How Can I Help My Child Care About Doing His Best?
By Guest Blogger Anonymous
I have submitted this blog anonymously in order to shield my son from complete embarrassment, but I must admit that I am a little embarrassed as well. I am embarrassed that I have worked hard my entire life to get where I am today, yet I am raising a son who seems to do the complete opposite. Today I am reaching out for help and advice from all of you!
I have a son who expects everything to come easily. For a period of time, it did. But when he began middle school last year, it was an unwelcome surprise for him, and the amount of effort he put into his work in the past just didn’t cut it anymore. The A’s and B’s he was used to earning were now C’s, D’s and F’s.
I feel the need to let you know that he is not struggling with comprehension on his assignments. He is very intelligent … top scores on standardized tests, an abundance of common sense, very witty, an avid reader, and extremely intuitive. Very rarely will he need additional explanations to a homework assignment, class assignment, or project.
The problem lies in the lack of care. “School just doesn’t interest me,” was his reply when my husband and I talked to him about his lack of efforts. He has zeros for incomplete assignments, low grades because he rushed through his work, failed tests because he neglected to study. “Let him fail!” is what I heard from so many, but if he fails and changes nothing the next time around, is it really teaching him a lesson or helping him in the long run?
We spent all of last year doing the “trial and error” thing. We punished, we rewarded, we praised, we scolded, we ignored, we celebrated. Seriously – we tried it all but never seemed to find anything that worked. He is an extremely happy kid who loves to be outside playing with friends. He is well-balanced with sports, downtime, responsibilities, etc. I didn’t want to take the joy away from this child but I had to do something.
So, at the beginning of this year we started fresh and I decided to check behind him on everything he did at home … studying, homework, reports, etc. I made sure the work was complete and it was done to the best of his ability. I made sure that the assignments he was working on matched the assignments listed online by his teachers. It was not fun to do this – not fun for anyone. I was exhausted after a full day of work to then monitor and guide my son through his nightly assignments. It was not fun for him to be treated like an elementary school student who had to have their hand held. It was not fun for my other child who was getting much less attention, and it was really not fun for my husband who had to listen to the whining from all of us.
BUT, it seemed to pay off. Better grades, better organization, and smiles when he came home from school. He was trying his best and that made us all happy. That is all I wanted out of him. If he made a D after working hard, so be it, but at least he tried his best.
Fast forward to the past two weeks where I slacked off. I didn’t check his homework each night. I didn’t remind him to study for tests. I had a lot of things I was juggling and I just didn’t give him the attention I had given him during the first month or so of school.
You guessed it … everything went downhill! He came home from school crying because of three low test grades that now pulled his averages down. When I spoke to his teachers and to him, we found that the problem lied once again in his lack of effort. He had not studied one bit for any of his tests that week. Two of his teachers contacted me to tell me how disappointed they were in his work.
I think the thing that really had me upset was that he wasn’t crying because he was disappointed in himself, he was crying because he knew my husband and I would be disappointed and he knew that he would probably receive some sort of punishment.
So friends, I have put it all out there. I am worried of the judgement and ridicule that might come from this blog, but I truly hope that you can instead hear my plea for help. From one mom to another, I would love your advice, your encouragement, and your words of wisdom. I would love to nip this problem in the bud now so that highschool and college are not a daily struggle for us all.
Thank you!
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All of these comments sound like my child and has been diagnosed with Sensory Integration Dysfunction/Disorder.. or Sensory Processing disorder. . specific for my child is Auditory. My child has everything everyone is talking about. I was told by the O.T. who tested my child that many children are misdiagnosed, especially with ADD and don’t need to be on medication. Other than the Sensory issues, my child is disorganized, loses things, very sensitive and immature for middle school age.. etc My child takes medication for anxiety as well. These diagnosis can be the reason for or go along with ADHD, dyslexia, etc. even oppositional defiant disorder. It’s frustrating for parents and you need a team of professionals to have your needs met. (even though my child is a high functioning and very intelligent)
Julie you brought a tear to my eye when I read your response. I am the one who wrote the blog and I truly appreciate your kind words. Sometimes I feel like I am failing as a parent so you made me feel much better! I really like your suggestions and am going to implement them. Thank you SO much!
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for being forthright about your son and his struggles. As a former middle school and high school counselor, I witnessed first hand the agony you describe. The transitions from elementary to middle and from middle to high are huge, and the shock can throw everyone out of sync. Although it doesn’t feel good, what you are experiencing is pretty common. Please allow me to suggest the following, although I suspect you might have tried most of these:
Have your son checked thoroughly by his pediatrician just to make sure there are no underlying health concerns. If there happens to be some unaddressed physical problem, no amount of support, cajoling, punishment, or agonizing will help.
Check with his school counselor to see if she/he will offer an organization/study skills session with a small group of students. Your son need not be singled out, and it might ease his mind to know that he is not the only one challenged by the increased demands of middle school work and the management thereof.
With your son participating in sports, is it possible for him to become involved working with younger kids at the YMCA or in another program where elementary kids are learning a game. It’s amazing the effect that helping others learn something new or develop basic skills can have on morale and esteem, even for a 7th-grader. It might not (or it very well may) register in your son’s conscious mind, but he will very likely intuitively make the connection between kids he is working with and his own situation. As he watches them strive to adapt to new athletic challenges and experience success, it might encourage him on his own journey.
I think you can give yourself a pat on the back, by the way, for your intense caring and desire to help your son develop habits that will benefit him throughout life. He is smart and well-grounded and will find his way, even if it might not happen as quickly or seamlessly as you had imagined. All the best to you and him.
With kind regards,
Julie
Your article sounds exactly like my son! He is 13 now, in 8th grade, and is starting to get over the hump with these struggles. For the past two years, we have taught him study skills, organization skills and sent him to a tutor for 8 sessions about overcoming executive functioning weaknesses. We have hounded him, bribed him, you name it. Our biggest successes have come only lately. I believe it is because he has mentally matured more now (a large factor in all of this!) and has had a trial and error phase on his part to figure himself out and his abilities. It is not until we left him on his own that he has improved. Believe me, it has taken a looooong time, much longer than we would have preferred. But knowing that he has been taught what to do, we knew it was time to make him do it – on his own -by himself -Scary! But like the baby bird, he fell a bit but began to fly. The best advice I can give you is, when you are sure he has all the skills necessary, to pretend that you have no idea how he is doing academically and only praise him and tell him that he is the most awesome, competent, and intelligent boy you know, and that you believe in him and that he is going to figure things out and get through this phase successfully. Your encouragement is his fuel right now! Cheer him on and you will see him blossom! Of course, he will think he did it all by himself (and that’s what you want him to believe right now), but you and I know better. 😉
I am in a similar situation with my son. He doesn’t seem care or want to take the initiative to write down his assignments. I would have no problem checking every night to make sure assignments are complete and ready for tests. But his teachers does not have a calendar that they update. If my son doesn’t put it in his planner, then he is just out of luck. Any suggestions?
No ridicule here; I was that kid. I can only speak from personal experience on the other side. I made straight A’s until sixth grade, then started making D’s. I am fairly smart, so that wasn’t the problem—but it did help mask the real problem until the work got too hard for me to skate by. The problem in my case (and I am not suggesting this for your son) was diagnosed but unaddressed ADD. My parents didn’t believe I really had ADD and stopped medicating me after a few months. Suddenly in middle school, I had to plan ahead for projects but I was incapable of doing that. I might have a week to turn in a paper, but couldn’t find the assignment sheet among the dozens of pieces of paper I hoarded away. I had absolutely no organizational skills whatsoever and hated writing anything down. Or, I would write it down…somewhere. Longer assignments completely overwhelmed me. I hated to work alone—I needed music or TV, a study partner, or lots of breaks to keep me on track, but I didn’t understand any of that. Not until college did I figure out how to manage and schedule my work.
In my case, tricks for staying organized, like writing things down or using a star chart, were just more work. I didn’t need more work. What I really needed was for someone to show me how to truly be organized in my mind. But even then, I don’t know that I would have been motivated enough to change my personality in that way. Motivation has to be inherent; you really can’t do it for them. You can hound them, check behind them, organize for them, etc., but eventually, they have to do it for themselves. To do that, they have to develop the skills, and they can’t develop skills unless they get a chance to practice them. If parents are constantly doing it for them, they never get that practice.
My friend with two successful adult children was told by someone—maybe a guidance counselor—let them fail in middle school. It doesn’t “count” yet, but these are the years where kids stop doing things for their parents and start doing things for themselves. Kids need to know what failure feels like in order to take their own steps not to fail again. It certainly worked for me, but it took a long time for me to conquer my ADD and my reluctance to just do the work. I almost failed math my junior year. I told myself, “Never again.” I graduated in the bottom third of my class, but my grades soared in college. I even obtained an advanced degree and went into academic work for a living.
One last suggestion I would make is talk to your child like an adult who is getting ready to collaborate on a project with you. So school doesn’t interest him—why not? What exactly does he find difficult about school? Why is that difficult? Do some things that are hard for him seem to be easy for others? Is anything else at school bothering him? Does he dread school? Why or why not? What does he think he needs to succeed? If you talk and really listen, without nagging, you may get better answers—and it’s important to remember that the answers are really for him and not for you. If I had been able to open up to my parents and tell them that I dreaded school work because I was overwhelmed by it and I constantly lost things and felt stupid in front of my friends, I might have understood myself a little better and been able to tackle the problem sooner on my own. Good luck!
To Anonymous on October 9, 2015 at 7:07 pm – I tried to reply to your comment but it wouldn’t let me. THANK YOU for your feedback. We have asked our son the questions you provided and have talked at length. We have put the responsibility back on him but outlined clear consequences should grades drop to a certain point. We will continue to work with him and I truly appreciate your feedback!
I am in a similar boat with my middle school daughter. She is somehow keeping her grades up, but she is terrible with organization. She is constantly thinking of assignments last minute and I cannot get her to write stuff down in her planner. I need to do a better job of staying on top of her homework assignments and dates for quizzes and tests because I know this is all going to come back to bite her sooner than later. Kudos to you for being so on top of your son. Plus, now I know it’s OK to “nag” your children. I recently found this study: http://www.smartparenting.com.ph/news/children-nagged-by-their-mothers-end-up-more-successful-says-study
I wish I had answers for you, but instead I have one just like yours! I am hoping to see some good ideas!