Lazy Junior - what to do?

Parents Forum
1

<p>I just wanted to see if anyone else is having the same issue. My daughter is a Junior in a pretty good public HS. She is not into sports, and her ECs are just average. The only hope for her getting into a decent college is her grades.</p>

<p>She is a good students and taking AP Chem, AP Calc AB, AP USH, AP English and doing pretty well (with the exception of AP USH, where she is barely hovering above “B”).</p>

<p>My problem is that she just doesn’t want to study. For example, she had an important History test last week. You would expect, given the difficulties with the subject, that she would open a book and spend an hour or two studying. Instead, she was online all afternoon, chatting with her friends and reading some blogs. When late at night I asked if she is ready, she replied that she “went over the chapter.” Results - 83% on the test.</p>

<p>Another example. She took SATII in Math IIC last spring. Got 630, even though Math is one of her strongest subjects. Why? She did not study. Just did 2 practice tests a couple of days prior. We insisted she should retake the test this fall, bought her the books, etc., but she only did a couple of practice test.</p>

<p>I am not sure what to do. She is a very able kid with a great potential, but doesn’t want to apply herself. School was always easy for her, so now, when facing difficulties, she doesn’t want to step up and study. If she gets it, she gets it. But, she is not going to “crack the books” to make sure she improve her grade.</p>

<p>Should I wait until the reality of college kicks in? It might be too late. This is a junior year, after all.</p>

<p>Bob.</p>

2

<p>Sounds like her grades and scores will be good enough to get her into college, just not as selective a one as she might get into if she worked harder.</p>

<p>I don’t think there is much you can do.</p>

<p>Here is an earlier thread related to your question:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=348698[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=348698&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>What schools are you considering? Doesn’t sound like her considerations are important. </p>

<p>It takes way more than just excellent grades for colleges. She needs to decide her priorities. You can’t force her to study, to get serious about college. Have an open, frank discussion with her. Her wants, desires, hopes, and ambitions. Then decide how you can assist her to become the woman SHE wants to be and the beest strategy. You may be surprised. </p>

<p>My daughter, also a junior, has finally realized what she wants and how important getting into a good college will be. SHE needed to come to that realization. Like your daughter, she doesn’t have sports nor many EC’s. Now she has chosen to get involved in Model UN, Scholastic Bowl and greatly increase some volunteer opportunities. These changes happened after she visited some colleges with her older sister AND as her friends began talking of life after high school. It’s not too late.</p>

4

<p>And I wouldn’t call a child taking four AP classes as lazy!</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Mhmm… so she’s making As in all or most of those classes and that’d “doing pretty well?” So what are her “average” ECs, winning the Nobel Prize and singlehandidly feeding an entire african country?</p>

6

<p>She sounds a lot like my S, five years ago. He did not believe in studying for standardized tests, even subject tests, and got a similar score in Math 2C. OTOH, he had similar grades though less APs as a junior than your D. Also not an athlete, was very involved in music.</p>

<p>He got into his first choice, very selective school. I think we need to, at this point, let them be who they are, and let them accept what that brings them.</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>Oh! Good heavens! No! ;)</p>

8

<p>First off, I also think a student taking 4 AP’s and getting A’s and B’s is doing fine. If SHE wants to go to a school where higher grades are necessary then I would suggest a campus visit to that school asap. With our first child we were totally clueless about what was expected and a visit to a reach school and a safety school was great eye-opener for our daughter.</p>

9

<p>What you call lazy would be what I’d call hard working.</p>

10

<p>It doesn’t sound like she’s actually doing badly, but another thing that could be going on is that she doesn’t know how to study. I don’t mean “doesn’t know how to put effort into a subject”, I mean “doesn’t know how to get a real benefit from the time she puts in”. Which can also encourage laziness, because she would feel like her genuine effort didn’t matter anyway. </p>

<p>I saw this happen to tons of people at MIT, and it happened to me to a certain extent. Students who had never had to study to learn something before realized that they needed to put in effort, and spent a lot of time on a subject, and still did poorly because they didn’t know how to make the info stick, and their studying was very inefficient as a result. So they said “What’s the point? It isn’t helping me anyway,” and slacked off, thereby entering a destructive cycle.</p>

1 Like
11

<p>I would get out the duct tape (to try to keep your mouth closed) and try not to worry (somehow impossible, despite advice). She is doing well enough in challenging classes and there are many excellent colleges that will be happy to have her. Being confident, socially adept, able to relax, and capable of making your own judgements about what you do and don’t want to do are all elements of being a healthy mature successful adult and she is working on those right now. She may startle you by jumping into an ambitious, competitive mode–or that may never be her temperament–but she may mature into a lovely, competent human being who will love learning and be successful in work and relationships. Reading these boards is highly informative but can also make us hopelessly neurotic as parents and very annoying to our children. My son drove me crazy from junior year right on through high school, avoided 99% of my excellent advice, and is a very happy and successful college student in an excellent school now. I think patience is the hardest part of our job at this point. But if we don’t let them find their own way they may never really learn how to do that…</p>

12

<p>Bob26, don’t worry. except few, most of them, including my DD, are like that. I would guess.</p>

<p>DD is a senior now. Last March before she took the SAT I, I beg her to at least open a practice book. Nothing happened and she got a heart broken score.</p>

<p>Now that the real deal has started and she is feeling it. Her SAT II Math is coming up and she herself now is setting up time to do “study”. </p>

<p>It was a like a totally different person.</p>

13

<p>I guess I have a different perspective from the previous posters. My daughter also hit a junior year slump. She had always gotten excellent grades without working too hard. All of a sudden, in late October of junior year, she started slacking off big-time. She even neglected to hand in a major history paper because she “didn’t know what to write.” It was a big part of her grade, and it counted as an automatic zero. </p>

<p>The problem is that she had really gotten into online games and would meet up with her “friends” to carry on conquests in various virtual worlds. She had the time of her life, chatting on Skype with kids all over the world.</p>

<p>Anyway, I wondered what to do, if anything. A good friend of mine has a son who’s a year older than my D. This friend told me that her son’s friends were all singing the blues as seniors because they had slacked off junior year and now had to apply to colleges with less than optimal GPAs. I didn’t want to see that happen to my daughter.</p>

<p>I sat her down and gave her a kind talking-to. There was no underlying problem (no drugs, alcohol, etc., thankfully!). I told her that from now on, every day when she got home from school, she would write her assignments on a yellow legal pad. Tests and projects would be carried over from day to day until the due date. When she finished each task, she would cross it off. When she finished everything, she could go online to play.</p>

<p>She was cooperative and it worked out very well after some initial tears. She got much more productive, knowing that if she did everything she had to do, she could have fun. Skype got mostly limited to weekends. I think this process made her a much better student in the long run. Also, when problems arose (as they did with pre-calc. Oy!), she was able to get help much sooner.</p>

<p>This approach will not work for everyone, but for our family it was very beneficial. She finished up the year with a 92 average, despite a C in math, and received a full-tuition scholarship to a Tier 2 state school, which she is now attending. Your mileage may vary!</p>

14

<p>What is your child’s “currency” - what is important for her??? Going to movies? Watching TV??? Getting new jeans?? A certain purse? What??</p>

<p>Use whatever is important to your child and use it as an incentive…</p>

<p>My son didn’t want to practice for the ACT (he had done badly on his science reasoning section and was going to take it again). He likes to go to movies… so… before I would give the $$ for a movie, I’d make him to do a practice ACT - especially the science section… It worked - he brought up his ACT composite score and his science reasoning.</p>

<p>You just have to use whatever is important to your child.</p>

15

<p>For all you parents of juniors hitting ‘the slump’ – it’s not too late to consider a semester-abroad program… D went to Argentina for 6 months, starting in January of her junior year. It did wonders for her in all aspects, particularly academically. The grades she got in Argentina did not affect her GPA (she got ‘passes’) and she got back to the US academically revved up – and fluent in Spanish.</p>

16

<p>Thank you very much, everyone, for your responses. I am just having difficult time dealing with this lack of motivation. Both, my wife and I, had to work pretty hard to get through college and professional schools to be where we are now. We always thought that since our D is so good, she can go to any school she wants - the sky is the limit…</p>

<p>She is thinking about career in business or, possibly, law. So, I tried to use it to motivate her - Good HS grades+good scores+EC+… -> a top college + good GMAT/LSAT -> a top law school/business school -> choices in career opportunities -> comfortable lifestyle, interesting and challenging job, etc.</p>

<p>She understands the logic and likes the end result (lifestyle and career), but not willing to put an effort into a little working harder.</p>

<p>I would even understand if she would be busy with sports or some EC, but blogging? browsing YouTube? MTV? instead of opening a book? It must be a generation gap.</p>

<p>Bob</p>

1 Like
17

<p>Blogging is just another way of keeping a journal, and for some bloggers it’s become a lucrative career. </p>

<p>And is YouTube or MTV really that different from chilling in front of a football game? My advice is to relax – and to allow your D to relax a bit as well. She sounds like a successful young woman - she’ll make a fine adult woman, and in the meantime, it’s OK for her to be, well, young.</p>

18

<p>Your D sounds like a lovely young woman, and you are, I am sure, good, concerned, supportive parents, but here’s the thing:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>is not true for anyone, no matter how astounding the student is. She will get into a good school, probably a dang good school, probably more than one, but honestly, with the competition in college admissions these days, the sky is not the limit for anyone, and believing it will cause stress and conflict for you and your D.</p>

19

<p>bob >>> I would even understand if she would be busy with sports or some EC, but blogging? browsing YouTube? MTV? instead of opening a book? It must be a generation gap. <<<</p>

<p>I really think you need to establish an incentive - based on what is important to her. Like I said above, it may be a new purse, new outfit, movie tickets, whatever. Dangle the carrot.</p>

20

<p>bob>>>>>>another valid point is that there is “more than one way to skin a cat.” She is at the age where her own drive and ambition have to supplant your dreams for her. Give advice but don’t hover and if her lack of ambition lands her in a school which is for whatever reason “less than” what you had hoped for her it will still in all likelyhood be fine. There are so many excellent schools out there which will give her fantastic preparation for her future.</p>

<p>My Jr DDs are swamped w/ three APs each and advanced math and language classes. They really don’t have much down time between school and soccer and it exhausts them. With 4 APs she has to be working very hard scholasticly and “zoning out” in front of the computer or blogging may be what she needs to relax. IMO let her be. Spell out that she may be limiting her options by not becoming more involved in ECs during her down time but then let the choice be hers.</p>