Scott W

Hi Jake's Mom:

I'm an educator. Ask Jake who his favorite teacher is. Meet with that teacher. Let the teacher know how special he or she is, share your concerns and ask this teacher to "connect" with your child. Is Jake involved in school activities. Team with that person too and share your concerns.

Scott
ScottCounseling.com

aliinnc

I definitely agree with MusicMom about socialization in middle school. I think you often see a change in behavior because the social side of life is so important in middle school.

I have one concrete piece of advice. Does your son have an agenda to record assignments? If he doesn't, go buy a datebook with enough space on each day to write down all his assignments. You will need to enlist the help of his teacher(s) for the next step. Ask his teachers to check his agenda at the end of each class to make sure he's recorded all his assignments. Then have the teacher initial it.

Then each night you check the agenda, check your son's completed homework, and initial the agenda. This procedure is recommended by teachers at my daughter's school for kids who aren't completing all their assignments. Hope this helps.

Shari Nielsen

aliinnc - you just posted what I was going to post - almost word for word! I am a high school science teacher and I do this agenda pad thing all the time w/ some students! It really helps communication w/ the parent and to keep the student and parent aware of what is expected each night. Just make sure the kids write their homework in PEN b/c they could erase the pencil when they get home, change the assignment, and show mom or dad the wrong thing. I've caught that a few times too!

The other thing I do a lot is to create a weekly progress report that the student must bring to each teacher on Fri's (or whatever day you choose) and have the teacher "grade" each section you include and note any missing assignments for the week. The student must come home w/ this every Fri (or they have a miserable weekend). You can sit down w/ him ahead of time and decide on consequences AND rewards for the results. This will give the student something to work for each week, rather than waiting for progress report and report card time. AND it will provide him w/ an opportunity to show you that he is making progress little by little.

Some categories I recommend:
Class Behavior/Socializing/etc.:
Completion of Classwork:
Completion/Turning in HW:
Preparation for Class:
Assessments (Test, Quizzes, etc.):
Missing Assignments:

The teacher could simply put a +, - or 0 sign next to each category and list any missing assignments.

Good luck!

__________________
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aliinnc

Shari,
That is too funny. And I love your addition about the pen. I should have thought of that one.
Ali

jigsaw71

I agree with many here.

It sounds like you are doing the right thing with your son. While all may not be successful you are definitely trying.
The stage that your son is currently in i would assume is very sensitive (experiencing this myself a "few" ago) in the sense that the most important things in the world are not school and grades.

I recall heavy persistence from my parents during those times. It took a while to sink in but YES at some point it comes to light and you will want the seed planted long before that happens.
It is much harder when you try at a latter stage.

Simply keep up the hard work. It is stressful and tiring but he will understand you in the near future and everything will fall right back into place.

BethInAK

I WAS this child.

I bascially forgot or didnt' do my homework but got decent grades on tests.
I think that you need to monitor the homework and ensure it gets done for now. A homework notebook signed off on by teachers? So you can be sure it gets done.

FWIW, I am a college graduate (did well in college too) and have an excellent, rewarding career.

FionnaK

Junior high/middle school is a very tough age/time for even the best behaved and brightest kids. It really is. I don't look back on it with great fondness. Being there for him and staying on top of what is going on is invaluable for him. He will me make it through and I imagine he will go on to do quite well.

ArdAtak

Hi Jakes Mom,
I'm a 35 year old father of 2 (3 & 4 year olds), athlete, and avid gamer. I also have an Engineering degree and played football in college so I know about study and hard work.

I can say, with extreme confidence that a majority of problems with your son stem from video games. I don't think video games are bad. I enjoy them very much and they can be fun and very educational at times. But kids around 12 to 18 years old can become wholeheartedly consumed with video games at the expense of academics, sports, and broader social life beyond other gamers. I know because I spend time with kids like this every day playing online. Ofcourse being an adult I always put my my family and athletics first but ultimately I do enjoy video games.

Now this doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. You can easily leverage his love of video games or TV entertainment into results you want to see. Some simple ideas.

1) Video games can only be played from X o'clock to Y o'clock after homework and study.

2) Console and TV will be taken away if grades drop below X and will not be return until grades are above X again.

These types of rules will give him motivation. Once he start following them you can relax the reigns a little as you see fit or tighten them more.

If I've misread the situation I apologize but I think this will help you out.

TGyamiBakura

Okay... This will sound a bit odd but I am an 18 year old that is currently suffering this condition RIGHT NOW. It's extremely stressful and it's not a pleasant feeling at all for the person in question. It's this feeling that you're stuck and you can't do anything about it because your parents just wouldn't understand and you don't really know how to explain it to them.

This is more common amongst teens than you think and right now you described my friends little brother to a crystal clear T. There is no difference except that Daniel may be a bit more introverted than your Jake. I'm having this issue and trust me I'm sure your son feels extremely lost and unsure what to do. I'm sure he wants to achieve and do his best, but his motivation is completely gone and right now he just wants to escape from the constant pressure and expectation's he's faced with. The more you expect from him, the more he will introvert himself. Daniel is already at this point where he will not let his parents know his feelings about anything.

Daniel is almost a certified GENIUS... He wants to go to his favorite college and is excited about it. He even begged his parents to buy him a sweatshirt for it. He gets straight A's in math and physics and is already in high school AP classes in 8th grade middle school and has plenty of people that like him. Self-esteem is not the issue. It's just motivation.

Right now, school doesn't interest him and he only does the things that do. He's an online gamer, and he likes the television. His parents have done every SINGLE thing you have listed to lead him in the right direction and he doesn't respond to it at all. Threatening and bribing and lecturing and logic will *not* solve the problem here. Trust me it never did with me.

There is a deeper issue here and it's not that he doesn't know what's right and what's wrong, you're not doing anything wrong as a parent. But I do think that the fact that you and his real dad aren't together anymore might have a bit of an impact (but it doesn't matter, counseling will do no good if he can't open up. Boys are tricky like that.). Just always make sure that you tell your son that you love him and that you'll always accept him no matter what. Don't let him think that his grades are more important to you than your love for him itself. That could be the worse thing you could possibly do, even if it's not intentional. If you do that, the rebellion starts and then you won't get anything but grief and then he'll actually have a reason for doing what he does.

That's another thing. Rebellion and lack of motivation are two different things. Lack of Motivation isn't done purposely, it just happens. The child might *say* that it's rebellion or unintentionally think it, but it really isn't. Rebellion is when your parents have crossed the line of your freedom and you do something to show them that they don't *control* every aspect of your life.

Please take your sons feelings in account. Counseling would be beneficial, but only beneficial if your son is willing to open up. This will help dissolve the feeling of boredom, distintrest in school if your son can open up. The main thing is, you need to communicate. Don't take this as a punishment or a last resort. Most people in the world need some sort of counseling, but don't do it and let stress eat away at their life. Find a counselor that can talk easily with your son. Perhaps a favorite teacher or something. Don't talk about school until he's completely open with his feelings. Talk about his past feelings and things that may have significantly altered his life. This won't be quickly fixed, but something *needs* to be done. You can't just let it pan out and see where it takes you by not doing anything. Right now, I'm not graduating and it's because I've never really found motivation and I don't really know how I can. There's alot of deeply rooted issues in my own life that have never been addressed. I'm trying to fix it though, because i acknowledge that this way of thinking is unacceptable and something needs to change.

Parents may not know this, but children and teens nowadays think deeply about life more often than not. We just have a harder time expressing our feelings. Boys are harder when it comes to this, because the pride gets in the way. Teens develop their personalities very very intricately during high school. Sometimes teens realize that they have a deeper level of thinking than most *which is true but they don't know how to express it* and then the ego develops and things just become boring. So please... Take your son away from the stress for at least a week or two. Allow him time to gather his thoughts and relieve pent up stress. Take the external means of distraction *television and computers, cell phones*, and replace it with friends and spend time together. Show him that you love him and try to get him to open up so he doesn't become stuck deeper in the box he's buried himself into. He's sick of hearing about school school school...

During this time of relaxation. Let him plan out his own life. Let him set his own goals. And encourage him in anything he wants to do. Just make sure he does it. I know he has dreams. Any teen does. He just needs to realize them for himself.

I hope my advice was helpful. This is from personal *recent* experience and I'm currently trying to help my friends little brother with this. It's difficult, but bear with it. Also, it's not going to go away just like that. So don't expect any miracle fixes [FIXED ENABLE JAVA IF YOU CANT GET ANY RETURNS]

jtee

TGyamiBakura, Yes without returns it is very hard to digest.