Parents in denial

Parents Forum
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<p>Thanks for taking the time to give me ideas! </p>

<p>I like the suggestion about giving him something to be competitive about. So it’s a matter of finding out what would. </p>

<p>All those posters who suggest I make him think for himself using various means, eg asking him questions. Yes, that’s great, and I do something similar. I was never one into lecturing, mostly I pose questions to prod youngsters to do their own thinking. But at this time, my nephew doesn’t seem to want to do much of that. He feels there’s no hurry, not time to do some serious mental activity in terms of planning for even the next year, never mind the future.</p>

<p>Perhaps at some point I can try post #130’s script. Right now, yes or no questions–even about fun things/computer games/friends—are answered with a mumbled “nyah”. Never sure if it’s a no or yes. Open-ended questions are answered with a shrug or “depends”. </p>

<p>He just finished 9th grade, but depending on his grades, not sure what next year holds, may have to repeat the year or some classes or ?? </p>

<p>I have to agree with csdad post #156, and another poster who says my SIL has to put on a good face because she probably knows it’s not all good. These days, most conversations revolve around the following topics no matter how I try to avoid them:</p>

<p>Topic 1: How smart he was as a baby, then through toddler years, elementary school…So we don’t always get to the present unless I have 10 hours to spare. If she had more than one child, she’d realize that all babies/toddlers do these things, but with an only child, it’s all magical. </p>

<p>Topic 2: How high-achiever X got very depressed, good-student-Y committed suicide, and wonder-student-Z started using meth…And how fortunate her son isn’t like them. </p>

<p>Topic 3: "[Some famous/successful person] did very poorly in [HS/college] and turns out to be such a success.</p>

<p>Topic 4: The truly bad kids do [hard drugs/hurt animals/commit robberies/murder…] and how wonderful he doesn’t.</p>

<p>My speaking contribution is about 3%, limited to “Well, not everyone with a master’s degree commit suicide” after a long tale of someone who did.</p>

<p>So if posters suggest she’s in protection mode, I imagine that may be the case.</p>

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<p>this is from the last report card my kid got. so, it could happen. </p>

<p>“(his name) is the smartest guy in his class, but, unfortunately, he is also the worst student.”</p>

<p>sometimes, the kid need to meet one teacher/ mentor who’d “get” him/her<br>
our job is to smell out that person until the kid could do it for himself, which, I still believe will happen eventually for most kids, who then become so-called undersuccessful/ underachieving but happy and healthy adult population we got, but not necessary criminals nor drug addicts.</p>

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<p>And some of here moms, I get it how much fun to brag since my kid is now certified smart!!
I did homework while laying low, I’ve learned why you must need to

  1. parade last AP scores just came in 5, 5, 5
  2. tell whole universe DD blowing her first payed internship money at Bergdorf
  3. post kid’s assigned summer reading list of same books my underachiever was made to read in 7th grade in nowhere public school</p>

<p>Go on, live a little, you deserve it, since we all are saggy middle aged hags going to be left behind in the dust with mound of tuition bills to come.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, a typical sort of thing. Parents, and kids, and teachers, and other adults don’t seem to get that intelligence is ever so overrated, especially in underachieving kids. The work ethics and attitudes that you get are much,much more important. </p>

<p>I’ve never been successful in giving parents in denial a reality check. The ones who really want a solution and are facing reality are the ones that you can help. Those who really don’t want help tend to get resentful when the reality is presented.</p>

<p>If you can do the research, get some names of counselors, psychiatrists, etc who are good at dealing with problems with kids of that age, and give the resources to the parents. It is up to them if they want to pursue that avenue. But at least, if things get tougher, they have somewhere they can turn. Also you might want to find out who the good criminal attornies are in that area so that if you should ever get a call at 3AM regarding some problem with your nephew, you’ll have a referral at your finger tips. Also check out the drug and alcohol programs for teens. Better you have all of that info instead of scrambling to figure it out when you are in crisis mode. Having lived through some of this, I can tell, the info can be golden.</p>

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<p>I fear that this kid’s gonna still be in denial until he believes he has hit rock bottom. otherwise, he will continue to see the world as both too stupid for him and conspiring against him. no amount of information or logic can break this.</p>

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<p>“(his name) is the smartest guy in his class, but, unfortunately, he is also the worst student.”</p>

<p>LOL, have you been stealing my old grade reports? My parents heard that a lot.</p>

<p>Not every kid needs to hit “rock bottom” in the sense of some terrible, permanent event like a DUI. Sometimes living with some regular old consequences is enough. But I agree with cpt that when parents don’t want to hear a certain truth, nothing in the world can make them. Sometimes they’ll wise up when you least expect it. Let’s hope that happens here.</p>

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<p>Sounds like the parents are the problem-time for some tough love or perhaps some good old family counseling…I can’t believe the parents of a 15-year old would not absolutely freak if the kid was out till 430 am on a school night the week before finals—I think most kids around here would find themselves taking finals in a super-strict military school after that…</p>

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<p>I’m really sorry to read about this; he seems to be another overpraised, underchallenged child (yes, child still) who might have done better and felt happier with himself and his circumstances if he hadn’t been convinced since he spoke his first words that he was the smartest kid in the world. “Smarter than all his teachers”? Possibly, in potential, but not nearly as knowledgable since he is so much younger. And an IQ of 115 - 118, while very good, is just not spectacular by any measure. It makes him above average, and that’s a very crowded room; it isn’t near-genius by a long shot. No one succeeds at anything without persistence and hard work, and the willingness to fail and learn from failure. I don’t know how you’ll convince him of this, but there have been some very good suggestions made on this site. It seems to me that he has so much invested in feeling intellectually superior (and so do his parents) that he has become terrified of actually doing anything because he might not succeed at it.</p>

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<p>OP – while the parents (at least mom) may be in denial, it does sound from your recent posts like she “gets it” but doesn’t want to admit it bc it’ll make her son look bad and will make her look like a bad parent. The comments that he gets Ds bc he’s bored; everyone with grad degrees is miserable in life and we’re glad our son won’t be etc. are all just excuses bc she knows that the way it’s going, he may not go far in life. The fact that CC has even been mentioned suggests that they know that MIT/Ivys etc. may not be in the cards down the road, regardless of his brilliance.</p>

<p>What is your nephew like? From your description, he sounds like a group of boys I knew in HS – they had 3-4 friends, only ever hung out or spoke to them, seemed fairly angry or like loners to everyone else – would barely engage in conversation or eye contact with others, often wore only black, some had very little interest in appearance/hygene which made it even harder to befriend anyone else beyond their group of 4. While it’s fine to have 3-4 close friends, rather than 50 friends – it seems like for people like this, hanging out starts as video games etc. and spirals into drugs/alcohol as they’re so disinterested in anything else that everyone is doing (and think everything else is so stupid and pointless). I’d worry less about college and professional goals since he is so young and more about the path he’s on. Those 3-4 kids may be a part of the problem bc they may be reinforcing the idea that everything at school and everyone is stupid (i.e. mocking him if he wants to get involved etc.) At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether he goes to an Ivy or not, but it does matter that he can be a responsible, engaging adult who can adapt and function – be it at CC, a state flagship, a top 10, in the work force etc.</p>

<p>Is there anything he has an interest in or would even want to try out – like a sport or a part-time job? If there isn’t, I would convince his parents that they have to force him to pick something and stick with it for a period of time. Doesn’t matter what it is, but it will force him to spend time with others, see what they’re like and there’s a good chance that when he sees that other teens are fairly happy in their lives, he’ll emulate the things they do. It’s far better that he emulate someone that is a solid B student, a member of JV basketball who holds a part-time job and has a relatively good group of friends, than to sit around with 3-4 other miserable kids talking about how everything is stupid while separating himself from the world. There’s also a chance that he’ll find an adult who he’ll see as a mentor/role model who won’t treat him with kid-gloves like his parents do; no guarantee that’ll happen, but often coaches, young managers at part-time jobs etc. are looked up to – because they understand where kids are coming from and give them things to think about without lecturing/scolding the way parents/teachers do because they aren’t responsible for the kids.</p>

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<p>Sorry to be late to the discussion, but I thought I’d throw out a few things…</p>

<p>1) It would appear that his “emotional needs” are being poorly served by the immediate family and it doesn’t sound like OP wants any part of trying to crack that nut. Nobody expects OP to be a hero and single-handedly save a struggling family from itself.</p>

<p>2) It does however sound like there is one currency that the parents don’t provide (at least from the one comment about trying to sell things he waits for in line on eBay) - and that is material things.</p>

<p>Yes, it sounds horrible to appeal to greed and materialism to motivate achievement, but you use the levers available to you (and in this case it doesn’t sound like there are many).</p>

<p>There aren’t a lot of gainful activities available to a 9th (going into 10th IIRC) grader, but if OP can find one where she can mentor him (prod him to use his “smarts” and other talents to achieve), she will gain currency as a person who leads him to positive things, opening her up as a person whose input could carry more weight elsewhere.</p>

<p>For example, if OP were to help him start up a lawn-mowing business showing him how is inital investment (she can even lend him the equipment for a nominal charge or percentage) coupled with his time yields results that will get him the “stuff” he seems to be motivated by. Then she can (use a spreadsheet) to show how investing in better tools (riding mower) can allow him to take on more profitable jobs using less time, she can put his brain to work. </p>

<p>As he eventually comes to the realization that there is a limit to what he can earn in lawn-mowing, he can be taught that his analytical skills (figuring out the yield on capital) will serve him well in other (more profitable) endeavors.</p>

<p>So far, this sounds like the fufillment of his material desires is the only thing that the parents are not providing him right now. And using that as a teaching tool is probably the best thing the OP can do at this point to get him being productive. </p>

<p>It may not solve the academic or late-night issues, but perhaps if OP is valuable as a teacher in the business world, he may eventually give her respect in other matters.</p>

<p>No perfect solutions here, just small steps in a positive direction.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

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<p>how about it?
It was a good thing that I bumped. whole lot of new nice folks posting now, entire tone of the thread changed from reform school, drug addict, ADD, sex and alcohol.
hello, OP auntie, are you there?
come back !</p>

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<p>Stay out of it.</p>

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<p>we heard you the first time. go play in the supreme court.</p>

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<p>A lot of good ideas have been presented here already. Unfortunately, changing an established trend of behavior, in both the teen and the mother, is very difficult. OP, you may need to try a variety of ideas until you find one that really sticks and makes a difference. Here are a few more ideas:</p>

<p>Make a chart of the boy’s grades over the years until now; extend the graph’s trendline, which will likely show that he may very well never even finish high school, much less get into MIT. Show it to the boy and ask him, “Is this the train you really want to be on? To end up a high school dropout with a minimum wage job at McDonald’s, harassed by a shift supervisor who barely finished high school himself?”</p>

<p>Acknowledge that doing well in school is more a matter of learning to “play the game” than of raw intelligence – and that REALLY smart kids learn to play the game, even when they hate the rules. I used the game-level analogy with my own son when he (quite rightly) complained of being forced to do endless busywork assignments. I told him, “Suppose you are playing a video game that everyone raves about, but the lower levels are horrible and stupid – do you argue with the set-up or do you just find a way to get through these lower levels with minimal stress, so you can get to where the real fun is?”</p>

<p>The idea of helping the boy start his own business is a good one, if he seems like the entrepreneurial type. I arranged to have my son, as a high school freshman, take a college chemistry class on a trial audit basis. He was immediately hooked: a class that explained everything just once and then moved on immediately? A class where limited homework was “suggested,” but not required? It gave him a taste of a more interesting future that truly motivated him.</p>

<p>Confront the boy if he refuses to accept any challenge at all. Many smart kids are afraid to be recognized as “posers” who really aren’t as smart as they have been told; hence they slack off, ready with the excuse for others AND themselves that they only did poorly because they never really made the effort. Tell him: “You can’t avoid making decisions because NOT making a decision is a decision, too – and the worst possible one. Your current trendline is your future – is THAT the decision that you are happy with? It’s easier to change now than to undo years of damage later.”</p>

<p>Good luck! I’m sure others will be able to continue to add to these suggestions.</p>