Really angry at son - need some perspective

[SimpleRules]

Parenting is a balancing act:
active - never passive
involved - not stifling
supportive - not controlling
positive - yet realistic

There is nothing wrong with expectations being high but common sense should be the fundamental building block of the interaction. I don't think there is anything wrong with encouraging your children to their personal best as long as you never forget the operative word: their. It is their life, not yours. You have the privilege to help support them and set them on their way to the best of your ability and to the best of theirs.

Eden I would say you have a hard working child who is trying but obviously does not like to be pushed - so don't push - encourage!

[DebateMom]

Here is what happened with us. I have two sons - one soon to be hs freshman and the other just finished his freshman year of college.

Son 1 - The last month of high school made the comment that he was going to start answering the extra credit questions for his AP History class because he wanted a 100 in the class. Being the "helicopter" parent I am I immediately questioned why he didn't always answer the extra credit. I was informed that he had never once in his life - all through school ever answered an extra credit question. I was shocked - surprised - MAD. All I could think of was the B's that could have been A's. He was happy and content with A's & B's. The last day of high school I had to pick him (he had just wrecked his car and it was in the shop) and as we drove off the school grounds he said - "Mom, you know if I had just listened to you I could have done so much better". He has a 3.6 college GPA and has "grown up" this past year.

Son 2 - the child who always has 99 or 100 average in every class. He is organized and works hard. He tells everyone he listens to his mom because he saw what happened when his brother didn't.

I am blessed with two great children one just likes to take the hard route and the other learns from his older brother.

[blossom]

Sorry to all the "you have to push them" parents on this thread-- and I agree 100% that parenting is a full time, contact sport-- but this parent is not describing a kid who is in bed all day, breaks the law, and exhibits anti-social behavior.

Unless I'm missing something, this is a kid who rises to the occasion when he wants to. So the issue is, does it work to push a kid to do more than he wants to do? My experience says no- you can encourage and prod and give positive reinforcement all you want- but you can only increase the tension in the household by settting expectations that your kid has no intention of meeting.

I think you are allowed to set non-negotiable rules like "you must call home if you're going to be out past 10 oclock because I worry about you, and I need my sleep in order to be competent at work the next day". Also, "you must call grandma on her birthday, or send a card the week before, because that's how she feels connected to you, and respecting her feelings is the price you pay for being part of our family." And, "your job is to fold the laundry on Fridays and Tuesdays, and if you don't do your part by folding, your brother won't do his part by doing the wash and I won't do my part by buying laundry detergent- so you can get used to wearing dirty clothes."

I'm not sure how those rules translate to the current situation- "you must do extra credit work because..." who is it hurting? how is he violating family rules?

To the posters who say that their now-mature kids looked back on an adolescence of laziness and blamed the parents for not pushing- you're insane for letting your adult kids get away with that. Behaviors have consequences- you taught your kids that when they were three years old- if they bit the birthday child at a party, they were sent home from the party before the cake and ice cream. So no crying foul once you're at third tier grad school and claiming it's mommy's fault that you didn't graduate summa from Yale. There are plenty of opportunities to "make good" on those slacker teenage years and it's not mom's responsbility to help you keep all your options open if a kid is determined to slam some of those doors shut.

[marite]

I totally agree with Blossom. I don't think adults should guilt-trip their parents.

[downtoearth]

I think some kids do understand that this can be a "game" and to some degree are unwilling to play it. All the parents above had good insight. I would say to him also "this is the consequence " "You do X" these are the schools you will go to" "You do Y these are the schools to go to. " no crying or whining when the results come in. Some kids if it isn't their idea will not comply. You can bang you r head all day long. They will have to deal with the consequences. The hard part for me is when it comes to money, merit aid, scholarship etc... Then it is my consequence too. But once agin you must let go or go crazy. I agree too, I will not listen to anything that I should have done- save that for the couch.

[hmom5]

I think there are 2 issues that need to be separated. The first is whether nagging or putting your foot down to insist a child does anything works. I agree with many it does not.

The second issue is whether you leave it alone if you see your child has a weak work ethic. This is where I differ from most posters here. I don't think you do. And while nagging isn't the answer I think there are many approaches that can work to help your kids develop a strong work ethic.

Vossron, DS1 is not mad at us and does not consider himself a failure in any way. He took a 4 year detour because he had that motivation/work ethic issue too long. He is now back on track. His question was a thoughtful one, he really didn't understand why, when we are people with strong work ethics, we didn't push him to develop his sooner. My only answer is that I read too many books that agree with many of the posters here and bought into the child finding himself philosophy so prevalent. Later I became more in touch with my inner Asian parent even though I'm a rank and file WASP. Why? Because at work I started to see a generation coming in who didn't have fully developed work ethics.

[condor30]

lots of good comments on the posts.

i think for some kids, they don't see the assignments are being meanful, especially if they've already quickly picked up on the concept. they've learned the material and are ready to move forward, not be held back. busy work frustrates them.

momofthreeboys........what major did your son choose?

[marite]

hmom5:

I agree that work ethic needs to be developed. It needs to be developed in the earliest grades (but not through make-work whose sole purpose seems to be to develop this work ethic). By high school, it is very difficult to instill it by nagging, as it comes against the child's developing sense of self which often manifests itself as teen-age rebellion. Foot-dragging and talking back are the mildest forms of this process.
Grown-ups who complain that their parents did not push them enough are deluding themselves that they would have listened to their parents had the parents wielded a larger stick. A carrot might help; a calm discussion of the various scenarios and career paths would also. Pressure may backfire not only in educational terms (the child will dig in his or her heels and refused to do the work) but also in terms of family dynamics (parents and child are mad at each other).

[electronblue]

I believe in setting the bar high but putting a really cushy mattress underneath it. I expect full effort, I expect them to care, but I don't chastise if that effort falls short. Not every grade is going to be an A, but that homework had better be turned in. I have never contacted a teacher about their work though. That's also part of their responsibility. If they get the lesser grade, so be it if that's what they earned.

My kids jokingly call me an Asian parent (meant in admiration of Asian parents). They've told me they appreciate it. They look at the slacker kids who they know are smart and wonder why their parents don't make them work harder.

I don't think "love the kid on the couch" excuses lack of effort.

[archiemom]

Another classic Blossom post to print out and post...like the Kid On The Couch post.

[peppermintlounge]

It is a balancing act for sure, and not one I have learned fully. I see signs with my DS of serious effort - and a few that indicate he has not learned from the mistakes of this year yet... very proactive when it came to enrolling in the college he will be at next year.....willing to study for APs ---and then, I learned today that he failed to follow up on a scholarship award that was his for the filing of some forms ($250). It was only my recent post on this forum that convinced me to 'zip it' when I really wanted to scream at him for lacking the foresight to get the paperwork in....

[Youdon'tsay]

This has become a really good thread.

We take electronblue's approach. One of my parenting mantras is If you have low expectations for your kids, you'll seldom be disappointed. But you can't MAKE them meet your expectations.

At one point earlier this year, ds1 and I had a come to Jesus talk. I explained to him how there are consequences to his actions and that he'll be feeling them perhaps as soon as next year. But that I know he's a 16yo boy and can't fully understand the ramifications of some of the choices he's making, how lack of merit aid means he'll be limited in his college choices, etc. But, I told him, I'm outta here on some of this stuff. I've been through junior year of HS and have no desire to repeat it, thank you. His choices, his consequences.

I think we're both much happier. Ironically, dh is more stressed as he was used to me being the heavy on this stuff.

[hmom5]

What's also interesting to me is you can have 3 kids as I do, same set of circumstances and parental input, and 2 found their own motivation early while the third did not.
If he had an illness, a LD or vision problem and the others didn't we would have gone to the doctor just for him and learned what parenting effort we needed to expend for him that we didn't for the other two. Is correcting a motivational issue any different?

[streak]

It looks, as expected, that you are receiving advice in which there is no one easy answer. Our son is somewhat like yours. He's currently in grade 9, very gifted and a somewhat underachiever ( 3.34 weighted first semester with 3 honors classes, Geometry, and Chinese and French languages). He is in the 2nd. tier of students in a very competitive private school. His teacher's are always disappointed that they didn't get his best work. I let him know that family resources are an finite number and we will be forced to spend more for his college tuition if he doesn't get merit scholarships. I let him know we will still pay, but the extras he wants like summer trips to Europe won't be available to him because we will likely be paying more tuition. He then gets to decide how our money will be spent. He turned 16 yesterday, but will wait to get his driver's license pending his semester grades. If he didn't perform he will wait until next Jan. after his next semester. I tell him if he isn't really interested in performing at the highest level we would allow him to leave his private school where tuition is 16,500 a year to go to the public school. He recoils at that idea. I think he's close to getting there. I know there are risks involved with this approach, but he's been too young to put everything into perspective and look the big picture.

Good luck...

[marite]

Is correcting a motivational issue any different?

One has to do the proper diagnosis in order to administer the proper treatment. Just Getting new glasses is not going to help unless you know whether it's myopia or astigmatism that's causing the problem.

Is the child generally lazy? Is the child uninterested in academics? Is the child unwilling to perform make-work? is the child willing to work hard in one subject but not in another? Why is that?

With S2, the possibility that he might rebel against make-work is one reason we were eager to have him challenged. When he was properly challenged, we did not need to nag him. And though he was mostly interested in one particular subject, the work ethic he developed applied to other subjects as well.