Troubles with my son
My boy is going on 12; this last school year has been the worst for us. He spent k-5 in a hippy-dippy alternative school where we sang a lot of songs and the very sporadic homework was due, oh, whenever. No grades. Now he's in an alternative middle school program that is still pretty conventional, and he's failing. Literally, consistently bombing out in certain subjects. He wins school wide awards in reading and tests out as above average, but he's just not pulling it in several (more than half) of his subjects. He does seem to have some genuine confusion about what is due when and how to follow the processes of completing projects...but my concern is that there is an underlying 'I don't give a shit' attitude evident. I've tried backing off--treating him as if he's trustworthy and expecting the best from him, and that's not working. He seems to be trying to get away with as little as humanly possible. He shows no initiative, no self motivation, and no pride in his work or desire to do the best he can in anything. I'm pulling my hair out. I'm tired of arguing/nagging/stressing out about 6th grade assignments. I'm divided on this from the get-go: not sure that *I* really give a shit about following the status quo, filling in the right circles, etc., but I don't even see him trying, or learning.
So, I'm making the choice to not let him fail (while I still have some sway here) and am going to like it or not get him involved in some tutoring for writing, martial arts for discipline, summer camps that I think will be good for him. I'm not sure that he should stay in this alternative program next year as he's really not excelling in it. He wants to stay 'cause his friends are in it; the alternatives would be the traditional middle school, which might have more clear cut expectations and guidlines and not be so self-directed, or a steiner/sudsbury model type school at the other end of the spectrum...which he might really flourish in (he's a bright, imaginative kid)or might just do nothing in and emerge totally unprepared for life/unequipped with what should be common knowledge.
What do I do? How do I support him to reach his highest potential? I feel like I'm blowing it, mama's. I know it is just an akward suck age anyway, with emerging greasiness and sexual confusion and all--am I taking the school work too seriously?
Any thoughts/advice/experience gladly welcomed, thanks!
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i have a kid who doesn't really care in school either, and i think that like you, she's picking up on my attitude.
my only suggestion would be to instruct him that he is getting yanked from that school unless he starts excelling at it. he's old enough for the responsibility, it's some thing he actually does care about and therefore it can be an effective motivation, and he has the ability to excel.
but, mostly, i just relate. my kid is disinterested in grades and it makes it hard to work with her on self discipline through study.
come out
Not for the same reasons, more because I pretty much had to raise myself. I did great in things I liked and I did shitty in things I didn't like or didn't "get". I had no idea how to organize or structure things. I eventually figured out how to jump through some hoops and say the right things and pretend and do stuff that I had to do. I was told I had a bad attitude, that I wasn't living up to my potential. I tested very high in writing/reading and average in math. But my grades were dull.
I didn't know what to do or how to do it. I spent a lot of time feeling confused, behind and out of the loop. It seemed like other people understood something I didn't.
But looking back on my school experience, it didn't "prepare me for real life" or whatever, it made me feel dead and like an outcast, and only be becoming more dead and dumb and robotic could I excel and jump and "get along" and "do well". Really. It's crazy to me now that I had to live like that.
So my vote would be for the sudbury-like school where you think he would flourish. I think the figuring out life and how to do things you don't like will come with time. The very best way that I figured out how to live and do things I don't really like is that they were important to me, or related to something I did like (I sucked at math computation, though not math concepts, and I can do any/all math relating to budgeting, knitting and pattern adaptation, film and photography, cooking and time management - none sound too mathy, but film, especially how I was doing it, really had a lot of figuring out.) I think living prepares us for life. And I trust kids, if they aren't already too confused and broken down by the system, to figure things out, challenge themselves and live. My son is "disabled" and "needs physical therapy and occupational therapy weekly at least" and the way he learns to do things more effectively and easily is by doing things he likes. Not having the PT make him do stuff, or the OT force "games" on him, but by running outside, learning to play guitar and drums, riding a horse, and just generally fucking around. He's a kid. He learns by doing things that he likes. ANd he always always challenges himself, but if it's at his pace, he can be confident and daring about it instead of pushed and nervous and cowed. Different, but the same in some ways. The PT and OT seemed to get in his way more than they helped.
Buy whatever you decide, you are his mom, and you love him and you will be there with him to love him and witness his life and help him, and that is what is really important. We're all amazing and cool and really fucking weird and crazy and messed up in our own ways.
I don't think you're taking this too seriously.
Where do you want him to be next year? In ten years?
What does the high school environment look like? Middle school is very short, too soon he'll be an adult. Now is the time to be instilling habits that he'll be needing in high school and college.
Is he capable of the work in the classes he's failing? I'm guessing he's not that interested; maybe because he doesn't understand all of the material and is putting him into a negative headspace regarding it. This is not any kind of judgement on his previous schooling or his intelligence; maybe because he's not interested he just didn't pay attention. I did this alot when I was a kid! If I couldn't be the best or I didn't naturally absorb a deep understanding of something it was clearly beneath me and not worth my time. Now I'm 30 and I don't know my times tables. Not that this trips me up that much; I can always get out a pen and paper or use a calculator; but it would save me time if I had done this thing everyone else did in 4th grade.
If this was my DS I'd work with him personally on his homework and impose some rules about when homework is to be done. If working with him myself wasn't an option; tutoring. It sounds like apathy and a lack of skill in planning/time management are big issues. Which I get, I really do! I was not motivated at all in school. Ever. I remember not giving a fuck in second grade. I don't want that for DS however; we've worked out ways to motivate him.
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I read that he's not doing well in school and go 'So WHat? Who cares?' IT's not what I care about! But, the stuff underneath, I do.
I have no model here, either. If I had brought home these grades my mom would've brought down the roof--but then she did that if I brought home an A-...so I know what I DON'T want to do.