (though I certainly couldn't have articulated it like that at the time). Do what you can to make sure he doesn't carry that same secret fear.
posted by scody at 4:40 PM on November 16, 2005

I rowed the same boat.

The problem is that this is precisely the wrong time to be fucking up. When college selection time comes up, they don't care about how smart you are, deep down. They just want a high GPA. Don't have it, don't proceed to the next step in the evolutionary ladder.

I would suggest you find out what your son enjoys. He sounds like a smart kid that is unfortunately bored stupid. No amount of cajoling, threatening or punishing is going to change the fact that he hates what he's doing. So find out what he likes, because (at least in my case) I was always able to conjur up superhuman amounts of energy when the task at hand was something I was actually interested in.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:46 PM on November 16, 2005

Touchy situation, but not really a big deal. You can help this.

As you noticed in previous comments, this happens to virtually every teen kid. The most difficult part for YOU is to not succumb to pressures from his school, i.e. negative comments from teachers.

You know your kid. You know that you love him and want the best for him. So stay on his side! He's caught in the middle here. The teachers are pissed and you are pissed.

So back up, look at the big picture, and remember all of the beautiful moments you have had while raising him.

Right now is his first step towards being a man. So help him become that man. Be gentle, kind and non-judgemental. It's hard with early teen kids, but do cool stuff with him too. You guys are on the same team.

Ten years from now, when he is starting his own family, he won't leave you alone with telling you how thankful he is for carrying him through his most difficult years.
posted by snsranch at 4:47 PM on November 16, 2005

As just such a fuck up, it the middle of the painful process of paying for fucking up, Civil_Disobedient could not be more spot on.
posted by phrontist at 4:48 PM on November 16, 2005

Your goal as a parent is hopefully to help him get to where he wants to be in life as quickly and easily as possible, even though he probably doesn't know where that is yet. You also don't want that place to be in your basement.

He wants to do what he enjoys and delay thinking about his future for as long as possible, because mooching off your parents is a pretty nice gig.

The magic bullet is finding the activity that is both enjoyable for him and can lead to his independence.

Everything falls into place after that.

Explore his interests deeply, and expose him to as many hobbies/occupations/skills as you can. Teach him how to make things. Boats (there's a cool boat-building class near here), houses (Habitat for Humanity), bicycles, computers, soap carvings, whatever.

Be honest with him. Where does he want to be in 10 or 15 years? This is the kind of question that can lead to reticence, so approach it carefully. Would he like to play video games for a living? What about design them? What other jobs use the same skills as game design?

D's are frustrating to a parent, but your son is not a D. He sees, crystal clear, that these classes have nothing to do with him. He is choosing not to spend time on them. If you can draw that line, from cool job X to good college to good grades in high school, he'll improve because he wants to.
posted by trevyn at 4:56 PM on November 16, 2005

My sister went through the same thing at 13- really struggled with the grade thing. And her public middle school (the same one I moved into in the middle of 8th grade ::shudder::) didn't seem to give a shit. So my parents put her in private school (smaller classes, much more advanced stuff then she would have got at the public middle and high school). She became a really good student (with amazing study skills!), and is currently in college, studying to be a nurse.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:00 PM on November 16, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oh how this resonates: and I've been through this now twice, from both sides. By fourteen I was entirely sick of the word "potential", was badly depressed, smoking a lot of pot, and had dropped out of high school entirely. What worked for me? Finding a small alternative program with rigorous intellectual standards where I repeated Grade 10 and went on to Grade 11 before abandoning high school entirely in Grade 12 (the school only went to Grade 11). None of that stopped me from going to University, and it never occurred to me that it would. High school, at least in the this part of the world, is not make or break: you can always pick up your formal education by doing a year at a Community College (where you can register with any kind of high school record once you are over 18 and therefore a mature student), and then transfer over to University once you've got a few courses and a reasonable GPA under your belt. I did this at 21, and it was painless.

Now, from the other side: I struggled through this with my son, as well, and it was terribly difficult. I took him for counseling too-- several different times and several different counselors/psychologists. But the problem wasn't him, and trying to fix him-- as opposed to fixing the situation-- didn't work. What did work, again, was finding the right environment. In his case, I took him out of school entirely about half way through Grade 9, and for the next two years he attended a school with a non-coercive philosophy and few formal classes. What that meant in practice was that for two years he basically did nothing but read, mess around on his computer, listen to music and hang out with this friends. I forced myself to stop obsessing about his grades and his eventual plans, and let it go. By the end of his second year, he asked to return to the regular system, having recognized that his friends were eventually going to graduate from high school, and he didn't want to be left behind. He walked into a Grade 11 classroom and instantly started making As and Bs-- this with the equivalent of a Grade 8 education up to that point. This doesn't mean that my son was a brilliant nascent scholar-- just that high school isn't all that difficult. My son will graduate next year, and I trust he'll find something interesting to do. But I've long since stopped seeing his grades as indicative of how he will do later in life. The pressure I had been putting on him, I slowly realized, had been tremendous, and often backfired.

Words of advice? Try to get out of the power struggle you are locked into around school, and grades. If he’s anything like I was, he may be (and I know now that I was doing this) challenging you to prove that you love and value him no matter what his grades are. Find him something else to do, and to feel good at—something that belongs to him, and won’t fall under too intense parental scrutiny. Look into alternative programs in your area—one of them may spark his interest. Good luck.
posted by jokeefe at 5:01 PM on November 16, 2005

This might be an entirely normal phase that's mostly oriented toward driving you guys crazy, or he could be seriously distressed about something that you know nothing about. I think going to counseling of some sort is a way to find out which thing it is.

I honestly don't know quite what to make of your statement that it bothers you to pay money to deal with this - if this was a medical problem, would you say the same thing? Perhaps you have the idea that a "good" parent can solve these things on his/her own, and that having your child see a therapist means that you've failed as a parent. If that is something you believe, you're certainly not the only person who feels that way, but please try to think differently about mental health issues. Your son may just need someone to talk to about things that are bothering him, and it may be that he can't talk to you, since you're his parent. It's next to impossible for parents to listen nonjudgementally - that's not our job! *I* certainly couldn't talk to my parents about things that were on my mind when I was a teenager. Finding a therapist who can work competently with teenagers is not easy, but it can *really* be worth it.
posted by jasper411 at 5:05 PM on November 16, 2005

Also, just in response to to posters who say that this is just the wrong time for your son to be "fucking up"-- of course, I'm not in America, so the "high-school straight to college and it better be a good one" model is not nearly so overwhelming. But I have to ask: Is that really the one and only option for American kids-- that if you blow your college entrance at 18 your whole subsequent life path will be blighted? Can't you go to University later on? I did my BA at a University where the average age of the student body was 27, and that was one of the reasons I chose it. Some people just aren't ready for academic work at an earlier age. I certainly wasn't, and in every other way I'm totally suited for academia, and love it there. But before I started University, I lived on my own, spent part of a summer living on a beach in the middle of nowhere, moved to a different province, worked up North, and travelled for a year in Europe and the Middle East. Now that's an education. And when I went back to school I brought the wealth of that experience with me.
posted by jokeefe at 5:11 PM on November 16, 2005

Thank you all for your comments so far. I can see I touched a nerve. I'm not going to mark any as the best, as they're all very helpful.

I want to address one thing mentioned here, as I don't believe I communicated myself as well as I should:

"Good luck and don't rule out outside help just because it costs money to do so. That's extremely short-sighted thinking."

I find it hard to believe that I would need to pay for outside help not because I'm a penny pinching miser that values money over my own child's well being: I find it hard to believe that my wife and I, intelligent, open-minded people and what we believe are progressive parents, can't solve this problem on our own merit.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:15 PM on November 16, 2005

I don't know the basics of your home situation; I suspect this idea isn't feasible: Have you considered educating him at home? E-mail me (profile) if this is of any interest. If it's not possible, or if you're just not interested in that, forget I said anything. But a lot of the comments above (especially the ones about helping him find things he's passionate about, giving him some real-world context for his studies, etc.) could be addressed by a self-directed (with obvious guidance) course of study.
posted by Alt F4 at 5:17 PM on November 16, 2005

Wow, that was me at 14 as well. I went from A student to D student because I was bored, pissed off, and depressed. Lucky for me, I kind of worked it out on my own by riding my bike and skateboard every moment of the day outside of school, and hanging out with older friends that weren't fuckups (my peer group went the whole smoking pot/having sex/getting drunk route, I spent the time grinding ledges and jumping down staircases).

Anyway, I guess one thing to try is counseling or therapy of some sort, and changing his environment. My life went to shit at 14 because I was so utterly bored by high school, and hated every minute I was there for four years. I would have much enjoyed an alternate education school that was either for gifted students or heck, even screwed up kids.

When I got to college, I kicked all kinds of ass because I could finally go my own speed and keep myself challenged.

The only other advice I'd have is go easy on the lectures and the punishment. Talk to him. Do stuff with him that he likes to do. Figure out a way to work around this. School and life can suck at that age, and it's nothing you've done wrong as a parent.
posted by mathowie at 5:22 PM on November 16, 2005

Man, jokeefe, I wish my parents had taken your approach.

Something you said raises warning bells with me: your son is OK when you're talking about things he likes, but not cool at all when it comes to all things academic despite his earlier achievement in that area. What non-academic activities does your son like to do? Is he underachieving in them as well? Do you show interest in them (will you take him to practices, attend his events, talk about them extensively)? Or is your main focus on him academic?

I ask because your son could very well be going through what I went through with a mother who saw all my "potential" and encouraged/forced me to make the best of it while not paying attention to my non-academic interests. In short, it left me with the feeling that I was nothing but a gifted grade-monkey, good only to people if I was making As and only loved by my parents if my teachers loved me. This led to a serious run of self-defeatism and "underachievement" in high school that continued into college--a subconcious way of telling my parents "fuck you, I'm just as good without the four-point".

What I'm saying is you must, must, must let your son know that you love him no matter what grades he gets or whether he's doing well in school. If this means you stop talking about his grades for a while, then so be it. Ask how his friends are doing. Ask how soccer practice/chess team/whatever is going. Participate in those programs. Asking if anything interesting is going on in his classes can be OK; finding out from the teacher what they're studying and then starting discussions about subjects tangentially related to that is even better. They're studying World War I? Leave out some nice Wilfred Owens for him to read or talk about how his great-grandfather was in the war. Or something. But if it doesn't spark his interest, don't push it.

The point is you want to find out what he likes and talk about that, and help them pursue that, and perhaps it will lead back to school and perhaps it won't. It's OK if it doesn't. He's only 13 right now. Better that he screws around a little bit while learning that you guys love him no matter what than screwing around when he's 17 and suddenly he can't go to the college he wants to go to because of his grades.

And if he's got behavioral problems--being abusive to the teachers or something--make it clear you're reprimanding him because he's not paying the respect due to all people, not just because the person is a teacher and this is further proof that he's a school screw-up.
posted by schroedinger at 5:22 PM on November 16, 2005

Agree with most of the above, including this sounding awfully familiar to me:
* Hobbies are good, particularly if a group of people is involved of diverse ages/situations. The real world is just more interesting than school.
* Yes, he's bored and his BS-detector knows full well that much of what he's supposed to be doing in school is dumb.
* Try not to say "potential" and "working up to ability." Gah, that's annoying. (My internal response went along the lines of...oh, I have soo much potential that I should be completing endless worksheets of busywork?)
* If you do wind up going the route of therapy, don't make it a punishment. Don't imply that he's fucking up and so now he has to go to the head doctor to find out what's wrong with him. And try to keep the school admin from wanting to dose him. Two years ago he was getting straight As in top classes? ADD is pretty unlikely.
* Do rule out depression, though.
* It really may be just a phase.
posted by desuetude at 5:24 PM on November 16, 2005

Instead of spending money on external sources, try bribery on your son. It's not so different from how it works in the real world: if you work hard at your job and do well at it, you will generally be rewarded more than those who don't.

Offer him fifty bucks for every A he gets and ten for every B. Or somesuch. Alternatively, tell him that you'll put $100 and $20, respectively, into a fund that he can use to buy a used car when he's 16.

When I was a kid, I hated gym class. Almost every class we had to run two big circuits around the roads around the school. The very best students could do it in just under ten minutes. I would generally walk it and do it in half an hour or more. My gym teacher contacted my parents advising them that I ight well fail the class.

My dad tolf me that if I could break fourteen minutes, he'd buy me a pizza. By the end of the year, I was running it in under eleven minutes.

Bribery.

And you don't need to do this forever; there will come a point in high school when he's getting good grades and he'll realize that the reward for getting those grades will come after high school. But for now, it's not a bad idea, I think.
posted by solid-one-love at 5:25 PM on November 16, 2005

Been there. Advanced so far ahead of my class there were legal issues about pushing me further (K-8/9-12 split especially), the end result was just putting me in normal classes.

I quit trying. I passed my classes easily, but my grades slipped horribly. Without a particular principal in high school, I likely would have dropped out.

This kid needs mental stimulation. NOW. Find out what subjects he does enjoy studying, and push as hard as you can in every direction to make sure he can learn as much as he wants. If the schools won't let you, consider a private tutor. It's going to be expensive, and our system is horribly ill prepared for such students. You're in for the fight of your life against the school system, but it's what's right for your kid. If you don't have money, put in time. If you don't have time or money, I pity the poor kid, because he's already bored with class and is likely to be bitter and jaded because of it.

DO NOT MEDICATE THIS CHILD.

It's possible he might have mental issues, but they're more than likely brought on by the boredom and lack of mental stimulation. Even if they're legitimate, it's a horrible, horrible idea to place a 13 year old on behavior modifying meds. If you want some information regarding that, feel free to email me for more.

This kid is an underachiever, because he doesn't see any point in just staying up with the pack. Let him go as far and fast as he can. He's bound to dislike some subjects, but they need to be done. Realizing you can get through a year's worth of work in a month or two if you try can be a powerful motivator. Of course, this is only applicable with homeschooling or an accommodating private school. Time and money, it's going to cost a lot of one and some of the other.

If you're bothered by the idea of spending money to help your child, you need to take a serious look at your situation. Education is the most important thing you can give your child outside of the basic necessities. I don't think you're being a penny-pincher so much as missing the problem though. Underachievement from a former overachiever is a clear-cut, unmistakable sign of serious boredom.

Admittedly, this is solely my opinion based upon my own experiences and what I've seen from other overachievers. Defensiveness is just lashing out in frustration, mixed with the ravages of puberty. It'll happen sometimes, but if you can talk to him most of the time, things are going just fine.

As for arguing with you about English homework, it's best to back off. He wants to be independent, and being an overachiever, he's probably insulted by the idea that someone would correct his work. It's immature, but he's 13. He'll accept constructive criticism better later down the road. It's doubly insulting when his lack of turning work in already shows contempt for how simple the work is. Well, at least that's how I saw it.

Aside from the education, all you can do is teach him discipline. You'll get yelled at and fought with, but if you can teach your son how to grit his teeth and bear it, he'll thank you. Probably in about twenty years.
posted by Saydur at 5:26 PM on November 16, 2005

I find it hard to believe that I would need to pay for outside help not because I'm a penny pinching miser that values money over my own child's well being: I find it hard to believe that my wife and I, intelligent, open-minded people and what we believe are progressive parents, can't solve this problem on our own merit.

I'm not trying to be contrary (and I didn't actually adress this in my first post), but I think my parents thought much the same thing, and they were wrong. Money/insurance was actually a bit of an issue for them, I think -- my dad had just gone from being a university professor to full-time artist -- but I really have a hunch that they, too, just couldn't believe that as intelligent, progressive people they couldn't fix the problem themselves.

The problem in my case, though, was that I was deeply, clinically depressed. I desperately needed therapy (frankly, my parents needed it too), and I probably could have benefited greatly from antidepressants (insert usual "don't medicate as first line of defense" here). I lost so much time and confidence because I secretly wanted to die for so long! To have had therapy at 16 instead of 25 -- well, I don't want to get lost in regret and recrimination, but I think it would have made whole chunks of my life different.

Not saying that your son's situation is depression -- just that an outside, professional assessment may help, and certainly doesn't take anything away from your parenting skills, intelligence, or bottomless concern for your son.
posted by scody at 5:29 PM on November 16, 2005

Oh, and also, I beg you to ignore this advice:

Offer him fifty bucks for every A he gets and ten for every B.

This is so incredibly damaging on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. Jesus. I'm just speechless.
posted by scody at 5:33 PM on November 16, 2005

"nothing but a gifted grade-monkey."

Testify, brother. Amen.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:33 PM on November 16, 2005

In my case, it was the result of crappy parents and parenting. When I became completely disenfranchised from school and family, I got lectured and punished by the same people who I was rebelling against in the first place. I suggest that a lot of sympathy and understanding be used instead of "tough love" kinds of tactics.

I really suggest getting him a counselor that he likes. He may need to speak to this person for years to come. You may be unable to regain any trust with your son at this point, until he is able to see what a nurturing relationship with an adult can be like. This, of course, assumes that he does not feel nurtured currently - and by the description you gave, this may be the case.

Letting him work it out by himself is a mistake as well. He needs to know that he is completely accepted regardless of accomplishments and that he is safe to explore new things, get hurt sometimes, and always have a place to come back to that is non-threatening and non-judgemental. Create the positive environment and he will be able to worry less about the things that are making him frustrated/angry and more about what he wants to explore.

I think this is a critical age to set the timbre of his outlook on school, work, life and family. Take his rebellion as a wake up call that what has been going on isn't helping/working and you need to try something new. Seek professional assistance.
posted by qwip at 5:34 PM on November 16, 2005

This is so incredibly damaging on so many levels I don't even know where to begin.

Well, try. Rewards for good report cards aren't exactly what you'd call rare.
posted by mendel at 5:37 PM on November 16, 2005

I am not a parent. I was not a major screw up in school. My advice probably is probably flawed.

It seems to me the kid can't be doing his homework. If you do your homework, it's hard not to get at least okay grades. Give your son a form. Tell him he needs to write out his homework on the form with due dates and his teachers need to sign it at the end of every class. At 8 every night check his homework against the form.

Sometimes as a kid when my parents would be unfair I would scream at them and they would laugh. "How can you laugh?" I would scream. "What should we do? Cry?" was their answer.

Nope - it's not easy coming to terms with school being bs, but then most of life is bs. In all my schooling and jobs I have found there is no skill more highly prized than a high tolerance for bs.
posted by xammerboy at 5:40 PM on November 16, 2005

Add me to the Boredom Chorus. I have a starkly-lit perspective on this phenomenon: When I went through it, my folks tried the passive-supportive approach: Buck up, little trooper! Two years later, my brother went through it, and the family took an active-supportive approach: He was sent to a boarding school (voluntarily - and in fairness, I was also offered, but it was senior year for me by then)

My brother got in 10th grade what I got in 12th grade AP courses. He learned to work hard, I learned to coast on raw smarts & benign neglect. He's now done with his PhD, I am academically undistinguished.

Bright kids need to be pushed to 110% of their individual potential - and most public schools will not do that. Public schools will track a smart kid into the advanced courses, and if that represents 70% of her potential, so be it.

As to the motivation - Find out what career he imagines himself following - Behind "i dunno" there's got to be something that he's not willing to mention, because it's out-of-reach or not serious enough, or whatever.. What's the answer to "who do you want to be?" Video game designer? Chopper motorcycle machinist? Nascar pit mechanic? (no pressure, no expectations from you, just nod and smile) and arrange to have him talk to an adult in that field. Hopefully their enthusiasm will rub off on him, and they can also demonstrate the academic achievement - or lack thereof - that got them where they are. People love to talk about themselves (viz: this response) - your task is to find the role model - no matter how outlandish, get them talking, and get your kid within earshot. (And if all that is too expensive or complicated, get the kid a subscription to MAKE magazine)
posted by Triode at 5:42 PM on November 16, 2005

Also: I think a lot of this advice is overly dramatic. Don't be afraid of discipline, but make sure you always, always let him know that the reason for it is that you care about him. You can't be so scared of admonishing your son that you forego parenting.
posted by xammerboy at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2005

Rewards for good report cards aren't exactly what you'd call rare.

Run-of-the-mill rewards after the fact? Sure. But out-and-out bribery? Fuck, the only person I know who literally got paid for her grades was a spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed little abuser whose only experience of herself in her family was being seen as very pretty but entirely too dumb to get good grades on her own. (Incidentally, it didn't improve her grades or her attitude. Being put into private school and getting diagnosed with severe dyslexia, however, eventually did.)

The rest of us -- in my family and among my friends -- were praised for our grades (or not), and maybe even got small treats/rewards after the fact (for example, I remember going out for ice cream a lot when report cards came out; when I was a little older, the trips to the ice cream parlor were replaced by trips to the book or record store), but actual bribery ahead of time never entered into the picture.

More to the point, putting an actual monetary amount on grades sends the message to a child in the situation described here that good grades matter more that whatever underlying issues/feelings/etc. he is experiencing. It's fucking insulting. If that doesn't seem self-evidently damaging to you, then I'm not sure how much more of an explanation you want.
posted by scody at 5:49 PM on November 16, 2005

I was boredboredbored

This sounds really familiar to me, too. If I hadn't been given challenges I would probably have also made a challenge of being as average as possible. At the same age he is at, though, I was also fortunate to find challenges that I identified with but didn't have to pursue "because I had so much potential." Up to that point, being at an advanced level often meant more work, rather than new challenges, and that was the block to success.

Some of the things I got into were academic, but fun, and others were totally outside of academics: Odyssey of the Mind, Academic Triathlon, competitive sports (horseback riding, in my case), were some of the things I got into.
posted by whatzit at 5:51 PM on November 16, 2005

Echoing the boredom theory.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 5:53 PM on November 16, 2005

I can't offer my own experience (as a student or a parent). However, I was intrigued by this statement:

His Language Arts grade is probably the most telling: I spent my time in college as a peer tutor in writing and getting my BA in English.

Is it possible that your son is afraid of not meeting your expectations (real or imagined)? Sometimes it's easier to fail than to turn out to be someone who dislikes or is only average at something a parent excels at. Or maybe he's rebelling against you by rejecting that what you like or value. If this is the case, offering him opportunities to excel in a wide variety of activities might help. Just a guess.
posted by acoutu at 5:58 PM on November 16, 2005

More to the point, putting an actual monetary amount on grades sends the message to a child in the situation described here that good grades matter more that whatever underlying issues/feelings/etc. he is experiencing. It's fucking insulting. If that doesn't seem self-evidently damaging to you, then I'm not sure how much more of an explanation you want.

It worked for me in the one subject I needed some motivation to work on. It didn't damage me at all. I didn't find it insulting. Therefore, it is not self-evident that it is damaging or insulting; as such, you need to provide evidence if you'd like me to find your argument compelling.

It's a business offer. He doesn't have to take it. If he doesn't find it motivating, he doesn't find it motivating. It is completely orthogonal to any other issues; they can be worked on separately.

Chill.
posted by solid-one-love at 6:01 PM on November 16, 2005

I was a terrible under achiever from 6-10th grade. The problem is you get bad habits that are hard to break, and you get used to low expectations. I recovered as a student and went to college and graduate school, but it's taken years to get rid of some of those entrenched, counter productive behaviors.

Your kid needs to develop motivation and discipline. A tutor, or a challenging hobby he really likes would be a big boost. Success tends to breed success. Money is not the answer to everything, but investing in a good proactive tutor sounds like a great idea to me.

I think I was depressed and overwhelmed with emotional issues (a tense family life, being gay in the Midwest in the 1970s), but I was also immature. In retrospect, I wish my parents had been a little firmer, had limited my TV watching, and pushed me a little hard. Not with punishment, but with demanding expectations.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:03 PM on November 16, 2005

Hah, I'm trying to work things like this out with my students. I don't have a lot of concrete advice, because you know your son much better than I do and I don't think it's a do this, do that situation. It does sound like a bit of a phase, and as a middle school teacher I can say that middle school is...tricky. Why? Because grades don't actually count for anything yet (meaning, they won't be on a record that colleges see). Because all the kids are nutjobs because of puberty. Because a lot of the material will be covered again in high school. His bad grades in middle school won't affect him adversly on their own, but having bad study skills and a poor attitude about school could very well haunt him when he gets to high school. Which is another chronic middle trait - lack of scope. I think one thing you could talk to him about is simply what he wants to do with his life. He doesn't have to have everything figured out, but when he has a goal, you can easily say, "this is what you need to do to get there." You could also emphasize his power of choice. It is his choice that he is not turning in his homework, and the consequence is a bad grade. It is his choice that he is not participating in gym. Sometimes it works to tell kids that it's their choice to do well in school or anything really, and then leave them alone while they figure it out. Sometimes they'll come around on their own...it's worth a try, anyway.

(Sorry this is so rambly...)
posted by jetskiaccidents at 6:06 PM on November 16, 2005

Well, yet again jokeefe is the same person as me, and listen to scody, she knows whereof she speaks. Sometimes pulling a kid from the environment where he is and putting him in another can make all the difference in the world.

I'm going through the same thing, actually, my son, who is also 13, started this cycle a bit early, about a year and a half ago. This is where he now goes to school and I believe that if it hasn't saved his life yet, it probably will down the line. I don't think kids learn anything academic in middle school anyway; they need fresh air, physical challenges and concrete instruction in how to become decent human beings. It has paid off for my son unbelievably: not only does he now do his own laundry and cook for the family, he's a considerate & fun person to be around. And he loves his school.

Getting a counselor is NOT a bad idea and it does not in any way cast aspersions on your family or your parenting: it just means that sometimes it's a good thing for young teens to have a wholly disinterested adult to talk to. I was a school skipping, pot smoking, acid dropping, furious, promiscuous, wild teenager. My parents took me to several different counselors; one or two sucked, but one of them was brilliant, turned me on to Joni Mitchell, listened to me whine, told me I'd have to make it on my own, and somehow this advice, coming from someone who was not affiliated with my parents or my school, resonated. I toned it down a bit, and eventually this high school dropout went to college and grew up and, although I'm not rich or anything, I'm okay.

The other thing you must remember, which has nothing to do with your son, is that this too shall pass. My daughter is now 22 and she's an absolute delight as an adult. As a teenager I really thought I might shoot her, or maybe she'd kill us all. It's a terrible time for everyone concerned but they do grow out of it, and really, in the long run, it's just not that damn important. Laugh as much as possible, don't take any of it that seriously, rejoice in the things you and your son can still do and enjoy together (I dragged my surly child to Gatlinburg to play miniature golf and look at sharks one day out of the blue; it was a surprisingly great time for both of us) listen, be as calm as you can, and just keep on loving him. Love and tolerance can do a lot. He'll turn out okay. Really.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:07 PM on November 16, 2005

It worked for me in the one subject I needed some motivation to work on. It didn't damage me at all. I didn't find it insulting.

If you only needed some extra motivation to work on a single subject, then your situation is not analogous to the one thanatopsis is describing (or to the ones many of us are describing in response/sympathy), and therefore your advice is unsuited to address the matter at hand.
posted by scody at 6:14 PM on November 16, 2005

I'm 18 and I'm still exactly like your son. And I hate it about me. If I could tell you how to fix all of that about your kid, I would. I can't; I'm still a work in progress. I'll tell you one thing, though: What ever it is that you do need to do, do it right the fuck now.

Do it before he has to take an extra year of high school to catch up on his requisite math credits and upgrade his average to one that perhaps the shittiest schools in the province/state won't turn him down over. Do it before each of his close friends has moved on to bigger, better things and he's left feeling even more depressed and less fulfilled than he already does. He needs to get over feeling so helplessly bored with school before his performance actually matters because when suddenly it does, he'll feel even more frustrated and helpless and really start beating himself up over it.
posted by Evstar at 6:25 PM on November 16, 2005

Thanotopsis-- I read through this discussion again. Konolia is right, there is usually a passive agressive factor. My mom was known as the best math and chemistry tutor in my city, and widely viewed as the best parent in the neighborhood, even by my friends. I got solid Ds in both subjects. Tutoring was hell for both of us, and we fought for years.

I completely respect your desire not to push your parental responsibilties off on paid professionals. It's kind of a creepy idea to pay someone to raise your kid. But neutral can be good. I can't for the life of me picture why I fought so hard with my mom-- she's great, and I've adored her since the age of 25 or so. I also hate to think the opportunities I missed in high school. Being a teen is hard, and it's easy to push that anger off on mom and dad. Laziness feels kind of good at first, but it's a pernicious trap.

Your kid's passive agression is effective. It's driving you nuts. But ultimately it's hurting him. This is what he has to learn.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:26 PM on November 16, 2005

Is that irony? I think this counts as irony.

No, it's advice. It's interesting how rarely it is followed by those who should follow it.

More on bribery, for the rest of you: I was in a split class for fourth and fifth grades, with a teacher, Mr. McIntyre, who was known as the Peppermint King. He had a habit of giving out peppermints (hundreds every week) to students who did well on tests, answered questions correctly, and made the effort to raise their hands. He had been doing this for thirty-odd years and kept doing it until he retired.

He was renowned throughout the school district as a teacher who could motivate even the most unmotivated students -- and to improve the learning skills of the least talented kids.

This he achieved at least partly through a regimen of bribery.

Then there was the arcade at the mall where you could get a number of free credits based on your report card; they advertised on a huge sign by the service desk that each A would get you five bucks' worth of play and so forth. It definitely encouraged the kids with whom I went to school.

Bribery works. Get your kid to put in the effort, and you can work on the underlying problem separately.
posted by solid-one-love at 6:35 PM on November 16, 2005

Bribery works in the short term, but there's no substitute for developing passionate interests and good self esteem. The idea of being paid for positive behavior is just depressing, and I don't care if it works.

If kids do well because they want stuff, they won't be motivated to do well once they have what they want. I went to school in the same school system as the kid in question. He'll be able to sell drugs to get all the candy and pizza he wants.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:46 PM on November 16, 2005

No, it's advice. It's interesting how rarely it is followed by those who should follow it.

Since the comment you made about me needing anger counseling (and my reply) was deleted, I'll just respond simply and directly: you have positively no meaningful idea of what I "should" do in my life and to state otherwise would be insulting if it were not so patently ridiculous.

I have not expressed any anger in this thread that could have possibly warranted such a snide comment from you (though I did disagree strongly with the content of one of your posts -- not the same thing, I would like to point out, as actually being angry with you). I have, however, revealed -- in the service of trying to help the poster and his child! -- that as a teenager and into my 20s I suffered from deep depression (which was accompanied by a lot of anger). For you to then suggest that you know better than I what my own psychological needs are now -- i.e., in your words, that "[I] should work more on [my] anger issues" -- is a remarkably small, smug, ill-informed, and presumptuous statement.

This will be my last response/derail to you in this thread, but if you feel the need to continue (and are actually capable of carrying on this conversation in good faith), my email -- unlike yours -- is in my profile.
posted by scody at 6:51 PM on November 16, 2005

you have positively no meaningful idea of what I "should" do in my life and to state otherwise would be insulting if it were not so patently ridiculous.

You probably think this song is about you.
posted by solid-one-love at 6:53 PM on November 16, 2005

What a thrill to open an AskMe thread ready for an argument, only to find that I agree with almost every comment. I'll add my particular two cents about the specific comments from the teachers:

("no motivation to participate; defensive")... ("doesn't turn in work; argues")

Sounds like a good kid with a future. You can hear the teachers' indignation; he refuses to respect their authority. And that's not surprising, because to anyone with much of a spine, the authority of middle-school teachers is pretty damn hard to respect. Think about it...the PE teacher's comment isn't that he *doesn't* participate, it's that he *isn't motivated to participate.* Why exactly is that a problem, and how can you blame him, considering that he's there against his will? The 'language arts' teacher is concerned because he *argues*...note that it's apparently not important what he argues about, or what stand he takes, or who he argues with; the fact that he argues is in itself damning. Well, fuck that and fuck the piece of shit who wrote it.

I don't have kids and I don't pretend to have specific answers, but I laud those above who suggest giving the kid more options...in general. Other possible schools to go to, lessons in a skill of his choice (e.g. a musical instrument, chess, tennis, whatever). And konolia is right on about the need for other authority figures. It's not a judgement on you, but here you have a kid who doesn't want to do the obvious things that he is expected to do; he wants to assert himself by *not* doing them. And the most obvious traditional thing that a kid is expected to do is to go along with what his parents want. Exposing him to interesting adults who are not his parents or his middle school teachers might let him open himself up to the idea of actually listening to what they have to say...because, see, that would be a mentor relationship that he chose, or at least one that he wasn't born or enrolled into.

As for paid help: Don't send him to a place called the Acheivement Center. Even you are putting the name in quotes, for pete's sake. But you could give him some other options...maybe take him to meet several different counselors and let him choose. Him choosing is the most important thing here.

And I too was given little assignment sheets that I refused to fill out. I mean, really, there's no way not to take those things as insulting, and it just makes the system seem that much stupider. If you're already not doing the assignments on purpose, then whatever you need, it is not a piece of paper to help you to remember to do the assignments. It's the equivalent of asking a civil rights advocate 'Why do you hate America?' with a straight face.
posted by bingo at 6:59 PM on November 16, 2005

I'm sorry, but I'm just not seeing any evidence that your child has a problem.

He doesn't want to do the things that he's being told to do, so he resists. That's normal and sane.

Would it benefit him to get better grades? Depends on how you look at it. From where he sits, the answer may very well be "no." It takes away his free time and adds stress to his life. Plus, obviously, it involves work that doesn't interest him. And at the end of it all, the 'reward' he receives will be what, exactly? Approval? Admission to a "good college"? It sounds like, to him, these wouldn't really qualify as rewards.

Look, the thing about grades is, they're really only an asset if you want to get into a more competitive than average college. And if you're not inclined towards academic work, then you're probably not going to want to go to that kind of school anyway. And if you end up at one, you probably won't stick around long enough to get a degree.

If your concern is his future income, then I'd say that it's probably more likely he'll end up making good money if he sticks with what he likes than if he forces himself to do things he hates.

If your concern is his education - the amount of knowledge he possesses and the skills he learns - then you have to understand that school really isn't a great place for such things. If he finds a teacher or a subject that fascinates him, then it might be possible for some honest to god education to take place. But clearly that hasn't happened.

If I were in his position, I'd do exactly what he's doing.
posted by Clay201 at 7:21 PM on November 16, 2005

I wouldn't worry so much about it. Really, there's very little advantage to going to a "good" college besides you (the parent) having something to brag about to other parents.

There are plenty of schools that'll accept him; many of them may have better education than big names (because they actually have profs teaching undergrads) -- and if he remains below even these standards in high school, community colleges are a great move.

Getting bad grades in middle school or even high school doesn't matter in the real world.

Also, phys. ed. is a joke, and I may be wrong, but I bet that any teacher who would just say he argues and leave his/her complain at that is a crappy teacher. A good teacher WANTS a student who argues, if it's on topic -- not saying it is, but they'd know enough to make a distinction.

If you hadn't guessed, I was something like your son when I was his age. My grades weren't that bad, but I think my teachers must have been particularly lenient, because I rarely did any homework, that's for sure.

I don't actually know what I would have done differently, though, or had my parents do differently. Obviously there's always the option of pulling your son out of the school system altogether. Homeschooling a teen should require less time than homeschooling an elementary age kid, but you'd need to be able to motivate him in some way.

It would be good to know what he does with his time and if anything does inspire him to put forth effort -- if nothing does, I'll add to the chorus of people who say look for a therapist (not necessarily a psychiatrist, though; the body's going through chemical changes at this point and depression-like symptoms probably don't reflect a lifelong ailment, though they may).
posted by dagnyscott at 7:42 PM on November 16, 2005

What I wish I could go back in time and tell myself about high school can be summed up in three letters:
G.E.D.
Sometime around the sixth grade, under the standard relentless social pressure, I went from straight-A's down to a C+ range, and stuck there, right through graduation. If somebody could have told me that there was a way out...

On the other hand, my wife's parents encouraged her to get a GED at 16 and head for college. She's 27 now, and already has her terminal degree in her chosen field - On top of having spent two years as a teaching professor herself.
posted by Orb2069 at 7:55 PM on November 16, 2005

I've been chatting over AIM for a few years with a teenager in Madison, Wisconsin, which is where I assume your son is. My friend and I are both seriously into electric guitars, so we chat about that a lot, but as a sort of side note I have heard a lot about how Madison, Wisconsin is a really dull place to be a teenager.

I flew over Madison not too long ago and looked out the airplane window; I could recognize some of the landmarks my friend had described, and you know what, it's a small town and it's pretty dull-looking and if your son pays any attention to the TV and the internets then he probably knows there's more exciting stuff out there in the world.

Is a change of scene a possibility?
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:56 PM on November 16, 2005

I was a 13 year old underachiever with the exact same scenario. I dropped out at 16 and got my GED. I lived in the midwest. I'm 26 now and quite successful. I think (s)he's bored with school and the institution and is lashing out. On preview, what ikkyu2 says makes a lot of sense. I can't offer you any suggestions on how to get rid of the boredom.

My path was to worry myself so completely into ulcers that I had to quit school due to being sick all the time, because I ended up in a spiral of never being able to complete work on time, which caused me to fail classes, etc. There was no testing out really available in my school system at the time, or I would have done that (I easily passed all exams on the material). I failed freshman year of high school 3 times before finally getting my GED (in my state there was an age limitation).

I sorely regret quitting school, because it would have been a much easier gateway into college and now that I am older I wished i'd had the benefit of some additional education. Once I realized that doing the work didn't buy me much of anything as it related to the education piece, I stopped wanting to do any of it. I wasn't disinterested in the material, though your child may be; I was just disinterested with the idea of proving I knew the material as well as the curriculum demanded. The Internet, at the time, provided me a gateway of learning that the school did not. With so many external stimuli of educational value, it was hard to learn anything in a classroom when the whole wide world called out.

I read something interesting recently - it said teachers teach to a curriculum rather than to where the student is. Finding out where the students are, and then getting them to the level that you want them to be, is an approach that is not common in many public schools. Understand that "where they are" may be lightyears ahead of what you are currently teaching them. In my case, had I been more effectively challenged or taught the practical value of what I was learning, I might have been in an entirely different boat. Then again, back then, nobody could motivate me but myself.

Good luck.
posted by arimathea at 8:39 PM on November 16, 2005

Now, perhaps you should print this thread out for him and give him a highliter. Have him highlight every part that resonates with him, and write in the margins how he feels about that point.

Then let him share his feelings. Let him see the different experiences we've all had.

I, for one, started going downhill grades-wise in ninth grade, when math became more than just something I could coast through. I dropped honors the next year and quickly stopped caring about high school. I ended up with a 3.0-ish average.

I started college, but quickly found that the large lecture system on things I had absolutely no interest in wasn't working for me.

What did work was my parents encouraging me to persue extra-cirricular education on the things I was interested in. Years earlier, they brought me to a "college" program when I was in 7th or 8th grade. One was on building video games, the other was on designing web pages. These cost my parents money, but they sparked a strong interest in me.

I dropped out of college last year, 1.5 years into it. I own my own web application development business, I'm 20 and our (partner and myself) business is growing at a very quick rate.

While not everyone is cut out or interested in web pages or computer anything, it was that I had the chance to be exposed to the concept of this as more than just a hobby. I took something I've been interested in and loved doing forever (namely, tooling around on the interweb) and transformed it into a career that I enjoy.

Try to push him to see what *does* interest him that he could pursue outside of the "normal" public education system. Get him through that system, but give him something to drive towards. He doesn't need to be a superstar student to succeed in life.
posted by disillusioned at 9:06 PM on November 16, 2005

I was like that. My friends were like that. We were bored, school was full of trivial and petty crap, and our teachers were often defeated and disinterested. Somehow we all got through it, though, and just the other day I was looking at a cooking magazine and I saw that one of the fuckups I knew (who was always eating acid, smartassing teachers, and getting in-school suspension) is now a chef and owns his own posh restaurant in town.

In the end, the smart kids grow up to be smart adults, and they find a place that makes them happy (regardless of what grade they got in PE)
posted by stefanie at 9:08 PM on November 16, 2005

This is going to sound rude, but, in the teenage years we start questioning authority, becoming our own person, taking responsiblity for our own actions and learning to live with the consequences. We learn that ourselves and our families are not one indivisible unit. We learn that our interests and our parents interests aren't necessarily the same thing.

This is what your son is doing. And he sounds like he's cool with it.

But you keep hassling him and looking at his homework and telling him he's doing it wrong and making him cry. You feel that your son getting a C or a D reflects on you. You feel that he should do well at the subjects you're good at. He's handing in D-grade work and getting Ds for it. Which is, in the end, up to him, as long as he's smart enough to understand the consequences. So, of the two of you, it's you who has the problem, isn't it?

That is, assuming he's eating OK and sleeping OK and you don't think he's being molested or beaten up at school?

You totally have to get those things out of the way, of course you do. If he's got something like that to tell you, he probably will.

But otherwise, he's thirteen. Let him be thirteen. He got a C in Physical education? Good for him.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:45 PM on November 16, 2005

Point of information? I'm not in the USA, with its intense focus on how well kids do in high school and the accompanying belief that it will affect the rest of their life.

Some people have posted that middle school grades are meaningless and won't be seen by colleges. Others have posted the exact opposite. Well, which is it? I find the idea that a college would look at an 18-year-old's grades from five years before ludicrous but I guess anything's possible.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 10:23 PM on November 16, 2005

What's the family situation like? Does he trust and get along with his parents? Is he in what he feels is a safe, loving, and ultimately secure situation....?
posted by shivohum at 10:46 PM on November 16, 2005

I'd make sure he wasn't being abused, bullied, suffering from depression, etc.

If that's not that case, what are the things that interest him? Concerts? Video games? Does he need more challenging schoolwork? Something has to get him excited. Learning an instrument would be a great thing for a 13 year old boy.
posted by 6550 at 11:01 PM on November 16, 2005

Ambrose, for what it's worth (and speaking as someone in the U.S.) I find that idea ludicrous as well. Personally, I've never been aware of any colleges that would want to see middle school grades and if there are some, they're the exception.
posted by Stauf at 12:12 AM on November 17, 2005

I was in a similar situation, but I have to say the cause of my junior high / highschool academic disasters was decidedly not boredom. Sure, I was bored, but so were several of my friends who were just as intelligent yet effortlessly successful. It was a combination of tremendous anxiety (partly owing to being an immigrant, but that's another story) and a troubled relationship with my parents.

My suggestion would be to relax. There are many paths to the university, and (more importantly) many paths to a happy life. It's alright--nay, downright constructive for your son to experience a measure frustration and failure at this stage of his life.

Second: seek alternative schools. I wish I could go back in time and attend Sudbury Valley School, but in my city there was also SEED Alternative School (with courses like "existentialist film"). Look for such schools in your area (maybe these guys in Madison would know.)

I ended up going to a private school where the classes were accellerated and there was none of the nightmarish "highschool cosmos" -- by which I mean the campus was in the city and you were free to leave as soon as class ended. I did pretty well and now I go to a very good university, am doing quite well for myself, and expect to go to grad school in a year.

Make him feel you're on his side, rather than being another authority figure with a list of demands.

Finally: let him read this thread?
posted by ori at 12:32 AM on November 17, 2005

Whatever you do don't do this to him.
posted by alexst at 1:30 AM on November 17, 2005

I'm worried that it's less what we do and more who we are that's getting in the way of us helping him through this or getting him to change for the better.

Read Hold on to your Kids. This is exactly what the book is about. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
posted by davar at 3:07 AM on November 17, 2005

Some people have posted that middle school grades are meaningless and won't be seen by colleges. Others have posted the exact opposite. Well, which is it?

They won't be seen. Colleges look at grades earned in grades 9--12.

There might be some confusion because some school districts in the US use middle schools, which combine grades 7 and 8, while others use junior high schools, which combine grades 8 and 9. In the latter, colleges will see grades earned in the last year of junior high school, which is really the first year of regular high school.

Also, grades/performance in middle school might influence how a student is tracked/placed on entry to high school.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:01 AM on November 17, 2005

davar, that book says:

For the first time in history young human beings are turning not to mothers, fathers, teachers, and other responsible adults, but to people whom nature never intended to place in a parenting role — their own peers.

Which makes it seem instant claptrap to me. The first time in history? Uh-huh. Also, this generation is the first to experiment with drinking booze and premarital sex, and the first to be disobedient.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:08 AM on November 17, 2005

Please stop reading his homework and trying to "help." You're setting yourself up for a horrible relationship in the future. And Language Arts-- really? Does he read? Is he motivated to seek out books on topics he's interesed in? If so, stop worrying about his grades in that class, because he will be more successful than many of his peers in the future.

I was this kid as well; at 13 (9th grade, 1st year in h.s.) I started drinking, smoking pot, messing around with boys, etc., in conjunction with ignoring my boring boring boring classwork. I also did a lot of screaming at and hating of my parents. The best thing they did was offer me a choice at 15: boarding school, private school, or early college at Simon's Rock. I went to private school and it made all the difference. Not that I stopped partying (sorry) but my classes were actually challenging and interesting so I excelled.

But my advice is to treat him like an independent being. That's what he's crying out for. Of course you don't have to say "OK go ahead and fail" but if you work WITH him and respect some of his disdain for school you'll be a whole lot better off.
posted by miss tea at 5:29 AM on November 17, 2005

But out-and-out bribery? Fuck, the only person I know who literally got paid for her grades was a spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed little abuser whose only experience of herself in her family was being seen as very pretty but entirely too dumb to get good grades on her own.

I gently offer that you may not have known about everyone who was getting bribed to get good grades. It's certainly not something I would have admitted at the time. But the acknowledgement that a lot of this stuff I had to do was stupid crap was a breath of fresh air. Monetary bribes were offered as a real-world analogy, i.e. if I did the stupid meaningless worksheets that didn't teach me a damn thing, my folks would pay me. Just like a real job.
posted by desuetude at 6:57 AM on November 17, 2005

if I did the stupid meaningless worksheets that didn't teach me a damn thing, my folks would pay me. Just like a real job.

So bribery is a good way to show your kids that all adult work is depressing and meaningless. Got it.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 12:14 PM on November 17, 2005

One thing I haven't noticed expressed directly in this thread is that it may have more to do with the teachers than your kid.

There are some wonderful, motivated, experienced teachers out there who know how to get kids interested and excited about what they are doing and flexible enough to work with the kids' interests and strengths to help motivate them. I know they are are around because my kids have been lucky enough to have had some of them over the years, but it is not a description that fits the majority of the teachers my kids deal with.

Most of the teachers are much less spectacular -- they are variously time servers, people who don't know how to engage bright kids because they are not that bright themselves, young and inexperienced, well meaning but disorganized, doing their best but distracted by the demands of dealing with the kids with "issues", and so on. And this is in a decent school district.

Last year in seventh grade language arts, my kid went from an A at the beginning to a B in the middle to a C by the end of the year (partly because of completed assignments that were never turned in). This slide by one of her "good" students seemed to barely impinge on the consciousness of the teacher -- though she did have the gall to suggest at the fall parent teacher conference that he would get more challenge and interest when he got to high school (about two years from when she made the remark!).

This year, 8th grade, is night and day better. Has the kid changed? No, but he has a teacher who cares, is interested and seems to appreciate his qualities. She is also one who grades work thoughtfully, with lots of marking, comments etc. on the graded work (something none of the mediocre teachers ever seem to do) -- giving lots of feedback and the sense that she is really interested. High expectations, but flexibility when appropriate and a true sense that she cares about the individual.

In other classes last years grades didn't show quite the same slide, partly because grading worked differently and he could just do well by acing the tests, but the same sorts of mediocre teaching definitely sapped his spirit even if he was nominally doing OK.

The really sad thing is that there is almost nothing a parent seems to be able to do about the mediocre teachers. With good experienced teachers, discussing things seems to help -- either they gain insight about your kid, or you find out more about the problems and get a sense of what you might do to help. If you talk to the feeble teachers, no matter how well intentioned, nothing changes and the downward spiral continues.

I don't know your kid or school, but it sounds from your description as if the kid is bright enough but the combination of adolescence and lackluster teaching may be coinciding to make a difficult time far worse in the same sort of way.

I don't have any words of great wisdom that will make everything better, but for us I think it helps that our kid knows we are on his side. I care that he is learning and can read and write intelligently, and so on, I'm far less concerned about what grade the teacher assigns. I think he should do assignments even if they are boring, but I won't try to pretend to him that they are not busywork. When teachers are unreasonable about expecting more organization from middle schoolers than they expect of themselves, I'm happy to tell him what I think and take it up with the teacher if appropriate.

Expect good things of your kids, but don't judge them by the grade that is assigned by a mediocre teacher. Stay connected and engaged, and don't let the struggle about mindless busywork get in the way of what is important. And try not to become the "enforcement arm" of a system that is designed to beat round pegs into square holes.

Good luck!
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 12:45 PM on November 17, 2005

The really sad thing is that there is almost nothing a parent seems to be able to do about the mediocre teachers

Or the actively hostile ones. My son's Grade Seven teacher was a nightmare, who treated all of my concerns (which were of the level of "Why does my kid come home in tears every other day") as if I were insane to even bring them up, and who, as the cherry on the cake, "forgot" to include my son's picture and profile in the Grade Seven graduation yearbook. (He said he'd fix my son's copy and mail us another one, and never did. Asshole.) I'm assuming it was some kind of punishment for going to the principal and asking what the hell was going on in that class.

Any teacher who complains that a child "argues" bears closer examination.

And also everything else that Quinbus said.
posted by jokeefe at 1:23 PM on November 17, 2005

So bribery is a good way to show your kids that all adult work is depressing and meaningless. Got it.

Yes, the implication is that sometimes you gotta do some drudge work. All adult work isn't a fascinating intellectual journey where working to your highest potential will make all your dreams come true.

(They paid me for good grades in interesting classes, too.)
posted by desuetude at 2:53 PM on November 17, 2005

He finds ways around everything (i.e. leaving homework at home or at school, whichever is most inconvenient for getting the grade, not writing down assignments, not filling in a supplied assignment book, etc).

You make it sound like this is intentional on his part; are you sure he's really trying to find ways around things and not just having an, um, organizational crisis (either physical or mental)? 'Cause if it's not intentional, blaming and getting angry at him will make things worse. You say he was doing well two years ago--at my school, one could get away with poor organizational skills in 4th or 5th grade, but it'd be hard to do the same two years later.

Bursting into tears when you try to help him out or correct things doesn't sound like he's bored, to me. He might be depressed; see if you can feel that out.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:07 PM on November 17, 2005