What can I do to get my 15 yr old serious about his education,should I let him find out the hard way?
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Answer:
You are correct. He will only get out of it what he puts into it. But let me ask you this: is it possible that he purposely is not doing work because he wants to go to public school instead? Does he like the charter school?
I teach at private school and I have had a couple of kid purposely do poorly thinking their parents will let them go back to public. (mom and dad saw thru that pretty quick!)
When smart kids don't do the work, it can be for a lot of reasons. He could be bored. Maybe the classes are just not challenging enough. He could be unhappy there. Is he being bullied or teased? He could just be stubborn. Some kids don't do homework because they are locked in a power struggle with their parents. It's the only control they feel they have so the refuse to work knowing there is nothing the parent can do.
He could also have an undiagnosed learning disability. It's easy to hide them in the lower grades. But when you get to high school, it's a lot harder. Have you had him evaluated to see if he has a learning disability? It could be a variety of things.
Is he depressed? It's not uncommon for teens to become overwhelmed in the early years of high school and become depressed.
Some other reasons can also be: poor nutrition (he should be taking a multivitamin), not enough sunlight (causes low vitamin D and for some people, depression), lack of exercise (boys NEED exercise at this age to help deal with stress and hormones).
He could be girl -crazy! He's at that age.maybe he's just daydreaming abou girls and not paying attention.
Ultimately, HE has to chooses to do the work. But what you can do is establish the rules and then enforce them.
Meet with the teachers and establish a plan for him to stay after school everyday and do his homework with a teacher. At least that way he will be supervised and someone will be on him to complete it. Also, have him write his assignments down in an assignment book and get each of his teachers to sign it showing that they have seen it. Then, when he comes home, check it and then check to make sure he has done all his homework at the end of the night. Then you sign it. Establish what the consequences will be if he does not complete his work (no cell phone, video, computer online etc). If you have to take the video games and computer plug to work with you to keep him away from it, then DO IT. Show him you mean business.
He will hate this and probably tell you that he hates you too. Consider it a badge of honor. You're not a real parent until your kid tells you they hate you.
Don't let up until you think that he's on the right track. Kids think they know everything at this age. They think they can make decisions that make sense but they can't. And they are not able to see how their actions will impact them later in life. So we, as parents and teachers, have to guide them. Sometimes we have to guide them gently..and sometimes with a BIG STICK..it's big stick time! :)
Ask him questions about what he wants to be, then focus on that career for him ex. if he wants to be a Vet, take him and show him around different places and explain to him that in order for him to be able to do this, he has to have good grades and then go on to college and get good grades there too. This is what my mother did with my youngest brother (16 yrs old) and it seems to have worked, he is now motivated because he now sees that an education will empower him to follow his dreams to work with and help animals.
Nothing against a Charter school...but maybe he is sic of being the smart one and wants to expierence a little more of life with new friends at public school and that is why he is acting out.
just a thought......
I'm going through a similar problem with my 17 yr old I sympathize with you. Here is what we are trying and it seems to be working out so far. My 17 yr old has an after school job nothing big but it gives him his spending money. Spending money is huge for him. So we started a fining system. All the bad grades he has to pay us and the good ones we pay him. He also gets fined for not going to school late's and missed days unless he is truly sick and even then he has to pay me to be his secretary to call into the school and the doctors call as well. I feel his education is the most important thing I could ever give him so he better take advantage of it well he can or pay for it if he doesn't want to. Oh and anything under 75% he has to pay us any thing over we pay him. Why we picked 75 % is 50% in his school is a pass and 100% is the highest he can get so half way is 75% seems fair to us. So if your 15 yr old has a job try it and if not just an allowance will work as well. trust me the fines are high and he didn't think we would enforce them but the first time he skipped school he had to pay us something like $200.00. I tell you he hasn't done it again this year. Good luck to you!
I kind of wish you had kept him in the charter shool. he must be doing something right if he's one of the top 5 students in his class. It seems like you're giving up on him by moving him to a regular public school, and if you give up on him, what incentive does he have to take himself seriously? Don't allow your frustration to take over. He's young, he's still transitioning into highschool, and he probably hasn't matured yet. If you want him to get interested in his studies, try to find out what he wants to be when he grows up and then take him to a library, on the internet, or to a local university and do some resaerch withhim on what's needed for him to succede. If possible, introduce him to someone in his chosen field. Also, you may want to consider having him placed in some advanced classes! Based on the info you provided, he sounds kinda bored and unchallenged by the work. Maybe he just needs a change in stimuli. I don't know what your background is or how far you've come in your education, but maybe you can use yourself (and his dad) as a template, ya know, like, "Look at me, I went to college and I got my degree, but I had to work hard and do my homeowrk to get there. How are you going to take care of yourself when you're older? You certainly won't be living with me when you're 40 and girls don't want men who can't provide. Besides. the only place that will hire you with out some kind of hire education is McDonald's". Or, you could say, "look at your dad and me! I have my GED and he's just a drop out. Don't you see how much we've struggled? We don't want that for you, we want you to do and be better than we could ever be"! However you choose to approach your son, just make it clear that failure is NOT an option. If it becomes neccesary, develope a regular dialogue with his teacher, find out what the class activities/work schedule is and come up with a work progress sheet. Everyday, he should take this sheet to school and at the end of the week, his teacher should fill out the sheet to show weather or not he's succesfully completed each given task. I know it's not exactly fair that you'd have to do all this, but rare that children are ever fair to there parents. And I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that it's the parents job to make sure that the child gets the best education available to them.
Hope that helps!
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