Feeling like the worst parent ever

[Elder Sister]

So sorry you're having issues, WS - Henry is so adorable; I have every confidence it will work out and he will get it together.  I was another slacker who just wasn't that interested in school.  I managed to make good grades without trying, and spent as much time as possible reading books that had nothing to do with schoolwork.

I don't know if this will help, but there are times when I can get anxiety that will just shut me down.  I don't have this much at all anymore, but I had a lot of it as a kid/teenager.  I would get overwhelmed to the point of not being able to think coherently or plan for anything...not sure if that makes sense or not.  I've learned how to break down problems into a more manageable size most of the time, but I can still get paralyzed by it if I'm not careful.  Not sure if that has any value or not - but I wish you and your sweet family the best.  <3

 

[Balefont]

On ‎4‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 11:32 AM, Whitestripe said:

We haven't considered ADHD because he's not unfocused in other areas. (He'll go to a Magic:The Gathering tournament with his father, place and stay focused all day)  He seems like a pretty normal kid, but he's got a pediatrician appointment coming up, so I will ask about it then. He's not disruptive in class (except, apparently band and he sits first chair so I have no clue what's up with that). He wears glasses and I've made an appt to get his script checked.

As for rewards, his grandmother had a whole box of Magic cards riding on straight A's all year, and that's gone. 

Real quip and this may have already been addressed: Being able to focus on a specific interest wouldn't rule out ADHD.  In fact, it's a common "symptom" that those with ADD/ADHD have brilliant focus but it's got to be something that the person is extremely interested in pursuing.

[Whitestripe]

A mom friend with a fellow disorganized 12 year old just recommended the book "The Organized Student" by Donna Goldberg. I just bought it. Let's hope it helps!

[Ice Queen]

On 4/22/2016 at 11:32 AM, Whitestripe said:

Zabs: Forcing the agenda is just a way for home and school to make sure the "nothing was assigned" loop is closed since they don't post homework online. I've asked him if he would rather have binders/folders/file boxes/whatever. His room looks like a hobby shop exploded with M:TG cards.  Husband was insisting that he put them in binders and Henry HATED it. Then we had the idea to use the empty boxes. Works brilliantly.   I am not very organized  in my personal life either, and yet a large part of my job is telling people where to be at what time. 

Crazy Cat Lady: Yeah, 6th grade is hard. I get it. It doesn't help that my kid is very, very small for his age. We were trying to let him work it out, Doesn't want to have all his science papers in a notebook? No problem. But when grades drop from 95 average to 80 average simply because stuff isn't getting done, it's time to rethink the strategy. 

Hi Whitestripe,

Let's put this in perspective. A 95 average is wonderful...but an 80 is a B. It's not the end of the world. He's not failing. I can understand why you'd be concerned about such a huge drop, but he's still doing well. 

One of mine used to drive me bonkers around the same age. He'd do his work...and then not turn it in. At some point the worst thing you can do is argue about. It's just going to make it worse. 

My suggestion is this: If his grades keep dropping...let them. Sometimes it's better to let them fail and learn from it than to keep beating a dead horse. Make him responsible for not doing his work. 

I know that's hard to hear because we want our kids to succeed. But part of learning to succeed is learning to fall flat on our faces. Their grades are their responsibility, not yours. 

Case in point. Warning: Novel! My now 20 year old gave me fits her senior year in high school. She had turned 18 at Thanksgiving and had a 21 year old boyfriend whispering in her ear that she was 18 and could do whatever she wanted. (He neglected to mention, of course, that there are consequences for that.) She'd blow off her curfew and waltz in at 4 am on school nights. Every day I got phone calls at work saying "The purpose of this call is to inform you that your child was either tardy or absent". By February I'd had enough, and I called the school and told them to not call me anymore. She was 18 and she could just deal with the consequences. 

The Friday before Memorial Day she called me from school in hysterics. I thought someone died. She said that she wasn't going to be allowed to march at graduation because she'd missed--get this--63 days of her first period class. Just first period. Apparently she always got there by second period. And she was going to have to go to summer school to make up the work she missed. I told her that's the way the cookie crumbles and she could call her grandmother and tell her why she wasn't going to graduation after her grandmother had just spent money on a new dress to wear, and that I was taking the money for summer school out of her bank account. 

By the time I got home from work, her boyfriend had convinced her that it was no big deal. I tossed him out of the house and she and I sat down and had a really long talk. On Memorial Day, she asked me if I would drive her to school on Tuesday. I did, and she was on time for her first period class. She called me later that morning and said she'd been called to the guidance counselor's office and that her first period teacher was there. Because she was on time that morning, he was going to give her a shot to march, but if she put one toe wrong she'd be sitting in the audience. She busted her ass that week to get the assignments he gave her done. And she graduated. 

She learned a lesson. She went off to college that fall and has done exceedingly well. She now understands the value of going to class and doing your work. In fact, she did the math and informed me that every time you miss a class, it costs you (or your parents) $400. 

So hang in there. It's not easy, but he'll be okay. Let him suffer the consequences. But keep in mind that an 80 isn't the end of the world. Give him some leeway to work out for himself whatever is going on. It might take time but it'll all work out. 

PS--The day my daughter dumped that loser boyfriend, 3 weeks after she started college, was one of the happiest days of my life. LOL 

[Whitestripe]

Cat Lady: Yeah, I know an 80 is still a B. No he's not failing, and he's 12.  We just know he can do so much better when he cares.

Update: He got a 98 on the social studies test that we found out about during the great locker clean out (and thus studied for when he would not have if he hadn't been caught) That's a fantastic grade for an end-of-unit test. He was pissed at himself because he read a question wrong and answered "Muhammad" instead of "Allah." He wanted the 100.  He gets fired up when we convince him he needs to care. 

[Iskaral Pust]

On 4/28/2016 at 1:47 PM, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

...She had turned 18 at Thanksgiving and had a 21 year old boyfriend whispering in her ear that she was 18 and could do whatever she wanted...

One advantage of teenage sons over daughters is that they less likely to experiment with older girlfriends with a motorbike/danger vibe who derail their sense of responsibility.  But considering girls spend all of their childhood and adolescence being, on average, more focused, more responsible, more organized and less self-endangering than boys, I don't think the parents of daughters can complain too much.

CCLT - I'm glad it ended well for her.  That's a nice life lesson at relatively low cost.

Whitestripe - that's a good upturn.  Keep fostering that desire to succeed.

[Aniel]

Warning: There's an essay incoming.

I'm not a parent, but in 5th (or 6th, I don't remember), I would do my homework and never turn it in. I was constantly lying to my teacher saying I forgot it at home, and no real consequences ever came of that. I did my homework while playing games (the Sims) and sometimes I would watch TV at the same time. Everything was correct and all, I just never turned it in. The reason for this was that I had very little confidence in my math skills. Just those. Everything else was a breeze. Why so little confidence? I had switched schools a couple of years earlier, and with that textbooks - just as we were learning multiplication and division. For some reason, I found that new textbook confusing and I just didn't understand the explanations for how to do things, and then when we started that awful Mad Minute-thing with multiplication I was the only one who could never complete it. I hate looking stupid, so I never asked for help.

Somehow I got through that on my own. Since my country only graded students in 8th and 9th grade during my years of elementary/primary school, it wasn't exactly a visible problem to anyone other than the teacher.

In 9th grade, which is the only year where grades really matter since you're going up to your secondary form of education afterwards (Gymnasium, essentially high school level material but you also take classes aimed directly at what you want to work with or study when it's time for college, and it also has an application process based on grades), I got depressed. Not only that, I also developed a food allergy that took some time to figure out how to manage, so I was in actual pain for months. And then we have what is called "skoltrötthet" which I also got saddled with. That means I was just plain tired of school. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and which gymnasiums I wanted to apply to and I was super excited about it, but I had no motivation to even go to school. The reason for me being tired of school was that it was too easy. Even in math I understood everything. I knew things before we even read about them in class, and if we had a test, I only had to read through my notes and the chapter the test covered maybe three times and I was set and knew I was going to get an A or a B. (I should note that we only had 3 passing grades at the time, which technically were A, C, and E - and a C was/is perfectly acceptable and no one would ever be grounded or anything for getting one).

I probably didn't even go to school for half of that year. If I was in school, I would do my work. If I wasn't, I would just stare blankly into space if I had whatever assignments I'd been given in front of me. Mostly I just didn't touch them. Since you can't fail what you didn't do, almost all my teachers told me that they couldn't give me any grade at all, because they "hadn't seen my ability to learn" and stuff despite having taught me for 3 years. I ended up graduating 9th grade with 8 passing grades (and that only because two of my teachers let me either take a test to make up for it, or do all the assignments in a week - and two other subjects I took only the first semester of school, so I already had them) out of a possible 17.

The worst part of it was being told "You are so smart, why can't you do this?" and not having an answer.

Anyway, to me it sounds like there's a problem that is less about school and more about your son and something he's going through. And I don't think you should be punishing him for it, I wasn't punished other than by being driven to school so that I actually went, and my mom would sit in on my first class sometimes. Finding the problem, and helping him get through it will probably end up being more constructive in the long run. Sure, if he lies to you then that should probably be punished, but he needs to understand that that is the reason, not his falling grades. As for organisation, the only thing I've got to add is that I just kept all of my schoolpapers in the notebook I had for the subject the paper was on. So English homework in the English notebook and such. Super easy and logical. If your son has as easy a time in school as I did, and if he is as aware of his own brightness as I was, then he may already feel bad about this and the falling grades and might feel stupid and anxious about it. I know I was anxious about not turning in my homework and even more about not going to school at all. It sounds like he's trying to fix it, and that should be encouraged. Positive reinforcement is great.

If anyone's interested in how things turned out for me, I spent two more years depressed, and three tired of school, but I managed to snag 4 more passing grades over the course of those three years (the first two I ended up not going to school after about half the year had passed) which meant I could apply to gymnasium programmes and likely get in (12 was the minimum requirement for everything I was interested in) but I decided not to because I was tired of people my age and wasn't going to put up with people three years younger than me - so I got a job instead (I was insanely lucky, since I essentially don't have even a high school education). I'm actually starting two gymnasium-level classes on the 30th now because I feel ready to tackle at least some schoolwork again.

[Angalin]

On 4/28/2016 at 8:22 PM, Whitestripe said:

He gets fired up when we convince him he needs to care. 

Okay, now tell me how to do this, please. Being the only parent means that I have to be bad cop a lot of the time, and bad cop isn't good at finding positive motivation.

[Whitestripe]

I am not sure how to make him excited. He was in so much trouble that he was in a "study or else" mode, then was happy with his test. 

Things are a bit better now. He's bringing home homework, and we are at least aware of assignments. However, now we are forgetting to take things back to school. Like books and stuff

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 5/4/2016 at 8:01 AM, Whitestripe said:

I am not sure how to make him excited. He was in so much trouble that he was in a "study or else" mode, then was happy with his test. 

Things are a bit better now. He's bringing home homework, and we are at least aware of assignments. However, now we are forgetting to take things back to school. Like books and stuff

Give him weekly rewards. Set up a dual track reward system where one set of rewards is for weekly accomplishments and one big reward if he hit's all his weekly accomplishments in a given time frame. Using Magic cards as an example, offer to buy him a couple of packs or a certain card he wants (within reason) if he completes his weekly requirements and a booster box if he completes each week's requirements for a semester. Or something to that effect. 

[sagewich]

On 5/4/2016 at 8:01 AM, Whitestripe said:

I am not sure how to make him excited. He was in so much trouble that he was in a "study or else" mode, then was happy with his test. 

Things are a bit better now. He's bringing home homework, and we are at least aware of assignments. However, now we are forgetting to take things back to school. Like books and stuff

I have a 24 year old son. He was talking a mile a minute until he turned one. And he just stopped. I was told not to worry about it, he was simply working on something else.

Then we had him tested and he was given every diagnosis in the book (even childhood schizophrenia).  Every six months we tried a new doc. When puberty hit, he just would not go to school. It was headaches or stomach problems, etc. High school - it was either A or D.  If he liked the teacher, it was an A. If the teacher "insulted" him somehow, a D. Complaints came home about teachers not being able to read his handwriting on tests, and yet he came home with As in drafting and art -- go figure.  

I shoved him into A Large Midwestern University, and after a transfer to a small private college, he bloomed. At 20, he was FINALLY diagnosed with high functioning Asperger's. A little Ritalin helps - but he can now choose the classes he wants. Nothing but As. He's in graduate school, and grooving out on computers - programming and IT. 

He was aways into games. If we took his gaming time away, everyone was miserable,  How did we make it through? If there was a reading assignment, I read it to him. He retained it as well as if he had read it, and there wasn't a fight. If he had to write, he wrote it in his awful hand writing and then I would type it - both sheets were turned in. Yes, it was awful. But we made it through. We figured it had to get better.

It's a muddle. I know folks don't want to think about Ritalin because it often stifles height. My son is 6'2" and was off and on Ritalin from 4th grade on. Now he takes it twice a day when in college, Otherwise, he is on line debating the directions his two favorite war games are taking, or hooked up to head phones with a mic and playing games with people all over the world. Or talking about his favorite You Tubers or whether they could have eeked out another season of Downton Abbey.

His bedtime stories were The Redwall series, Everybody Knows What a Dragon Looks Like, Chronicles of Narnia, LotR, His Dark Materials and ASoI&F. I knew he wasn't stupid. There was just "something" going on.  Too bad it was caught so late.

[Angalin]

Hijacking the thread a little because my question also deals with 12 year old boys, and the difficulty thereof...

The twins have a Minecraft realm (like a private server, invite-only, set up by Mojang) which I pay for and moderate (surprise). The cost is pretty minimal, so that's not the concern. What we do have a problem with is how to facilitate communication between 20 players over multiple time zones. There's not always an overlap, so many of the kids can't talk to each other directly while on the game at the same time. Misunderstandings and most often design disagreements cause recurring stress. 

One of their friends suggested setting up a forum on [pro/board]* so the players could talk to each other. However, I have problems with a bunch of 12 year olds and younger on an unmoderated internet forum.

- I don't have the time to moderate it

- I'm concerned about the ages of those involved and think that some of the parents might be less than thrilled to have their kids in open online forums

- but these kids need a better way to communicate over different devices (some of them already have iMessage chats going to stay in the loop, but not all of them have iThings). 

Suggestions? Minecraft is great but the stress of the disputes is getting to one of the twins, while the other one seems to use it as an escape mechanism at times. They basically find it very enjoyable and social, so when we've had homework issues denial of Minecraft service has helped to get them back on track.

 

* when I write the name out properly, this forum's software replaces it with a disapproving "hmm"

[Xray the Enforcer]

1) many forums you can set to private, which means that only people with the login can access it. Not sure if it's possible to hide the boards existence from the outside world, tho. Will probably depend on the platform.

2) for cross-device functionality (computers, phones, tablets, iOS and Android), might want to try Slack. It's not quite as regimented as a forum, but it's good for ongoing discussions. there's a free version that is pretty powerful, and should be sufficient for the team's needs. and it would be impossible for a random internet person to find the discussion. My team uses Slack at work, and it's the primary discussion hub for the ValleyForge bid com.

[Angalin]

6 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

1) many forums you can set to private, which means that only people with the login can access it. Not sure if it's possible to hide the boards existence from the outside world, tho. Will probably depend on the platform.

2) for cross-device functionality (computers, phones, tablets, iOS and Android), might want to try Slack. It's not quite as regimented as a forum, but it's good for ongoing discussions. there's a free version that is pretty powerful, and should be sufficient for the team's needs. and it would be impossible for a random internet person to find the discussion. My team uses Slack at work, and it's the primary discussion hub for the ValleyForge bid com.

I think they owe you another picture for the fridge! Thank you!!

[Whitestripe]

Oh we have Minecraft woes too!

Anyway, it's been about a month since the smackdown, and in case anyone is still interested, things are somewhat better. We mange to get the agenda home an average of 3 days a week.  (I'll take that as a win) and he's actually bringing home homework and things to study. We had a minor altercation over French homework this weekend. He has to do an PowerPoint presentation on a francophone country assigned to him. Can't actually tell me when it's due. He said he would work on it over the weekend, but then didn't. Sunday evening (6.45) we asked if it was done. I said I wanted to see it to proof it. "Mom, you don't have to look..." Red flags. It was awful. Piss poor work. One slide "This is the flag"with a pic of the flag. No explaination of the flag. Many similar to that. The slides had a dark background and were too hard to read. I explained the difference in a good slide presentation and a poor one and told him I wanted to see a good one. An hour later, he had a good one. He hooked it up to the tv and practiced presenting it to all of us. Then he smiled when we told him it was killer.  Baby steps. When pushed, he's proud of his work. He's just so damn lazy! 

[Ice Queen]

On 4/28/2016 at 3:22 PM, Whitestripe said:

Cat Lady: Yeah, I know an 80 is still a B. No he's not failing, and he's 12.  We just know he can do so much better when he cares.

Update: He got a 98 on the social studies test that we found out about during the great locker clean out (and thus studied for when he would not have if he hadn't been caught) That's a fantastic grade for an end-of-unit test. He was pissed at himself because he read a question wrong and answered "Muhammad" instead of "Allah." He wanted the 100.  He gets fired up when we convince him he needs to care. 

Great job!! See, things aren't so bad after all.  It'll all work out. 

[Ice Queen]

On 5/11/2016 at 6:23 AM, sagewich said:

I have a 24 year old son. He was talking a mile a minute until he turned one. And he just stopped. I was told not to worry about it, he was simply working on something else.

Then we had him tested and he was given every diagnosis in the book (even childhood schizophrenia).  Every six months we tried a new doc. When puberty hit, he just would not go to school. It was headaches or stomach problems, etc. High school - it was either A or D.  If he liked the teacher, it was an A. If the teacher "insulted" him somehow, a D. Complaints came home about teachers not being able to read his handwriting on tests, and yet he came home with As in drafting and art -- go figure.  

I shoved him into A Large Midwestern University, and after a transfer to a small private college, he bloomed. At 20, he was FINALLY diagnosed with high functioning Asperger's. A little Ritalin helps - but he can now choose the classes he wants. Nothing but As. He's in graduate school, and grooving out on computers - programming and IT. 

He was aways into games. If we took his gaming time away, everyone was miserable,  How did we make it through? If there was a reading assignment, I read it to him. He retained it as well as if he had read it, and there wasn't a fight. If he had to write, he wrote it in his awful hand writing and then I would type it - both sheets were turned in. Yes, it was awful. But we made it through. We figured it had to get better.

It's a muddle. I know folks don't want to think about Ritalin because it often stifles height. My son is 6'2" and was off and on Ritalin from 4th grade on. Now he takes it twice a day when in college, Otherwise, he is on line debating the directions his two favorite war games are taking, or hooked up to head phones with a mic and playing games with people all over the world. Or talking about his favorite You Tubers or whether they could have eeked out another season of Downton Abbey.

His bedtime stories were The Redwall series, Everybody Knows What a Dragon Looks Like, Chronicles of Narnia, LotR, His Dark Materials and ASoI&F. I knew he wasn't stupid. There was just "something" going on.  Too bad it was caught so late.

College can make a huge difference. They have control over their schedule--what classes they can take (within their major), and more importantly what time those classes are scheduled. It's much less rigid and structured, and they need that freedom to learn to be an adult. 

[Ice Queen]

On 4/29/2016 at 3:09 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

One advantage of teenage sons over daughters is that they less likely to experiment with older girlfriends with a motorbike/danger vibe who derail their sense of responsibility.  But considering girls spend all of their childhood and adolescence being, on average, more focused, more responsible, more organized and less self-endangering than boys, I don't think the parents of daughters can complain too much.

CCLT - I'm glad it ended well for her.  That's a nice life lesson at relatively low cost.

Whitestripe - that's a good upturn.  Keep fostering that desire to succeed.

I have one of each and my son never gave me the headaches my daughter did.  He'll be 21 in a few weeks and he's always been the focused one. He took a gap year to work and then went to community college. He'll graduate in December and he already has a job lined up doing what he loves. Fortunately my daughter did wise up and now calls the time with that boyfriend The Dark Time. It's only been a few months. She has a new boyfriend that she met at school and who is a couple of months younger than she is and he's a great kid. What a difference. She got him through calculus and he helped her through French. Teamwork. 

[princess_snow]

On 21/04/2016 at 1:32 AM, Whitestripe said:

We haven't considered ADHD because he's not unfocused in other areas. (He'll go to a Magic:The Gathering tournament with his father, place and stay focused all day)  He seems like a pretty normal kid, but he's got a pediatrician appointment coming up, so I will ask about it then. He's not disruptive in class (except, apparently band and he sits first chair so I have no clue what's up with that). He wears glasses and I've made an appt to get his script checked.

As for rewards, his grandmother had a whole box of Magic cards riding on straight A's all year, and that's gone. 

Hi there, I have a teen with adhd, it does need to present it self across all areas ie school, home and outside of home. If youd like to PM me please feel free to do so. My son is able to hyper focus on certain things. I can only say the earlier you get onto a diagnosis the better for your childs sake. I wish you good luck with your paedi appointment, and try not to stress too much at this stage he is only in year 6 and you hopefully get to the bottom of this asap. 

 

Dont be too hard on yourself, its very difficult parenting these days its a whole new world with internet gaming etc. You do the best you can, thats all you can do.  

[Seli]

On 16-5-2016 at 3:50 PM, Whitestripe said:

...He's just so damn lazy! 

No.

To me (and I might be projecting) that story does not indicate lazy. But rather a pessimistic insecure perfectionist, someone who when they do no have a map of some sort to their goal will be overwhelmed by all the possible decisions and their impact.