Repeat 8th grade? Help!

Parent Cafe
1

<p>With advance apologies for the long post: I’m at my wits end and would love some feedback. </p>

<p>My 13 yo son is in 8th grade ‘highly gifted’ program – and failing. His semester grades appear to be mostly Ds and Fs. This is because he doesn’t turn in his homework and misses projects. (In science, he’s missing 11 of 27 assignments!) On quizzes and tests, he gets As and Bs, but the strings of zeros ruin his grades.</p>

<p>This is a happy, social kid. His teachers like him, say he’s always cheerful and active in class, if at times inattentive. He likes school. He just doesn’t like the work. And he doesn’t care one bit about his grades – he truly seems unconcerned. This has been happening all of middle school – 6th, 7th and now 8th grade. When H & I micromanage his schoolwork, he does fine. The minute we don’t, any responsibility on his part goes out the window. </p>

<p>I’m getting very concerned now that he’s getting close to starting high school (next year.) It does appear that he’s not emotionally ready for high school. H & work, so it’s not like we can take him out of school for a year, home-school while he’s “growing up.” Which leaves me with 3 options, I think</p>

<p>• Let him go to high school, micromanage/get tutor, hope he shapes up
• Have him repeat 8th grade at his current ‘highly-gifted’ program
• Have him repeat 8th grade in a traditional program which seems more structured </p>

<p>I hate these options. If we hold him back, he’ll likely lose contact with his friends who will go on to high school – really nice kids who have enriched his life. As he is a social kid, this may be very tough on him. I worry he’ll turn from a happy, cheerful flunky to a miserable, resentful kid – and still a flunky. </p>

<p>He doesn’t have any symptoms associated with learning disabilities or attention deficit. He seems well-adjusted in every way so counseling seems unnecessary. The whole situation has me & H discouraged and frustrated. Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>Have you asked him why he’s missing assignments? Since his test grades are As and Bs could it be that he thinks the assignments are a waste of time?</p>

<p>I also wonder if the “highly gifted” program really is a program designed for highly gifted students or is really a program that simply gives gifted kids extra work that wastes their time instead of stretching their minds.</p>

<p>Have you tried counseling for him?</p>

<p>Is there an alternative high school in your area for kids who march to their own drummers?</p>

3

<p>katliamom, I also have an 8th grader who sounds quite similar to yours. Highly gifted, highly disorganized, and not willing to do trivial homework. I would advise against holding him back. My S has been accelerated in math and science and goes to the HS (same campus) for an accelerated math course, which he takes with 9th graders, and biology, which he takes with 9th and 10th graders. He manages to keep his act together for those courses, and gets top grades. He gets mediocre grades in his MS courses - near-perfect test scores, knows the material, participates in class, teachers all love him - but some missing assignments. It doesn’t take many 0’s to bring the grades down quite a bit. </p>

<p>I like Northstarmom’s suggestions about looking into the content of his courses, and trying to determine the reasons he is not doing his work.</p>

4

<p>I would be concerned that if he repeated 8th grade you could end up with a worse situation because he would be bored out of his mind. That plus the loss of his friends sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.</p>

<p>You have a tough situation there and I can only tell you what I’d do. I would micromanage the homework. I know it’s ideal for him to take responsibility and do it himself, but I’d just want to take the best path out of school for him because it sounds so much like he’s bored with make-work. Which totally sucks, but I can’t imagine any way to get him released from homework duty. My brother is now a man in his 40s who is brilliant, creative, successful and content, but he was just like your son as a kid. He needed the real world context and consequences, so homework was always a problem. Have you tried to explain the consequences to your son (of course you have) about how you know the homework is stupid and tedious but he has to do it in order to get the grades required to enter college where they will appreciate him. Good luck!</p>

5

<p>My S has had a few MS teachers who were willing to give him substantive assignments to replace the regular homework. He’s always done well with these, even though they’re much more time-consuming than the regular work. He has also tested out of a couple of classes and done independent projects the rest of the year. You might look into these options for your S.</p>

6

<p>Is your S disorganized or just bored?</p>

<p>If he is disorganized then this issue needs to be addressed–though not by repeating 8th grade.</p>

<p>If he is bored and therefore blows off the homework, repeating would be a real disaster. You might end up with a delinquent on your hands. We were so concerned that we accelerated S drastically and (midlly) disruptive in class behavior and constant complaining about school magically disappeared.</p>

<p>As well, gifted kids must learn to cope with challenges, otherwise they will become underachievers who cannot handle college-level work. So the solution is to challenge your S and make sure he develops sufficient study skills and organizational skills.</p>

7

<p>I wouldn’t micromanage his work. I’d sit down with him and tell him what the deal was. Grades above x level or else he’ll have to repeat the year. I’d also be looking hard at alternative schooling for high school. It really sounds like you have a kid who needs a different approach to education. It might be an alternative high school, it might be board school, it might be another sort of private perhaps one with a more project or real world based philosophy. </p>

<p>One of my best friends has your kid - 1600 on the old style SAT couldn’t be bothered to turn in the work. He didn’t get into his first choice colleges, he’s now taking time off from the college he did go to. There are no easy solutions.</p>

8

<p>At some point, if he fails enough classes, won’t he lose the option of advancing to high school? How does your son feel about repeating 8th grade? I would think he would see flunking 8th grade as a very negative event.</p>

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<p>Send him on and find the hardest classes and most demanding teachers you can get. Middle school (and some HS teachers, too) is full of meaningless make-work assignments that bore kids (especially gifted ones) witless. If he gets demanding teachers with classes that require real work to understand–he’ll get involved with learning and do the work.</p>

<p>I’m happy to give more info in a PM, but I will just say that my son had a 70.1% average (70.1% exactly in 6 of his 7 classes and a P in phys ed)–70% was required to go to the next course–in 8th grade because he found the work so meaningless. When we transferred him to a school where he was graded on learning instead of homework completion, he ended up ranked more highly (and started studying). He entered MIT at 16, skipped his last year of HS entirely, and will graduate from MIT in June.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your input:

  • some answers: Northstarmom, we ask him why he misses assignments all the time. He shrugs and says ‘i don’t know.’ My thought is that for him, assignments are in one ear and out the other. He forgets to do them, forgets to turn them in if he does them. The program is geared to ‘gifted kids’ – I’m not an expert in this area, but it seems academically interesting, out-of-the-box, the work is hands-on and advanced. The teachers until this year were outstanding (some of the good ones left for various reasons - but it’s not like he was a stellar student with them, either.)
    Marite - he’s sometimes bored. But it’s hard for me to say if it’s because the work isn’t challenging enough or if he is simply disinterested. We’re working on organization issues - yes, he needs to be better organized.
    Mathmom, you give me food for thought about micromanaging. And to everyone - he hates the idea of repeating 8th grade. (As do I, as I said before.) But will that be enough motivation to get him in gear? Time will tell.
    NJres, I will be meeting with the principal this week to find out about advancing to high school with his current grades. But when I brought up his grades last year, and asked if he’ll pass, I was told ‘yes.’ He tests well above grade level in every area, and thus the school would not fail him. Seemed like a weird way to proceed, but so are many other public school policies in our city.
    Everyone, what is your experience of counseling?</p>
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<p>My S2 was in the same boat in 8th grade. He has been pretty much a procrastinator, time waster, look for any excuse to not do work kid his whole life. He was always just smart enough to get it together and pull it out in the end…until Algebra 1 in 8th grade. He fell behind from day 1 and slowly began the long spiral toward failure (qtr. grades B,C,D,F). He was also doing poorly in his other classes. His academics had always made me want to scream but this was the worst. I dragged him to tutoring the last quarter of school praying that he would pass the Alg. 1 exam so he wouldn’t fail 8th grade. He made a 70 on the exam (why work any harder than you have to?). He went on to h.s but I made him repeat Alg. 1 in 9th grade. He did better on everything once he got to h.s. Made a B in Alg. 1 the second time around. Might have gotten an A if not for poor homework and notebook grades. I thought we were finally out of the woods until we ran into Spanish which he hates and apparantly has not aptitude for. He is currently failing Spanish 2 and is just so lost. Sad because he is doing fine in all other classes (including 2 AP’s). It kills me to think he may not be able to go to our state u because he can’t pass Span. 2.
I guess there’s always repeating it next year. I feel for you Katliamom. I’m right there with you.</p>

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<p>We have a young relative with ADD and borderline Asperger’s who is also highly gifted. He is highly disorganized. Does the work but does not turn it in. Or forgets to write down the assingment. </p>

<p>This is a totally separate issue from study skills, level of challenge, etc… and needs different solutions. Repeating won’t cure anyone of ADD or other psychological issues. Perhaps he needs to be evaluated?</p>

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<p>Have you had a conference with your son, the guidance counselor and all of his teachers? That may help you all pin down what’s going on.</p>

<p>With older S, his counseling helped my husband and I feel supported and like we were doing the best that we could with our gifted, procrastinating, deliberately infuriating older S. S – who also is ADHD – basically blew off the counselor, but my husband and I felt she was very helpful. The counselor also referred us to a local center that helped kids with organizational skills. S really wasn’t interested in the help, but we sent him anyway, and I feel that his meeting weekly with a professional on organizational skills did help him somewhat, but particularly took a lot of stress off me.</p>

<p>With younger s, we tried 2 different counselors. The first, he never connected with neither did we. The second established a strong relationship with him, told us there was no sign that depression was causing his problems, helped me especially turn over S’s life to him (S was a h.s. senior who was procrastinating so much that he wasn’t getting work in and was risking failure), worked on some perfectionism issues with S, though what seems to have been most helpful with S has been his taking a post h.s. gap year. The second counselor had had extensive experience with procrastinating, perfectionstic colege students, and also had worked with gifted students.</p>

<p>We also had sent S to a counselor who specialized in organizational skills. S liked the man a lot, and learned some things from him, but in general didn’t bother to put those things into place. Again, the benefit was that at least my husband and I felt that we were covering all bases in terms of doing what was our responsibility as parents.</p>

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<p>I would suggest counseling. Try several to find one that fits with your son. We have done counseling with two different people. The first was fair. The next one has been life changing.
We also did organizational tutoring. That helps but they need to then be able to take what they have learned and put it into use when they are on there own. One concern I might voice with your son is that in some high school’s in order to stay in the highest level of courses you have to have certain grades. A D would push you back down into the college prep track.
I have micro-managed a son with ADD and Learning disabilities and I can tell you that by senior year you will be exhausted.
Does the same pattern extend to other parts of his life?
Another thought for later on is that he could maybe take classes at the community college where homework is not usually part of the grade.</p>

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<p>An update:
We had a brief conferene with S’s science teacher. He advised us against repeating 8th grade, and advised us even more emphatically against sending S to our neighborhood high school, which is where S was going to go. It’s a respected school - but huge and like all public schools understaffed. The teacher felt S would be lost there, and I think he may be right. He suggested a fairly new ‘alternative’ charter high school specializing in math and science, and offered to write a letter of recommendation for S. The major advantage of this school – besides a very structured program – is its size: only 140 kids per grade. Brand new building, wireless internet, state-of-the-art science/computer labs funded in part by Hewlett Packard and Gates Foundation. Admission is by lottery, so who knows if he’ll get in. But if he does, it’ll be an intriguing option. </p>

<p>I appreciated your input on counseling. We’ll look into it, if for no other reason than to make H & me feel better. (Smile). </p>

<p>Again, thank you for all your advice. Just knowing other parents went/go through the same thing is a comfort of sorts!</p>

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<p>Another word of (hopefully) comfort:</p>

<p>My oldest son sounded a lot like yours: very bright but not motivated to do assignments in classes which did not really intrigue him. He was able to do well enough on tests that he never approached a failing grade but also did not achieve to his potential.</p>

<p>Fast forward: He is now a young man and teaches literature at the high school level. He LOVES what he does and I had to smile when he spoke of having a young man in one of his classes who was very bright but, he was afraid, he might be a “bit of a lazy student”! We just looked at each other and smiled, both recognizing that he was EXACTLY that when he was in high school!</p>

<p>Now, he is that teacher that loves to do anything to motivate his students, such as wearing chain mail to school when teaching Beowulf or coming dressed as a “special guest” (the first artificially engeneered human) to be interviewed by his students (he was Frankenstein’s monster) when they read the novel “Frakenstein”.</p>

<p>The advice you have been given above is good…just hang in there! I’ll bet you will find down the road that he has somehow learned from this experience.</p>

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<p>One of the characteristics of gifted kids should be their capacity for logical thinking. So…</p>

<p>If there is a consequence for poor grades which is meaningful and significant AND if the poor grades are in fact a choice of your child THEN the child will likely acquire better grades in order to avoid the consequence.</p>

<p>However…</p>

<p>If there is a consequence for poor grades which is meaningful and significant BUT the poor grades are not in fact a choice of your child, THEN the grades will not be significantly affected by the consequence.</p>

<p>Sometimes even smart kids lack the skills needed for being consistently productive and sometimes there are specific diagnoses which go along with this.</p>

<p>I would definitely not retain this child. I would consider options-- including stimulating summer options which could be use as a consequence for more effort during the school year (see the caveat above).</p>

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<p>The general trend these days is NOT to have kids repeat grades. For a bright kid, even if he is having organizational or adjustment problems, this would be a bad idea. I agree-- don’t repeat. Deal with the underlying issues contributing to the failure to complete assignments.</p>

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<p>Please reopen this post in one year and let us know what you ended up doing and how that is working out. I really will need your hindsight. I am one year behind you with the same situation. My highly gifted son has, in the last six months, has been having time management issues. Instead of using every precious half hour or hour available to him, he will bounce around the house (easily wasting an hour) when he gets home from middle school. Then he gets home from soccer practice and is up late/rising early to complete his schoolwork. Granted we could take him out of the sports but honestly…with all his energy, he needs the physical outlet of his evening rec. sports (he has no PE at school) and his other afterschool activity of religious school and Bar Mitzvah lessons are not optional for us. I am thinking of taking him out of gifted in high school…just putting him in the usual honors classes freshman year. It seems to me that gifted, although full of great peers and top notch teachers, is also full of busy work and projects. Middle school is such a tough age.</p>

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<p>Granted we could take him out of the sports but honestly…with all his energy, he needs the physical outlet of his evening rec. sports (he has no PE at school</p>

<p>When my daughter was in middle school- she was on her school soccer team and a rec league team at the same time.
She is still in soccer ( in fact she has a tourney game tonight- despite a humoungous wind storm anticipated)and has begun learning rugby as well.
Yes she certainly could benefit from spending more time on her studies- but I think she needs this.</p>

<p>Not saying that any of our kids would go this far-but there always needs to be a balance- and what is a good balance at one time, may change
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