<p>From everything posted here, it sure sounds like this kid needs an excuse for those Ds. I’ve been a teacher too and the kids who have depression or ADD or dyslexia don’t necessarily “use” those issues to explain their declining grades since middle school. This is a very basic issue. Ask your nephew WHY he thinks he’s getting Ds and staying out late. HE thinks he’s ‘too smart for school’. Bunk! I’m guessing it really means he’s afraid that if he actually put time into his schoolwork, he may still fail. At least, he may not get those As he thinks he deserves.</p>
<p>Fear of failure is a big concern for kids. It means they have take a risk. They have to try and they may NOT achieve. As you note, the parents are in denial but so is your nephew.</p>
<p>Another thing that I heard from my son once: he told me he’s afraid to “show what he knows” because it just means he’ll have to move onto the next challenge. Your nephew sure sounds like he’s very comfortable with the “Too Smart” label. Is he afraid of having to prove it? Is he afraid that he’ll meet a challenge he’d have to work hard to understand?</p>
<p>One last message: my youngest son once explained what it “really meant to study”. He was always a “smart kid” too. But suddenly in HS he had reached a level that he had to work for the grade. It was no longer that his smartness would be enough. I attribute this “discovering” to one AP teacher he had in his sophomore year. He suddenly turned a corner and truly began to buckle down and learned how to study. </p>
<p>Hopefully your nephew will find that guidance in one of his teachers, if it’s not too late.</p>
<p>As the mother of four brighter than average boys I’ve been through a lot of teenage stuff but 4:30 in the morning was not amongst it. We freaked out with a 2 am call that ended up with son’s friend vomiting from drinking too much. Yep it happens to bright, popular kids too. No high school student should be out past midnight unless supervised. I can’t think of one legitimate activity that encourages kids to be out that late with the exception of getting something to eat after prom or formal and even then one oclock is good enough! But there is an underlying problem with posters nephew. He hasn’t bought into his part of his future. Perhaps a road trip this summer with his aunt and mom to look at colleges that are not out of his reach if he fixes his academics. I think the dual enrollment idea is great especially if he can pass the CC classes. It’s a hard conversation witha 15 year old when you tell them they arent doing the things it takes to have a good future. They think you are just a buzz kill and annoying and picking on them. We had a loooonnngg summer with son number three when he just wanted to stay out with friends late into the night. We put a stop to it, explained that we thought his friends were neat and fun but if he was ever going to leave this town he’d better take a long hard look at where his friends were headed. He pretty much detested us the entire summer but now as a college junior he will admit that we were right. He’s at a UC his friend is not.</p>
<p>What you’ve described screams “pothead” to me. The inflated sense of self-worth and importance, blowing off school, staying out until 4:30am - ***???</p>
<p>The (delusional) parents are going to get a rude awakening within the next 12-24 months, IMO.</p>
<p>Does he have access to cash? Enough to support daily smoking? Everyone needs to understand the difference between the pot 20+ years ago and the pot being smoked today. It is tough to just get a buzz these days. You skip straight to high/wasted. 15 year-olds need to be supervised by someone who cares about them.</p>
<p>There are only 2 things a teenager that age is doing if they are out till 4:30 am. One is drugs, the other is alcohol. The parents are responsible and the wake up call will be from the police or the ER. Even when parents are told of the blood ETOH level and drug screen, they often believe the kid that it’s the “first time”. Sad, not much you can do. It is up to his parents.</p>
<p>Staying out till 4:30 a.m. is outrageous for a hs student. As a 9th grader, how did he get home? He surely can’t drive yet. Although drugs/booze are a possibility, if he’s in to video games, it’s possible that he is hanging out with friends playing video games. But, then again, what friend’s parents let their kid have guests until 4:30 a.m.?</p>
<p>I agree that you should talk to the kid and see what he thinks the problem is. And what he would like to do. My kids, particularly S2, were bored silly by hs and all the activities they thought were stupid busy work. They were right a lot of the time. It wasn’t because they thought they were smarter than anybody else, certainly not the teachers, they just thought the way the classes were conducted was stupid. S1 had several really motivational teachers who kept him going through hs. S2 discovered music. We basically told him the GPA he needed and requirements he needed to get into the schools he was interested in, and he did what was necessary. </p>
<p>If the nephew is really interested in going to MIT or any other university, provide him with info on the basic admission requirements. Tell him it’s okay if he thinks that some of the classes, homework, etc. is stupid. Maybe it is, but he nevertheless will have to show a certain GPA and will have to do a lot of things in life that are not very interesting, he might as well start now. One way of showing how “smart” he is is learning to “play the game” and do what is necessary, if he doesn’t think it’s important. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there really is not much you can do expect provide another, hopefully, more realistic perspective to the kid. But if you talk to him like an intelligent human being, maybe you can make a dent in the denial.</p>
<p>Ihaven’t responded to this thread because I get mixed messages from it.</p>
<p>I hear that the aunt. cares very much about the nephew- but I don’t see what she has done to back that statement up.</p>
<p>I hear alot of smugness in regards to how she is right and her sister is wrong about the childs potential and attitude.</p>
<p>Many students who are very intelligent yet not challenged drop out of school- oftentimes this is complicated with learning differences-
For instance my oldest who tested upwards of 160iq, struggled with simple computation but she mastered calculus.
If she had been in a school environment that limited her to mastering lower level curriculum before she could move ahead, she likely would have not gone on to graduate from one of the most academic colleges in the country. ( or to continue in grad school)
She attended private schools on scholarship- despite learning differences ( but the 160iq score made a difference Im sure)
Other daughter was fortunate to attend a top public school that attracted the .1% of students in the area, even though she had had an IEP in middle school and needed remedial classes in high school. Yet she was taking AP classes at the same time she was getting up to speed in other areas and graduated with honors.</p>
<p>My classes were pretty much boring in high school, I have learning differences, which made the grind work, much more of a grind - I dropped out, took my GED & passed without studying so that I could go to college.</p>
<p>Those who self medicate, are often doing so because they have to.
Either because of depression, or something else- </p>
<p>I think the CC classes are a good idea, because the students are more likely to be engaged ( if he isn’t taking AP classes at his high school, he is likely with the rest of the kids who aren’t interested/ready for academic challenge and those classes are often full of behavior issues)and the material is more likely to be deeper than the high school classes.</p>
<p>I agree with limabeans. Besides being very comfortable in his current situation, the son may not want to put in any effort because if he actually tries in class and doesn’t succeed, than his self-image - and his parents’ image - of him being “brilliant” goes up in smoke and he has to admit that he’s not as great as he thinks he is. Fear of failure may be a very real factor here.</p>
<p>I still say the source of the problem here is the parents who are utterly failing to BE parents. That’s not true in every case with underachievers, but when kids are being told they’re “brilliant” and “too smart for school” while earning D’s, and staying out till 4:30 am and the biggest problem is that he’s “rude” because he didn’t call home… that’s a complete failure of parenting.</p>
<p>I’d wonder what sort of tests they were using for placement- for example- my oldest tried to test into the gifted program at Seattle public schools-
She had been given an individually administered intelligence test by a an expert in the field of gifted education ( Dr Nancy Robinson)
She tested into the 0.03% nationally.</p>
<p>However, her scores from the group administered achievement test at the district, did not qualify her for any gifted or talented programs, not even the one that took the top 15% of the students.</p>
<p>( so she stayed in private- I could have used her other scores to jump through the hoops, but what I had seen of the classes- it wasn’t worth it)</p>
<p>I would be more worried about the out til 4:30 issue than the underachieving student thing. Please don’t underestimate what kind of bad things kids can get themselves into. Teenagers can get into trouble that can’t be fixed.</p>
<p>calimami-
You are correct. The other letters are “e-x”. If this kiddo is acting out at this age-- argumentative, noncompliant, dropping grades, out late. It sounds like substance abuse is a likely factor.</p>
<p>Actually, for assessment purposes, a psychologist would probably be the best choice, though a psychiatrist would be necessary for meds and if the parents were particularly concerned about the possibility of underlying physical conditions that could be affecting the situation. The child may qualify for a free assessment through the school or district school psychologist as well.</p>
<p>Correct, psych, that a psychologist is the person to do this eval. Some states/school systems will evaluate if it is related to an academic/learning issue. Might be hard to get an eval at the end of the school year, though some schools will test over the summer. Sounds like there are other variables at play that have affected school performance. I concur–he should be evaluated by a psychologist - sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>Quoting Emeraldkity4:
"Ihaven’t responded to this thread because I get mixed messages from it.</p>
<p>I hear that the aunt. cares very much about the nephew- but I don’t see what she has done to back that statement up.</p>
<p>I hear alot of smugness in regards to how she is right and her sister is wrong about the childs potential and attitude.</p>
<p>Many students who are very intelligent yet not challenged drop out of school- oftentimes this is complicated with learning differences-"</p>
<p>Yes I do care about my nephew and insisted he see a psychiatrist, and that he get in-depth educational evaluation which I paid for half. Half of $5,000 made a dent in my teacher’s paycheck. Basically the results is that there’s no learning problems, no ADD, ADHD. And no depression then (last year). I insisted because he was doing progressively worse in the 3 years of middle school (the worsening was in direct proportion to his cockiness.) And I was worried about high school. The parents were open to testing—I think they hoped to find something to place the blame on. </p>
<p>At this point, it seems obvious to me that anyone will do poorly if you don’t study the material. Ok he can be quick with math, but if you didn’t learn how to find the volume of a sphere, you can’t solve the problem. </p>
<p>I’ve tried talking to him, but it’s not easy— I bet he thinks he’s much smarter than me, just like he’s much smarter than all his teachers (which his parents agree) and much smarter than his parents (which they totally agree.)</p>
<p>If you—like him—cut classes, do no homework, don’t learn the material so can’t use it, can’t apply it—you don’t need learning disabilities and ADD and ADHD to fail!</p>
<p>Thats steep for an eval. Don’t know what part of the country you are in, but hopefully for that price it included collateral hx forms completed by teachers and family, cognitive/neuropsych testing and personality testing in addition to the educational/achievement testing. If he has been acting out since age 12-13, there is likely a behavior issue (oppositional defiant) substance issue or possible bipolar component.</p>