Feeling like the worst parent ever

[Arkhangel]

21 hours ago, Whitestripe said:

Some time ago, I started a "motivation in school" thread, but it seems to have been eaten by the Internet. 

Here's the scoop. I have a bright but apparently academically lazy 6th grader.  You may remember that he's disorganized. The first quarter of school this year was pretty good. Brought home papers and had us help him with homework. Great grades, high honor roll. Second quarter, we start seeing fewer and fewer papers, homework, tests, etc. We ask him every day "do you have homework? What are you working on?" Answers "I did it in study hall" and "Not much." We threaten no electronics and consequences if we don't start seeing some stuff and a trickle of papers come in. Enough to appease us, let's say. Second quarter report card comes. Grades are down, but still makes high honor roll, just barely. He gets lecture about best effort in school and how we are here to help and how he needs to get organized to have better study habits. He promises to do better. Third quarter, still not many papers/tests etc and even less communicative about school. DOES NOT BRING HOME mid-quarter progress report even though we ask for it. Look at it online a week late. Grades are in mid-80's. Emails go out to teachers. Several missing assignments. Kid is grounded Easter weekend. Loses electronics all weekend, and gets the lecture of the year. Brings home assignments to complete. Swears he'll get his shit together.

Third quarter report card comes home. Grades are better than mid-80's projected on the "lost" mid-quarter assessment (still gets honor roll) but are down from last quarter. Three of his teachers say "needs to come to class prepared" or "needs help with organization" Even after the lecture and the grounding over Easter. I make a surprise trip to school last Friday afternoon. His locker is knee deep with papers and not a single one are in ANY of his binders. He doesn't even have PENCILS in his locker. I was very calm and packed every single thing in his locker into his backpack or a canvas bag to go through at home. Half completed assignments. Forms that needed parents signature, tests with low grades, a research paper that he did entirely at school and never researched at home or showed us a rough draft of, a Middle East map project assignment paper that we never saw, but map quiz that he failed, which was in the locker, a "six paragraph original myth" assignment that we never even knew about. He had art last quarter and he never brought home the materials list (we had no idea he needed a sketch pad, drawing pencils, or large eraser) You name it. No wonder his teachers said he wasn't prepared.

We are insisting that he write every single assignment down in his agenda and I said I'd be dropping by his locker once a week on random days. Yesterday (three days after this all went down) he didn't bring home his study guide or his notebook for his Southwest Asia unit test (he did bring home his textbook and said he knew what to study) We went right back to school to get it, and he still had papers that weren't filed and a math assignment that is due at the end of next week lying loose in his locker.   

I've emailed his teachers and they have immediately responded that they are willing to help. They all agreed to sign his agenda daily. The all say he's a smart kid who isn't working up to his potential. We've emailed the guidance counselor to see if there are underlying issues, He has friends at school.  I don't even know what to do. I feel like the worst parent on the planet for being so naive and letting him get away with this, and I really don't know how to fix it.  

TL; DR: My bright kid is fscking off in school and I don't know how to help him.

I was LIVID. Reduced him to tears with my lectures. Basically he's been lying to us about school for six months. Saturday morning the husband and I sat down with him and went through every single paper. We sorted them all and put them in the proper notebooks. He's lost one day of electronics for each infraction and he's currently up to 10. How in the hell was he able to pull off honor roll with this level of fucking off? What could he achieve if he tried just a little bit?

 

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Regarding the highlighted bit - have you tried just asking him why he started lying to you about it? Like really genuinely asking him, not shouting at him til he cries or raiding his locker or emailing the counsellor to ask  them about it.

Obviously I don't know you or your kid or your situation at all, but responding to this by cranking the control up to 11 as you're describing would have been a guaranteed method of getting me to lie more and better as a kid. Generally when kids do something like this they do it for a reason and responding by putting on the screws isn't always the best solution, particularly if you're not completely sure what the problem is. Some kids need to be pinned down and pushed along, but others need room to grow.

 

[baxus]

Maybe, just maybe, you guys are overthinking this? I know that parents' first reaction is "oh, there's this big thing behind this, we need to get to the bottom of it" and that's perfectly normal and understandable but keep in mind that not everything needs to be that big.

I mean, before you have the kid tested for ADHD or anything like that cover all the bases and make sure it's not something as "silly" a young boy having his first crush. He'd hardly be the first kid to rather think about pretty girls then algebra.

Just to point out, I don't have kids of my own and I'm aware that this might be an extreme oversimplification. I just thought a different perspective could help.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Going off of what Baxus said, the key word missing in this conversation is puberty. 

@Whitestripe,

You're being too hard on the little guy. Try to be more understanding instead of just handing out punishments. There may be something going on with him that he hasn't told you about, and you should try to figure out what that is. 

And do not threaten him with random appearances at his school, especially during school hours. You're going to embarrass him and humiliate him in front of his peers.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

My son has major organizational issues as well (he does have ADHD), and a lack of motivation to go along with it.

I check the "home access" site every week to see if he's missing assignments.  Sometimes I have to write down what he needs to get from his teachers (because anything not turned in is most likely lost). 

It is hard to find the balance of teaching them to be responsible for themselves and hand holding them; between encouraging/motivating and punishing.

Other than what others have said, have him help to come up with a plan to stay better organized.

I have been tempted to buy one of those hanging locker organizers for him to avoid the problem of tons of papers piled up in the bottom of the locker

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

You are describing me at roughly the same age (I was a little younger, but, you know, a girl, so I assume it hit sooner), but it was worse because my handwriting was so illegible that I had to be put in a remedial class.

I am not by nature an organizer, though in a sense I'm an orderly person.  I'm a big picture person, and always have been.  I found, and still find, binders extremely difficult to deal with (and don't use them). I had to find an organization method that worked for ME, and it wasn't the method that was being taught in school, necessarily.  Agendas/planners/binder checks - I thought they were meaningless and stultifying (and therefore wanted nothing to do with them, because I didn't see the point).  Now, the downside is that I did lose stuff, and leave stuff until the last minute and got poor grades, but eventually developed a system that worked for me.  I work better with folders, not binders.  A spiral notebook with pockets was perfect for me.  My notes and the handouts stayed in one place and things weren't falling out of my binders.  Over time, I could move things to binders (or better for me, piles, or currently, to my assistant who has a genius for organization), but once I was freed from an imposed organizational system, I did much better.  Honestly, since the guidance counselor is onboard, talk to your son about what would work for him.  Throwing stuff in a locker doesn't, but there has to be something other than the binders, etc. that would feel more natural to him.  He won't work with a system that (1) he doesn't see the point of and (2) doesn't fit with his own internal logic.

I should mention that I graduated from high school with a 4.0, went to (though I know you must disagree ;)) an excellent college where I graduated magna cum laude, and then law school where I graduated cum laude.  So, there's hope, even for the disorganized.

[Whitestripe]

Ark: It hasn't all been yelling. Trust me.  I've asked if there was  a reason behind what's going on. His father has asked him, just in case he doesn't want to tell his mom. The answer (not surprisingly) is "Nothing is wrong."   When I asked (very calmly) why he has just decided not to do his work  he says "I don't know."  As for raiding his locker, emailing the counselor, etc.  He's had lots of chances to get this right.  We ask on a regular basis what his assignments are, and  to please bring home papers that need to be signed. We haven't heard anything. 

Bax: I'm not rushing into a dx of ADHD etc. I know my kid is disorganized. I've seen his room. I personally think it's the case of a kid trying to get away with as much as he can. I wanted to ask the school professionals if they had seen anything that would indicate otherwise. 

Twyin:  I don't think we're being to hard on him. Like I said, we've given him lots of chances. For example, he asked if he could get a locker organizer at Christmas. We picked out one together and I asked if he wanted me to go to school to help him install it. He declined so I didn't go. It was laying crumpled in the bottom of his locker last week.   I've only been to school with him after hours. The only person who saw me there was his homeroom/math teacher. 

 

Lany: I wish that our school had the home access site. They don't list assignments or homework. They only list grades at the middle and end of each quarter and attendance.

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

Maybe, just maybe, you guys are overthinking this? I know that parents' first reaction is "oh, there's this big thing behind this, we need to get to the bottom of it" and that's perfectly normal and understandable but keep in mind that not everything needs to be that big.

I mean, before you have the kid tested for ADHD or anything like that cover all the bases and make sure it's not something as "silly" a young boy having his first crush. He'd hardly be the first kid to rather think about pretty girls then algebra.

Just to point out, I don't have kids of my own and I'm aware that this might be an extreme oversimplification. I just thought a different perspective could help.

I think you might be onto something here.

I've gone through this a couple of times. 6th grade isn't a fun school year at all. There are a lot of changes, both physically and socially, going on at this age. Hormones, first crushes, the "school isn't cool" thing. Sleep schedules start to change for biological reasons. Their peer groups are expanding and they're trying so hard to fit in. They're casting off childhood friendships and forming new ones as the pool of potential friends gets bigger. They're probably getting a lot more homework than they did in elementary school. It's a lot of pressure but by 7th grade they get it a little better and things have calmed down. 

Some kids adapt better than others, but this isn't unique and it will happen again in 9th grade. My college student STILL has motivation problems in the spring semester. In the fall she's all gung ho for school, but by spring that enthusiasm wanes as fatigue and stress set in. As she said to me just yesterday, "Two more weeks and I can come home and SLEEP."

[Whitestripe]

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. 

[Whitestripe]

57 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Two and a half years after that diagnosis, I walked away with my bachelor's degree.

 

Glad to hear it all worked out for you. Did your parents ever try to intervene and get your organized?  I want to make sure that he's on track before high school and college. 

[polishgenius]

Just to chip in on the ADHD discussion: it could also be dyspraxia. The main thing people think about with that is lack of co-ordination (my first thought reading Zabzie's post up there was dyspraxia for the handwriting reason) but it also manifests itself in a lack of organisation, in a seriously short attention span and in a difficulty getting going with mental tasks (I've described it in the past as having a broken starter motor, and apparently it's fairly typical - once I've started writing a piece or whatever, keeping going isn't an issue, but actually getting into work mode).


Like, I'm naturally lazy in any case and that shouldn't be ruled out even if he eventually proves to be diagnosed with whatever- having learning difficulties and not putting in the effort aren't mutually exclusive - but although I wasn't as extreme (in part because I was diagnosed very early and my mum was brilliant about helping me manage it and getting school on board) a lot of what you describe is, like, really familiar to me.


I'm certainly not an expert but I reckon it's something to bear in mind.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

PG - the handwriting thing is all me, and not her son.  I am actually fairly ambidextrous - I write legibly, but more slowly, with my left hand as well as my right, and use my left for all kinds of random things.  My mother is convinced that when I got to the age that children were supposed to pick a dominant hand, and I hadn't appeared to be picking one, I was basically made a right hander.  That may not have been 100% the correct choice and took some work when I was a bit older.  Hard to say though.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

PG - the handwriting thing is all me, and not her son. 

I did get that, though I see some overzealous post-editing by myself has made that less clear than I thought it was. Handwriting, although often/usually the first sign people look for in flagging it up, isn't the only indicator is the point I was trying to make.


And yeah, of course there are other reasons why you might have had bad handwriting too. I naturally tend to lean towards guessing dyspraxia, especially when you're also talking about disorganisation, but, you know, I'm no expert.

[wolverine]

As a teacher, I just want to say, stop beating yourself up!  You are certainly not a bad parent.  You sound like a dream parent for teachers.  Someone who wants to help their child and hold them accountable.

 

I have had lots of students who face the same issues as your son.  It seems like half of my higher achieving math students in 8th grade are slightly to very disorganized.  Some grow out of it as they mature and some never do.  Some medication helps immensely and some medication makes no difference or has negative effects.  Hopefully you can find what helps your son be more successful/productive.

[baxus]

19 hours ago, Whitestripe said:

Bax: I'm not rushing into a dx of ADHD etc. I know my kid is disorganized. I've seen his room. I personally think it's the case of a kid trying to get away with as much as he can. I wanted to ask the school professionals if they had seen anything that would indicate otherwise.

I didn't mean to imply you were rushing into anything, sorry if you got that impression.

It's just that I wanted to offer a different perspective before the conversation got too one-sided.

[Isis]

You're obviously not a bad parent since you care so much and only want to help your son do his best. 

Does he dislike being told what to do, generally? Being confined and given very little autonomy can make certain kinds of people rebel even harder against authority. Sure, he has to go to school and he had to do the assigned work (even if he thinks it is boring, pointless or below him) but is it possible to give him options for HOW to get the work done? Like, when/where he can do it, eg weekends or evenings or mornings before school or even at school (I appreciate that the trust is a bit out of the window on that last option?) I just wondered about giving him a little more responsibility and ownership of the solution. Beyond offering a choice of whether he wants to use a folder or binder.

As adults we have to do stuff we don't want to and we understand why. So we deal with that in whatever way we choose to best suit us, and we provide ourselves with rewards or at least choices to compensate. 

School can really feel suffocating for some people, where there is no room to make any of your own choices. 

[Arkhangel]

21 hours ago, Whitestripe said:

Ark: It hasn't all been yelling. Trust me.  I've asked if there was  a reason behind what's going on. His father has asked him, just in case he doesn't want to tell his mom. The answer (not surprisingly) is "Nothing is wrong."   When I asked (very calmly) why he has just decided not to do his work  he says "I don't know."  As for raiding his locker, emailing the counselor, etc.  He's had lots of chances to get this right.  We ask on a regular basis what his assignments are, and  to please bring home papers that need to be signed. We haven't heard anything.

Like I said, you know your son and the situation much better than me, but my two cents is that it's clearly not an issue of him not being able to organise and motivate himself, because he was doing it before. It sounds to me like he has begun to resent the level of involvement and control you're exercising over his schoolwork, and so has started passively resisting it ('forgetting' to bring things home, doing assignments entirely at school i.e. away from you, not telling you about what he's doing at school). Responding to that by tightening your control seems to me like it would be counter-productive: either he'll continue with passive resistance by lying to you more, or he'll start actively pushing back.

As someone who did very well in school and would have deeply resented my parents ever trying to regiment my studies, I'm really in favour of letting kids have some space to take responsibility for themselves. YMMV, of course.

[Lily Valley]

On 4/21/2016 at 10:32 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. 

I think the whole year is too long.  Weekly rewards would be better for this age. 

Also, that was totally my locker in middle and high school, somehow I kept my GPA up but it stressed me out so damn much it would have been GREAT if someone had intervened to teach me some organization.  It sounds like you have a great kid and you are doing a fantastic job.

Edit:  Zabs, spiral notebooks with pockets CHANGED MY LIFE.  I still have all my grad school notes organized with the papers and other outside research I needed at the time perfectly organized.....in a closet....somewhere.

If only someone could make the equivalent of a spiral notebook closet.

[Whitestripe]

6 hours ago, Arkhangel said:

Like I said, you know your son and the situation much better than me, but my two cents is that it's clearly not an issue of him not being able to organise and motivate himself, because he was doing it before. 

Thing is, he wasn't really. Not on his own. He was only really ever bringing home math, and the occasional English or social studies. Last year, he was in elementary school and the teachers are very proactive about telling kids to put things in take home binders. Besides, my BFF's daughter was in his class and was over at our house 3 mornings a week to walk to school. They had the same assignments. This year, they try to have kids do it all on their own. It seems that he learned he could pull the wool over our eyes sometime in October or November and has been sliding ever since.   

He's not motivated to study... And has just been able to do well because he's a bright kid. 

[Seli]

This seems familiar of my experience during high-school. Except for the parents and teachers trying to fix things, and some added distance to neurotypical on my part.

It looks like you have a very smart kid who has never needed to plan ahead or organize because they are smart enough and have a good enough memory. And when you have never needed it, and never seen the point of it, organization is a very difficult skill to learn. Especially since your own system is based on remembering, which means a mess in a room can be more organized to ones mind than the best catalogued library (at least it makes sense). The failure mode can be worse at that age, when so much of your mental capacity is needed to navigate the changes in your social environment.

And when you have always done well, easily so, it can be very difficult to ask for help. When you see all the potential problems ahead, all the imperfections that will remain in your assignment, it is very difficult to start it; you know you can do it, why bother? For me, personally, structured offers to help never worked out. Using those offers, even when I can rationally accept them, always feels like a defeat, a failure, like I did something wrong. And that might be something to keep in mind with your kid. Part of helping him will probably come down to getting him to accept on a fundamental level that there is nothing wrong with that help.

[brook]

I think no matter if your son has ADHD or not there is pretty clearly enough overlap there that he may benefit from some of the same strategies.

Not long after I was first diagnosed I grabbed a copy of this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006G7H6TO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 and although a great deal of it won't apply to your son there are certainly some sections and strategies that he might gain from or may help you find alternative ways to help him.

A huge part of the emphasis is in developing and finding strategies that work and feel logical to you and are easy to maintain and there was a lot of what, to a naturally organised brain, would probably think was really simple or sometimes even counter-intuative advice that was tremendously helpful for me.