<p>Sounds ADD/ADHD to me…or maybe a bit depressed.</p>
<p>he needs to see a health professional who can diagnose.</p>
<p>Great advice here. Very interesting to learn about “triangulation” - thanks, MomLive! Now I know what’s happening when someone asks for support and then discounts absolutely every suggestion or practical offer of help. :)</p>
<p>Back on topic - the lone bright spot here, I think, is that so many colleges either ignore freshman grades or consider them less important in assessing applications. So he could conceivably have an almost clean start when he starts school in the fall. If he can see that he hasn’t dug an enormous hole for himself, maybe he can get his act together.</p>
<p>I am very concerned about the 4:30 AM bit, though. This sounds like my nephew - bright but usually overpraised (by his grandparents more than his parents, in his case), bored in school, a nice kid to have around when he wasn’t drinking or getting high with friends. I hope your nephew isn’t headed where mine wound up - in rehab following an alcohol OD in 10th grade, several minor car accidents while under the influence, and a felony arrest for possession of a narcotic. Some folks have to hit their head against the wall several times before figuring it all out. Some folks never figure it out.</p>
<p>You obviously love your nephew very much. Maybe you can take him to dinner or on a lengthy drive and talk to him about how it isn’t too late for him to be successful in school. If talking to him fails, I don’t think there’s anything you can do in terms of giving his parents advice. We’d all like to hide behind denial at times, but it’s a parental responsibility to take action when a kid is in trouble.</p>
<p>Staying out until 4:30am is a huge red flag. My just graduated, almost 19 year old son doesn’t stay out that late (well, he would if I let him 
). Nothing good happens that late at night and the kids who are out that late are generally partying. Many kids start drinking in the 9th grade, so I wouldn’t rule that out. It might not be a problem now but it will be going forward unless his parent’s set some boundaries. I can tell you from my son’s peer group, the kid’s whose parents don’t set curfews and aren’t keeping tabs on their kids are the very kids who party the most and by that, I mean binge drinking in HS! </p>
<p>I like the suggestions about talking to your nephew directly. If you can get him to open up, you might be able to help him. Often times people don’t know why they act the way they do, so don’t be surprised if he can’t articulate it well but if you ask a lot of open-ended questions, you might hit upon something.</p>
<p>Agree with oldfort and Mom2: the staying out until 4:30, even if it happened only once (so far) is a major red flag of problems more serious than being bored in class.</p>
<p>Geek_mom said “you might suggest that he attempt to test out of the “boring” classes.” </p>
<p>He has failed to “test out” of boring classes, and failed to “test in” to challenging classes. And he isn’t bothered by it. He just blows everything off in his certitude of how smart he is.</p>
<p>Another poster said it’s not normal for 9th grader to stay out till 4:30 am. Thanks for that. When I heard that he was home so late, I was shocked, but my sister-in-law acted like he was just a little inconsiderate (he didn’t call and they worried). </p>
<p>What do other forum posters think of a 15-year-old 9th grader coming home at 4:30 am? (He wasn’t studying that’s for sure, nor doing anything constructive. They were just “hanging out” whatever that is.) Do you think it’s ok? not so bad? Normal?</p>
<p>There is something wrong when a 15 yr old stays out until 4:30am and the parents don’t ream him out. Sorry, in my book that is really, really bad. Bright kid or not, the kid does it because his parents let him get away with it. The parents are enablers in every step of the way.</p>
<p>Parent of two now young adults, ages 21 and 24.</p>
<p>Not even close to acceptable in our house for 9th grader to be out till 4:30 am!
11pm or midnight was our Weekend curfew till senior year and I did stay awake to enforce it.
Son did, as senior in HS, at 17, stay out till 1 or 2 am on weekends. We required known destination and approval from host parents, and yes, we called and checked.</p>
<p>Even after HS graduation, summers home from college, we asked for and got a phone call if he wasn’t returning home…I’m the worrying mom, it’s true.</p>
<p>Now, he’s in grad school. Living on his own in apt few states away. Guess what?
He checks in to let us know if he’ll be away from ‘home’ so I don’t worry if a call or email goes unanswered. It’s a process…but it surely didn’t start with 4:30 am at 15!!</p>
<p>Absolutely no way should any HS student be out until 4:30 AM on a school night, much less a 15-yr-old 9th grader. I allowed my kid to stay out late or even overnight at a known location where I knew the parents–NOT driving around–on vacations or possibly weekends during the last year or so of HS. But we had to be informed in advance.</p>
<p>It sounds to me like this kid has an undiagnosed learning disability or other problem. It is not at all uncommon for a very bright kid to be able to compensate until late middle school or HS.</p>
<p>If his parents have actually ASKED you for your help, my inclination would be to tell them that you will if they will allow you to speak with him directly and make it clear that you will be very honest with him about the long-term consequences of his current grades. Make it clear to them that he will not get into ANY college, much less a selective college. If they agree, go ahead. </p>
<p>But be prepared that this is likely to destroy your relationship with them. If he either a) runs to them and whines about you making him feel bad, or b) does nothing and continues on this path until he very obviously fails, you will be blamed. Shoot the messenger, ya know. :(</p>
<p>In answer to some posters:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I say he is smart not because he had A’s in elementary school, but because I have helped him with his schoolwork when I lived closer. Having taught 2 decades of physics and math in a college-prep high school, I can tell he is bright, though not as much as he himself thinks. </p></li>
<li><p>He was tested and found not to have ADD/ADHD, dyslexia or other learning disabilities.</p></li>
<li><p>His parents may get him checked for depression, though I suspect he doesn’t have it. He has friends, goes out to ‘hang out’ etc. I feel he is the product of unrealistic parents.</p></li>
<li><p>He is the only child of older parents who were not well-educated and who thought they won the jackpot with a smart kid. And they’ve been acting like he is the next Eistein in the making. In fact, and they constantly say that Einstein didn’t do well in school either. I’m always tempted to say: “If that is the ONLY commonality between Einstein and him…”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Both of my kids (ages 21 and 16) have never stayed out past 1am while in high school, and it only happened on weekends and for special events. I think my kids are pretty smart and very capable. I have to say, with amount of work they had in high school, they often worked until 10 or 11pm every school night. They would laugh at the idea of hanging out with friends on school nights. </p>
<p>Last weekend before finals, my younger daughter told her girlfriend she was crazy to think D2 would have time to go to the mall to hang out. D2 said, “Are you crazy? Don’t you have to study?”</p>
<p>Tell your brother and SIL that there are many smart kids who are working their butt off(just look at students on CC). If your nephew wants a spot at MIT, he is going to have to put in just as much work.</p>
<p>Can you use an idea like … he may be very bright, but even wonderful raw material needs to be shaped and formed. He needs to learn how to use his mind. </p>
<p>That’s the prelude to: he has to buckle down and do the work to reap the rewards.</p>
<p>We see our children as an extension of ourselves. If our children fail then we feel as if we failed. Admitting that our child’s problem is because of ourselves or our child only says that we are incompetent as parents. If one can blame others for their shortcomings then one doesn’t have to take responsibility for one’s behavior.</p>
<p>I would bet that your nephew’s mother has some issues with her own self image. I see this problem a lot in high school and I have no idea how to overcome a parent’s denial of reality.</p>
<p>I would also be concerned that that your nephew could be easily tempted by drug use. Poor grades, staying until 4:30 am are very bad signs.</p>
<p>I think the dad does not have any influence on the child’s education may be the cause of the problem. I think I work very hard but I still pay attention to my kids’ school activities.</p>
<p>My son had 2 friends who were very smart in elementary and middle school. But by the junior year, one was disciplined for cheating and one was transfered because of drug. Both these kids had some kind of family problem.</p>
<p>
Seriously? This aspect of your story made me think “■■■■■” when I read it. It sounds utterly ridiculous. But I guess it happens somewhere in the world, and I think it’s consistent with the details you posted later. </p>
<p>As oldfort said, there are many, many students who are very intelligent and work their hind ends off at whatever task is at hand. There are more than enough of them to fill the class at each top college, without those colleges having to dip into the vast pool of students who lay claim to mind-blowing intelligence without ever demonstrating it.</p>
<p>It sounds like this kiddo’s parents need to learn that so-called “brilliant but bored” kids are a dime a dozen, and their stories don’t end well unless they take life’s wake-up calls seriously. I worked briefly with a young fellow who would tell me in all seriousness that he was The. Smartest. Person. In The World. I suppose the headache of dealing with all us stupid people is what drove him to drugs and alcohol, two stints in juvenile detention, shiftless wandering from job to job until he decided that work wasn’t good enough for him, and eviction from the $150/month miserable filthy roach-infested studio he shared with the 16-year-old girl he impregnated at 21.</p>
<p>That guy might have had a learning disability; we’d never know, because he never put forth an effort to learn. He might have been depressed; who wouldn’t be, with a life story like that? His problem was that he was arrogant and lazy, and he’d convinced himself (laughably) that he was too good for the world around him. That’s a common problem. It’s sad to see, all the more because there is often real potential that goes unrealized. In my experience, the only cure is the radical intervention that life will eventually provide (since the parents aren’t willing to, and are likely to undermine any intervention you provide).</p>
<p>Good luck, to you and to him.</p>
<p>Agree completely with oldfort: the competition for MIT and every other selective/highly selective school is right here on CC (or at least their parents are), and if most of us were to describe what our 11th graders’ lives were like the past 6 months, your B and SIL would probably have a heart attack.</p>
<p>Also…has anybody mentioned to them that it’s not just about excellent grades (which as of now he doesn’t have)?</p>
<p>What ECs does your nephew participate in, and for how many hrs per week? What honors, awards, distinctions has he won or is he working on? What is his part time job? How is he demonstrating the character that will earn strong letters of recommendation?</p>
<p>These parents are clueless, and it sounds like smart-nephew is, too, about what it takes to get into a selective college these days.</p>
<p>I realize he’s just in 9th grade (rising sophomore?), but at that point my D and most other strong achievers (read: attractive candidates to colleges) was maintaining a super-high GPA, building strong ECs, and doing all the other things I mentioned that get kids admitted to strong colleges. I know I sound harsh, but your nephew and his parents better wake up and smell the coffee, or else he’ll be pouring it at McDonalds for a long time to come. Sheesh!</p>
<p>I emphasized to my son, from the time he was very young, that being brilliant (and he is, in many areas) doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard – even in the subjects you’re good at, and grasp without difficulty. Partly as a result, I think, he has far better work habits than I did at his age. Despite sharing my natural tendency to procrastinate!</p>
<p>I have a friend whose son was similar in some respects to the subject of the OP. From the time he was in second grade, he basically refused to do homework, because it was “stupid” and unimportant and he was too smart for it. The parents didn’t enable him nearly as much as the parents of the OP’s nephew, although I think they must have communicated to him, not so subtly, that they agreed, at least in part, with his opinion about the uselessness of homework. Nothing they did try – encouragement, punishment, therapy – had any effect on him. Perhaps not surprisingly, he ended up lying continually about having done required work, almost flunked out of his public middle school, and then did flunk out of the private high school he managed to get into (even though, despite his intelligence – and he clearly is intelligent – he didn’t score high enough on standardized tests to get into any of the NYC specialized schools like Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, or Hunter). He went back to a public high school, but continued cutting all his classes and doing no work. He virtually stopped bathing so far as I could tell, was surly and verbally abusive to his parents, hung out with similar friends, started drinking and smoking pot, showed no interest in any academic subject, and eventually dropped out of school entirely by about 10th grade. </p>
<p>His mother then started home schooling him – allowing her to keep track of what he was doing – and things actually got better eventually. He got his GED, and found a job doing something he immensely enjoys, and for which he’s very motivated. I won’t say what the area is, but it’s probably not something one would ordinarily expect from a Jewish kid with highly educated parents who grew up on the Upper East Side. But, who cares? He’s happy, he’s a much more pleasant person to be around, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he ends up going to college someday. This time, it will be because he wants to, not, as in high school, because his arm was twisted.</p>
<p>I couldn’t be happier for him. And for his parents.</p>
<p>And I do think he had to bottom out first before things began to get better.</p>
<p>*2. He was tested and found not to have ADD/ADHD, dyslexia or other learning disabilities.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>His parents may get him checked for depression, though I suspect he doesn’t have it. He has friends, goes out to ‘hang out’ etc. I feel he is the product of unrealistic parents.</p></li>
<li><p>He is the only child of older parents who were not well-educated and who thought they won the jackpot with a smart kid. And they’ve been acting like he is the next Eistein in the making. In fact, and they constantly say that Einstein didn’t do well in school either. I’m always tempted to say: “If that is the ONLY commonality between Einstein and him…” *</p></li>
</ol>
<p>He may have been tested for ADD/ADHD, but not by a psychiatrist. He may need to get re-examined.</p>
<p>There are many people who have depression who have lots of friends, etc.</p>
<p>Your last point may be part of it. If his parents aren’t smart and successful, then he may not have had the correct “modeling” of behavior in his home. I know a very smart man who had parents who weren’t ambitious, etc, and he never learned good habits for success.</p>
<p>I think the dad does not have any influence on the child’s education may be the cause of the problem.</p>
<p>Absolutely…if a male child doesn’t get the message from his dad that academics are important, then that can be hard to overcome.</p>
<p>The only time either of my kids has stayed out until 4:30 or so, was last month when my graduating senior was at Project Graduation & her dad picked her up at 5 since she still has a restricted driver license.</p>
<p>Absolutely, positively, no reason for a high school student to be out until 4:30 unless they are on a school or church trip. Of course, if the parents have never enforced a curfew before, it’s kind of hard to start when the kid is 15. </p>
<p>Don’t know the kid obviously, but it sounds like a pretty classic case of a kid who likes to party, either alcohol or pot. Staying out late combined with the major drop in grades from B’s to D’s are common signs.</p>
<p>Everybody’s smart kid has to take classes that are “boring” but they learn to suck it up and play the game if they want options at the end of high school. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
BINGO! I don’t think this kid is brilliant. I think he’s average. And I think his parents are negligent. How many times have we heard it, “Your kid doesn’t need another friend. Your kid needs a PARENT.” They are setting their kid up to fail for life. </p>
<p>I don’t really blame the kid. He’s being told that he’s brilliant, that he’s smarter than everyone else, that his grades are his teachers’ fault for being boring, and that the rules don’t apply to him. (4:30 am? Seriously?) WHY should he change? Why should he think about his future? His parents aren’t! In his mind, the world is his oyster and great things are going to be given to him. Comparing him to Einstein? How about comparing him to the homeless guy on the corner - or Wayne & Garth, living in their parents’ basements with a career that involves a succession of paper hats.</p>
<p>How his parents have deluded themselves into thinking that “brilliant” kids get Ds is beyond me. As you said, they have a low-level of education and had this only child later in life… maybe they haven’t realized that some day they’ll be gone and he’ll need to take care of himself. Because what they are doing is insuring that their son will be dependent on them for the rest of his life. </p>
<p>I think the people who need a slap upside the head here are the parents. Maybe it will take picking their son up from jail to get thru to them (although it sounds like these 2 would blame the cops). I don’t know. But I’d aim my efforts at the parents, maybe in a private conversation over dinner with the mom? Lay it on the line. The kid is not going to succeed if everyone makes excuses for him 24/7. He needs to learn to be responsible for his own actions, and that starts with taking responsibility for his grades.</p>
<p>I would give the nephew and his parents one of the college books that have all of the 4 year colleges in it. It shows the stats of what the average accepted student has. Maybe that would wake up the parents to see just what kind of effort is needed to get into MIT and other top schools.</p>