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eric@sealguide · 01-03-2008, 04:01 AM

It looks like you have gotten a lot of feed back on this already, but I thought I would offer one more suggestion.

I had a similar problem with my 12 year old son. Bright but no interest. His mother would ground him and take away games, internet etc. Really no long lasting effect. Being that we are divorced we made a point to sit down and come up with a solution together, this way we could have a united front. Since I have an extensive background in motivation, and leadership she allowed me to step in with a new plan. It's not perfect but it has fixed the problem.

First whatever you do don't make it so complicated that you will not be able to remain consistent. Second make sure whatever you do you remain consistent. With that said here is how we dealt with it. Also I'm making the assumption that you have checked into all the scary reasons kids all of a sudden start getting bad grades. You know drugs, abuse etc. Assuming that's all been covered I will more on to the plan.

We determined that he was capable of getting all B's. We set the bar there. We then determined how many hours a day can we possibly expect him to do schoolwork. We determined 4 hours at home plus his normal school day.

We told him that if his grades slip below a B he will then have to work overtime until he can show us that they are back to a B level. So wether he had homework or assignments didn't matter. He would study extra until he got his average back. Much like a job. Cause and effect right. You need to perform at this level before your done. Once his 4 hours was up if he cooperated, and studied then he was done. Free to do whatever. If he did not cooperate, and tried to just sit there then he would just sit there until bed time.

Missing assignments. I told him there would be no more missing assignments. Wether he was going to get credit for them or not we told him he would have to complete them before he was allowed to have any free-time.

The key elements were this. We sat him down explained the problem, and allowed him to be part of the solution. The other thing is we absolutely followed through, every-time, everyday. I think this is where we as parents often go wrong. We come up with these punishments or groundings that are hard to keep up with so eventually we just throw in the towel.

I know my X-wife had to a couple of times have him move to the 4 hour schedule, and he had to do a couple of assignments for no credit, but after that he realized it was actually easier to comply with our standards.

I'm a big believer in positive feedback, and motivation. Truly great people do things for pleasure and not to avoid pain. This doesn't mean that we should do away with the natural order of the universe. The one that says if you don't at least meet a minimal standard there will be consequences... Every day everytime.

I'm not a fan of grounding. I'm a fan of results.