<p>Story of my life with the boys. I am living it right now. Holding my breath with S3, as he has made a good start, but I do not see him studying and organizing his notebooks as he should to optimize his position in this rigorous school. S2 pulled a D on his midsemester grades–is accepted to Yale, and is now under lockdown to get his Calc grade up or he is going to have a real problem. His choice to shoot himself in the foot and lose his freedom—again his last term senior year. I have a tutor for him and enforced study time and am monitoring his notebooks. We have done this drill several times. Do I worry about how he will do in college? You bet. But I can’t come up with a better idea as to what to do with him. We bought into a musical theatre program which is has the activities he best likes to do, and went through very expensive and arduous auditions throughout the fall, was accepted to some programs, and decided to go more the academic route. His test scores are absolute tops and last year we sat on him all year to get the grades he ended up with after a disasterous first term. Thank god his school only reports the year end grades or he would have been sunk as some of his quarters show every letter of the grade alphabet. I do not see how we can have him pass up this fabulous opportunity, but, yes, I worry whether with his attitude and lack of work ethic, he will be able to pull it off. </p>
<p>S1 was no better. He was at best a B/C student with a downward trend freshman and sophomore year, only at that level because I would intervene when the D’s started to show up. We moved midway through highschool and going to a grade inflated school after a rigorous grade deflated school zoomed his average up but access to the quarterly grades would show a definite downward trend as he got to know other slackers at the school and started spending less time with his studies. His test scores were very good and he was an athlete, so he did get into some selective schools. Had a tough time at college, but managed to squeak through, though one term he did flunk a major course that left a huge hole in his transcript and he had to go to summer school retaking that course and taking another course so he would not be behind in graduation. I wouldn’t have bet a dime that he was graduating and did not really believe it until I saw the diploma. I don’t even know if he was 100% sure. He has a C average in college which may be a problem if he decides to go for a more advanced degree program, but right now he has a good paying job, coaches as well and is taking two business courses each term paid for by his company, and he has aced the first two that he took last term. As far as personal maturitiy, H had to throw him out of the house this summer as he reaked so much havoc on our household. We saw him Christmas and Thanksgiving, and he was extremely unpleasant, to the point of rudeness; don’t even know why he bothered to join us. Did all the things he could to annoy me. </p>
<p>Docmom, I have copied your post and am keeping in in my files. I think your H is ever so wise. We could, should would have had that talk many times over with our kids. We have kept the acceptance from our state U which is within a half hour from home, and if things don’t go well, S2 will go there. H and I are in full agreement that he needs to get out of here and figure things out. He is an intelligent, talented, engaging young man, but has not grown up in many ways and developed some unfortunate attitudes and not developed a proper work ethic. The real world is going to have to show him the consequences of his way of life, as he has ignored us in this regard for years. The comfort I have is that I am sending out with the right way of doing things patterned in his mind as we have taught him. He just needs to learn and to do. It is not as though he was not taught. So he has all of the tools for success, just has to use them. </p>
<p>It took my nephew many years to figure it out as well. He was 20 before he went away to college and he burned out a number of local options for two years before he left us. We probably should have sent him away earlier, but for him there were some extenuating circumstances, and I felt he needed more time to learn the rudiments of life. It was not a happy time for any of us. I always felt it was due to his upbringing and unfortunate situations that it took him time to adjust but my own kids have not been much better, and they were raised in a 2 parent home where mcuh the focus was on them. Though some may say that was the problem, our household was a big one so, really it was not as though they were pampered or had individual focus. They were raised in an environment where academic and cultural things were considered important implicitly, and we naturally spent our time on those things. Thousands of books, afternoons in the library, much music, many plays and shows, museums, college events–we always lived in a college community with little money but very rich in those resources. It was a kick in our faces that the boys performed so poorly given this background. They were taught how to study, how to take notes, how to organize notebooks. I tutor, and am pretty good at it, so any problem areas were immediately addressed. Were they reacting in defiance to this background? Who the heck knows? What more could we do? </p>
<p>I think in part it is maturity. None of them have the maturity they should have for their ages. Some of it is attention deficit disorder, I am convinced, though our househod really structured school work so that anyone with this problem is in optimum shape. A lot of it is personality and high testoterone, I am sure. Believe me, if anyone has the potion, I want some. I can honestly say these guys have aged me five years for every one I have spent on them.</p>