<p>I think it’s worth asking the math tutor for a diagnostic, although I agree that you can’t make someone else work harder or do better.</p>
<p>But all the money you’ve spent on tutoring- jeez, I’d think the tutor would have a point of view on your D’s issues.</p>
<p>Math is everywhere, so even though I don’t believe you are going to get anywhere on the path you are on nagging your D, I don’t know that I’d encourage you to tell your D, “oh well, you’re done with math”. She needs math to read the newspaper and understand election night results (how can they project a winner with only 5% of precincts reporting?). She needs math to make difficult decisions at the doctors office (Clinical trial A suggests one course of treatment. Clinical trial B suggests a completely different set of options.) She needs math to understand her child’s risk of a genetic disorder based on the tests of both mother and father. She needs math to decide whether or not to challenge the city’s tax assessment of her house (is the square footage improperly calculated, or did they assess her at the wrong level, or did they use the wrong property valuation table).</p>
<p>Adults need math every day to function in our society. So I’d be less focused on bringing up her grade (which I don’t think you can do at this point in the game) and more focused on her tutor helping her master the core concepts she’ll need for her life (how long does it take to brake on a highway when you’re going at a high speed; why does a 120 lb. woman metabolize a gin and tonic at a different rate than a 200 lb. man). </p>
<p>If my kid were wasting lots of time watching TV or playing games and not turning in homework and for that reason not getting a good grade, then I would start taking things away. I would have started doing that when the problem arose. But if the kid is engaged constructively, which can be with art or debate or music or sports or whatever, and does turn in the work to get any kind of easy one hundred, I’d leave her be. In the latter case she is doing what she loves without completely neglecting what she tolerates. </p>
<p>There is some letting them go and letting them fail we have to allow when they get to late high school. </p>
<p>I would have her evaluated just in case you all learn something about her and how she learns. </p>
<p>If your instincts have been telling you to get her evaluated, then follow them. Please. Any diagnosis she would get now would be able to follow her into college if needed. This also is her last chance to tap into the free help that the school district can offer her if it is determined that she needs that help. If the resource staff at your school are good, they will be able to offer her a lot of help with understanding how her own brain works best, and with developing any work-arounds needed to make her academic life move more smoothly.</p>
<p>D1’s boyfriend was never tested until he was out of college. He had very good grades in high school because he was smart enough to get by. He struggled in the engineering school, but it wasn’t until he was working and was having a hard time focusing when he got tested. His parents (mother a special ed teacher) didn’t believe their son had ADD. Now he is taking medication, he finds it much easier to get his work done. He wears a head phone at work to block out noise when he is trying to focus. OP, if you think your kid should get tested, now is a good time to do it.</p>
<p>I also agree with others that if your D is working hard and not wasting time, there is no point in trying to punish her for not getting the grade you want.</p>
<p>I agree math is everywhere. Pretty amazing. But while D1 couldn’t do better in the class work or SAT, she was developing other analytical skills that serve her in the way blossom says they need. That’s not always about the formulas and tests. But I do agree parents can or should look at the possible reasons why, whether it’s LD or distractions. </p>
<p>But if there is no diagnosis- and it’s the art that’s distracting- then the call is tougher. Push her into the math or let her be the artist? So in the process, I think I’d also ask the right people where she really stands with the art, too. I’d want to know if there is talent and potential or not.</p>
<p>Whether to test, and whether to pressure/punish/cajole for grades are two separate questions. I think testing is always worthwhile. If a kid is in tears of frustration over her work, not because her parents expect more, but just because she is internally confounded by her efforts to learn the material, this is a flag for testing. But not every C math student is learning-disabled. Some people are just not great in math, and maybe not knocking themselves out over it, either.</p>
<p>Could a C student be pressured into B work? Maybe. And it can be agonizing, as a parent, to watch and think that a little more effort could open better collegiate doors for our son or daughter. The real world judges our kids against their peers on the basis of grades and other measures. Doors are opened, or they’re not. </p>
<p>But I personally feel that by 11th or 12th grade, the commitment must come from within the kid, and the chips will fall where they fall. Especially in 12th, the kids are about to leave. They are also confronted by a lot of tough life decisions, where a parent can be a wonderful sounding board and guide, if the relationship is open and peaceful. The harmony of the home, and the warmth of the parent-child relationship, need not be frayed at that time by cajoling over math grades. In my opinion, it is OK at that point for mom to take the high road, make sure the kid has been notified that the academic options may be sweeter if she pushes herself to get the B instead of the C, and then just love the kid on the couch (and send her to whatever school it is that she can genuinely get into, Cs and all).</p>
<p>I think it’s always age-appropriate (even in grad school) for us parents to be thoughtful about not undermining our kids’ efforts to study. I wouldn’t try to make anybody, at any age, attend Aunt Tillie’s birthday dinner, or help clean the basement, the night before a big exam. But for there to be tension and tears over the gap between parental expectations of performance and what the kid is actually doing – not by 11th or 12th grade.</p>
<p>@lauriejgs – by the time my daughter was finishing up her junior year in high school, she had stopped taking math. And not because she had done well – she had completed algebra II as a sophomore. She intended to take more math but ran into some scheduling conflicts --thought she would make things up with a summer community college trig course, but then couldn’t keep up with the faster pace of that course so withdrew early on. She took one math course in college – a basic, intro level stats course - and now in grad school has waived out of a stats requirement based on the college course. </p>
<p>She has also had a job where she was in charge of managing a $2 million annual budget. She can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She knows how to calculate fractions and percentages. I think when it comes down to it, all the math she needs to function as an adult is stuff she learned in the 6th grade. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to diminish the importance of math, for those who want to study math. I wish my daughter had studied more math… though for the life of me, I can’t figure out where she would actually have needed to use the higher math. </p>
<p>With all due respect to @blossom, I don’t think anyone needs to be able to know the mathematical formulas to judge braking distance on a highway or to get the idea that a light weight person will metabolize alcohol differently than a heavier person.</p>
<p>In any case, I the appropriate issue for parents to focus on is whether the daughter has conceptual understanding of whatever math she is studying, not the grade. Maybe the kid has a good grasp of math but is being hurt by a teacher who grades on a curve in an honors-level or AP math course – and she would simply do better with a different class or teacher next year. The OP didn’t answer the question about the level of math, so I’m not sure whether the advice to seek a diagnosis for learning disabilities makes any sense. Nothing else that the OP has written seems to fit that profile – the OP did not describe a kid who was struggling to keep up or who couldn’t pass algebra even after repeating the courses several times – she’s got a kid who is “not a terribly hard worker,” whose grades are “not stellar”, and who is “more focused on her art.” Sounds to me more like a young woman who happens to be an artist rather than a scholar. Not everyone is going to be a 4.0 student. Art schools are full of students who don’t do particularly well in math or science classes. (I’ll bet that MIT is equally full of students who are artistically challenged, but somehow our culture places little to no value on the study of arts. I’ll bet if colleges started requiring students to have 3 or 4 years of coursework in the arts to be considered for admission, there would be huge howls of protest all over CC.)</p>
<p>While I have argued that everyone should take Calculus because it’s like never reading Shakespeare, I will not argue that here. The math people need in real life is stuff like: how many gallons of paint do I need for this room? Or is the 5 year car loan at 10% and $5000 down payment a better deal that the 5% loan with a bigger down payment? That’s pretty much algebra 2. I think many people would benefit from statistics because they are misused so often, but that would be mostly to understand various political issues. Otherwise an average math student is probably doing okay as long as they aren’t aiming for a course of study where they’ll need more.</p>
Maybe she has ADHD-inattentive type, and it is manifesting itself as appearing to be unmotivated for math class or all of her classes
Maybe she has Executive Function disorder and needs help learning how to be more organized and break projects down into manageable chunks.
Maybe math is a natural weakness while art is a natural strength. ( I personally think it’s better to work on your strengths and get more lopsided rather than pounding your head against the wall in order to try to become more balanced across skill sets)
Maybe she is rebelling at the parental pressure to do better at math, consciously or subconsciously
Maybe she has no interest in math or hates math
Maybe she is so engrossed in her art that there is no time to do the rest of her schoolwork</p>
<p>About GPA,
With 6 semesters of GPA done, her GPA is fixed. It’s done and over. The 12 grade fall semester grades get reported, but colleges are using the 9-11 grades for the main evaluation and the 12th grade fall sem grades are just reviewed to make sure that they are in line with the college decisions.</p>
<p>However, if she is unmotivated to work in HS, your H may have fears that she is unmotivated to work in college. While it’s true that motivation must come from within it doesn’t mean that you have to shell out $60K per year while she is still unmotivated and “trying to figure it all out.” Will her motivation change if she is in art school rather than at a university? It might. It might not. You could set up some min grades that she must earn in college or else she has to come back home. But for right now the talk needs to focus NOT on the grades (it’s too late) but about the fact that she is not a “very hard worker” (your words) and whether she plans on becoming a harder worker in college.</p>
<p>If art is her passion, then really, it’s the focus on her art portfolio that she will be working on this summer that will make or break admissions. And it would be good to get a balance list of art schools to apply to, not just all reaches. There are lots of great art schools out there besides RISD.</p>
<p>OP here: Right now my daughter is taking precalculus. Not honors. And while calmom is right, that nothing else about her speaks to a disability, I have already made an appointment to have her tested this summer. Just in case. Thank you all!!!</p>
<p>OP–Does your husband support the idea of art school? Or is he fighting it and hoping she’ll go a more traditional route in college?
It can be hard for a science/math person to “get” the artist mind set (and that the math skills aren’t necessarily all that great). When my D decided she wanted to do art, her “science” mom freaked inside a bit. It was really uncharted territory–hard to advise someone about something that seemed so foreign. And worried about jobs/work after college.
After a pre-college art experience during the summer, we were believers. Even “science” mom. To see the growth of skills and excitement in our D was a real eye-opener. Hope your D experiences the same. But either way the pre-college experience told a lot–no way we were putting out bucks for art school unless we knew for sure that it was the best route for D. </p>
<p>I might get shouted down, but I’d be careful about the testing at this time–make sure your D buys into it–she may just find it plain insulting. </p>
<p>Calmom, my point was exactly yours (so not sure why you felt the need to contradict a point I never made). As long as the D has the basic conceptual understanding of “how to figure out the size of the carpet I need for this room” and “why is my property tax bill so much higher than my next door neighbors” I wouldn’t torture the kid to memorize the formulas for calculating the area of a circle or what not. And it’s not clear to me from the OP’s description if this is a kid who is logging C’s by performing calculations which she doesn’t understand (and I’d think that’s problematic ) vs. a kid who understands the concepts but isn’t easily translating that into the formula, algorithm, whatnot to get the right answer.</p>
<p>In any case, no- I don’t think it’s possible for a parent to make an almost HS senior want to do well in math (or any other subject) and bringing the kid to tears is clearly counter-productive. And the tutor is happy to cash the check without any insights as to why the kid is struggling? What’s up with that?</p>
<p>Everyone is quick to blame early teachers or ADHD, but I’ve found that most of the time poor math is a direct result of a lazy, unmotivated, and/or immature child. Math requires hours of homework. I’ve never seen a child with very strong study habits do poorly at high school level math. You can’t deflect blame, just recognize that you likely failed to instill and bolster strong study habits early on. As for what to do at 15-17 y.o., when the poor study habits come to the surface, I don’t think a one size fits all solution exists. Bad habits die hard.</p>
<p>You can have learning disabilities with or without adhd.
Both my kids have math difficulties.
Its the way their brain works.
Ironically, is mostly with details of lower level math. My oldest had difficulties with transposition of numbers for addition/subtraction but she took calc and ochem at Reed which is proof heavy.
, </p>
<p>Just read the daughter is a junior, with a C- in math. I didn’t see honors or AP mentioned, so I’ll assume she’s only in algebra II. A C- in algebra II is a careless and unmotivated child. You want to reward a child with $50,000 a year in art education when they fail to display any work ethic outside of their “fun” art classes? Tell her she either brings up the math grade or she can have fun taking art classes at the local community college after high school. That’s all there is to it. If the grade doesn’t rise it’s because she thinks you’re bluffing.</p>
<p>Welcome to the forum, ellen3. Perhaps your reading comprehension skills need some brushing up. The OP said that her daughter is in Precalculus currently. Are you a student with such “sophisticated” views of other student abilities? </p>