Unmotivated Teen Boy

Rachael, I feel for you. My #3 son was like yours. He went from A's to D's and F's. He wasn't studying or doing his homework. He was half heartedly doing his school work and not paying attention in class.

I found this out when he brought home his reportcard. I went to having him write down his homework assignments and having the teacher initial his assignments in his note book. Then I met with his teachers and found out what they expected. (One said "don't snore in class"!)

I would set down and read his assignments at home and then asked him the questions at the end of the chapter. My wife worked with him on his math assignments. (She was a math major in college.) When he had assignments, I'd have him give them to me. I'd go over them and tell him which answers were wrong. He made the corrections. Then I'd make sure he had his homework in his backpack for school the next day. When I found out he wasn't turning the assignments in, even though we had them done, I had a cow.

I told him the next time he didn't turn in an assignment I would go to class with him and go to every class. I scheduled a week of my vacation and accompanied him to class. He was so embarrassed to have me with him in class, that before lunch the first day he asked me to come out in the hall and begged me to go home and he would get his homework done and pay attention in class, and all the other things I had been asking him to do. So, I said ok, and went home.

His teachers were amazed at the change in his behavior . . . and his academic progress. I still went over his homework with him and made him sit down and do his writing assignments and reports. We had a couple of all night sessions because he would tell me he was working on it, his assignments, when he was just procrastinating.

I was working 12+ hours a day, then working another 2 to 4 hours a night plus time on the weekends. After I started working with him, I began doing the same with my other kids. As soon as they saw I was prepared to use my vacation and free time to do this they all improved their homework and study habits. They didn't want dad to go to school with them.

How did it turn out? My son went from D's and F's to straight A's. He graduated salutitorian (#2 in his class) and gave a commencement speech. He earned a full ride scholarship for his first four years of college. He graduated from USC medical school last year and became the first doctor in our family. He passed his boards and is now practicing in Northern California.

Was all the crying and whining and fights and losing vacation time worth it? YOU BETCHA ! ! ! I'd do it over again in a heartbeat. He married a very nice lady and has 4 kids. They are very happy. And so am I. Its not easy being a dad sometimes.

Good luck to you and yours.

My cousin was like that as a teenager. School was a huge struggle at that age for him, and it got worse and worse until he was suspended from school at 16 (for drug possession). During his suspension, his mom home-schooled him, and then when he was able to go back into public school, she literally came with him. Everywhere. He. Went. To class, to lunch, to PE. Everywhere. (To this day, his high school friends know and love his mom, because she was everywhere during their junior year of high school with my cousin!) I'm not necessarily recommending this to you (though it did work for him).

What I think really helped him get back on track in addition to that was that his mom decided he needed an after-school activity. She let him choose: football, soccer, cross-country, music? He decided he'd take guitar lessons. It was like his life just turned around. The combination of mom riding him every minute of every day, plus discovering that he's a really great guitar player - he was a different person within a year. Graduated on time, got a job, and became a productive, tax-paying member of society. Was in a rock band that actually recorded an album. He is now in his early 40's, is an IT manager for a big company, has been married to a fantastic woman for 15 years, and has 2 kids. Total success story, and if you had known him at 13, you'd have sworn he'd be homeless at this point. Take heart. Find him a hobby or sport or something he loves. He will be okay!

Try pouring love in to that boy! Get him some academic help and invest in him. Try a reading specialist. He may just be overwhelmed academically and is trying to act tough or I don't care. Don't let him down. He needs you now the most he ever has. Get some counseling in parenting. Try changing your focus and maybe he will change his. Let him know you love him too much to let him not believe in himself.

Counseling does NOT automatically mean drugs! Sure some kids might get evaluated for ADHD or other issues but counslers do a whole lot more than simply eval and prescribe drugs. They primarily just talk and give kids a safe place to unload some of their feelings and help them find ways to deal with those feelings. Not staying on task at school and prefering to socialize are very normal age appropriate things. He has to choose to invest his time in his school work. Kids with ADHD simply CANT concentrate, its not just that they dont WANT to concentrate. Very different things to deal with.
With that said, I think a big motivator for kids this age are their privleges. If he does not get it work done, he loses his phone, games, hanging out with friends, etc. Develop some guidelines and consequences and have a sit down with him to go over the new rules. Grades lower than X% will result in Y privilage being lost. Incomplete work will result in Z. You get the picture.
And I would tend to agree with you on the teacher giving him special rules. Thats nice of her but not teaching him responsibility. Today is Thursday. I say he spends the entire night tonight finishing his paper so he can turn it in tomorrow. Mom has the right to overrule the teacher's extension! :)

Deep breath momma.
First of all, "he's a good kid."
That's THE most important thing!
Middle school is hard, for a LOT of kids.
It's a combination of things: but mostly hormones, and new social and academic issues and pressures.
There's a lot more expected of him now.
When he says "i dunno" he probably doesn't! It's like when I've got severe PMS and I can't figure out WHY I'm so angry with my husband. At least as an adult I "get it" but he's just a kid, he doesn't understand half of what he's feeling.
Keep giving him love and support, and work WITH his teachers to help him come up with some study skills and organizational strategies. If he's truly struggling with a subject, ask the school for referrals to local tutors (college and HS kids are good and not too expensive.)
Try not to punish him for his "I don't care" attitude. Once he matures a little bit and finds where his strengths and interests are, it will get better.
Encourage him to participate in sports or clubs.
And remember, middle school is practice for high school (thank God!) the grades don't count. He's got time mature and turn it around!

If it makes you feel any better, kids like him are common.

Don't ask him "why," you won't get a good answer. He is probably not going to turn into a scholar any time soon, but you can go ahead and ground him from his activities until he gets the work done. Make it about completion, not about getting a great grade. With kids like him, you should be happy with C work, as long as he puts in a reasonable effort.

And, by the way, your emphasis needs to be all about the effort, not on his grades or perfection. You know what a reasonable effort looks like, and if he doesn't, he needs to learn it. Life is all about effort.

Dig your heels in, but don't get mad. Eventually he will probably mature into putting effort into things he really cares about on his own. Meanwhile, have an open line of communication with his teachers, so you know what work he has, and calmly take away the goodies until after he has completed his work.

You are right to try other things before medication. It doesn't sound like to me medication is the answer. He pretty much sounds like a typical tween boy who is just unmotivated, as you describe in the title of your post.

First of all, I would ask the teacher NOT to give him any further extensions on things. He needs to suffer the natural consequences of not doing what he's supposed to be doing when he's supposed to do it. If the teacher keeps bailing him out, he is going to miss out on some valuable life lessons, like the world does not revolve around you and you have to fit into the world, because the world will not fit around you.

There is really only so much you can do. It like you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can sit your son at a desk with paper and pencil, but you can't make him think or write.

I would make him write the paper over the weekend, but not allow him to turn it in. Of course, don't tell him you aren't going to allow him to submit it otherwise he won't do it. But he needs to suffer the natural consequences of not doing the paper on time - getting a zero and his grade suffering.

Then I would implement "homework time." In my house, homework is done at the same time every day. If the child says they have no homework, then I make work for them. I went to school; my daughter and stepkids went to school and I KNOW there is homework every night. So if they say no homework, I make work for them to do. They must work for at least one hour. So, they may as well do their homework because saying they don't have any doesn't get them out of ANYTHING.

If they are not done with MY homework in an hour, too bad. They work on it until it's done. I usually assign more work than the teacher so it's advantageous to them to do what's assigned.

If after an hour he hasn't done anything, it's straight to bed. If he hasn't had dinner, then a quick sandwich and off to bed. He has to find his motivation somewhere - this might be it.

Could he be dyslexic instead of unmotivated? My daughter is dyslexic and our school had no idea how to educate her. She hated writing and spelling and would do the same: stare out into space and write a few sentences when others could write pages. From 3td to 6th it got so bad she cried almost daily. She is now in a special school for dyslexics and doing very well.
http://www.brightsolutions.us/
This website has symptoms to look for and lots of information. All teens drive us crazy so that we can let them go when the time comes to leave the nest.
Good luck.

You've gotten some real good advice already. The long-term school struggles would have me concerned about some type of learning disability that just hasn't been severe enough to be identified clearly. A counselor may be able to help with this, or refer you to someone for testing. If nothing else, to eliminate that possibility.

ADD can be harder to identify than ADHD, also. It's seen more often in girls than boys and kids with ADD tend to stare off into space and have difficulty focusing instead of being disruptive in the classroom. ADD can be just as damaging to success at school as ADHD, however. Even if identified, this doesn't need to be treated with drugs, there are other strategies to learn and put in place to help, if this is the case.

Does he have any specific interests? Anything, any subject or activity, that he really enjoys? If not, help him find that. We all need something to get excited about, and it might not be found at school.

I'm sure if I'd been struggling in school for years, and had teachers and parents frustrated, I'd develop an "I don't care" attitude too, just as a defense mechanism. You have time to work with him to turn this around, but the first thing I'd want is more information, and there are professionals available to provide that.

Well if 'the only thing you haven't tried is counseling', you've hardly resorted to drugs as a FIRST resort.
Sounds like it might be your last resort.
He's more than half way through school - grades 8 through 12 are his last 5 years - and you want to get this figured out before he hits high school.
Hormones are no excuse for zoning out and not applying yourself.
Has he been evaluated for dyslexia or other learning difficulties?
While you are consulting counselors, he needs to know privileges (tv, games, non school computer use, cell phone, etc) are constantly earned by good behavior and applying himself to his school work.
When he has nothing in his room but a mattress and a maybe a light bulb - he'll start caring.

The one thing I've noticed is that you are the one coming up with the game plans on how to deal with this situation.

Here's what I would do:

Sit down with your son and talk to him more like an adult. Basically, say "look, I want to help you figure out how to get your stuff done, but you're not giving me a lot of input. So I am taking away all of your distractions. Your one job is to come up with a plan on how you will complete this and all other future work. I want you to write down a step-by-step plan on how to get this done, including who you'll ask if you need help. Then I want you to carry it out by completing your wrting assignment. Unless you need help, which I expect you to ask for because you know me and dad WANT to help you, I will look forward to spending time with you once your assignment is done. I expect it to be high quality work or I will give it back to you and tell you to do it again. You're too old to be writing poorly, and too young to be unmotivated. Get to work, son. I know you're capable of great things."

Maybe your son really doesn't know. :) Maybe it's not a lack of motivation, but more a lack of what works for him....HIS learning style. Check out the book 'Discover Your Childs Learning Style' by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle Hodson. You can find it at the library.

I found this book a couple months ago. We are homeschooling our son, 2nd grade, and the first couple weeks were VERY challenging. He didn't seem to want to do the work, he would take 4 hours to do 5 vocabulary words, we battled on everything it seemed and when the tears started flowing, I knew something had to change. This was NOT what God intended when He led me to homeschool. Then I found this book. My eyes, as well as my husbands, were OPENED wide for the very first time. We learned things about our son we had just chalked up to age, phases, etc. I learned about his learning style, which for him is kinesthetic, and EVERYTHING changed for us. He is now enjoying school. In fact, this morning as soon as he got up he asked to start his schooling! We have happy days now and he is learning so very well.

Try this before you ever consider putting him on drugs. Children are too easily labeled these days and once labeled, they have that label for life and it does affect them and how they see themselves. It's our jobs as parents to do everything in our power to help our children succeed. Pray for your son and let God lead you on this path. Read the book and see if things don't click for you and your son. I'll pray for you both.

If it were me I would sit down with him and help him with his story. Sometimes kids aren't motivated. Sometimes we as adults aren't motivated either! We all need a little push and help sometimes. Show him you care, you are interested in what he is working on. You want him to do well, so show him how to tackle this. Maybe he just needs help starting out. You said he only has 4 lines done..maybe he really has no idea where to go from there. I'm not saying to do his work for him, just maybe give him some ideas. Ask him what he has to write about and then truly show him you are interested...ask what he thinks he's going to write next....you know what I mean? I'm not saying we should do our work for our kids..and of course I don't know the full story of your son. I just mean we all need a little help sometimes. good luck. he does sound like a good kid.

It sounds like he has lost his place in the world. Does he have his dad at home? He sounds like the kind of students I had who didn't get to spend much time with their dads and/or had to compete with step-siblings. It seemed like a dark cloud was always following them. If he is in a situation like that, get him a good counselor who will not drug him but help him to find that he really does matter and has value. You might even do some family counseling to help with the whole dynamic if he doesn't have his original family in tact. He needs to go on father-son hikes, hunting trips, etc. If his dad is not in the picture, find another man who will help him to be a man and enjoy these years.