<p>dontpanic1… no, because that’s school sanctioned, the band kids i know went out and had shirts printed for each respective instrument “saxnation…” etc</p>
<p>Heaven forbid members of a school-sanctioned group act on their own initiative to do something. ;-)</p>
<p>But to get back to the topic of this thread, I too have an unmotivated/gifted 10th grader. We are coming to the realization that the effects of our approaches (rewards, taking away privileges, etc. etc.) work only temporarily, and worse, often have the negative affect of making him feel miserable about himself. We are ready to back off and think about what’s really important. He’s a good kid and will find his way in the world.</p>
<p>DontPanic1 and others–I had an unmotivated S as well. Now he’s 23 and in his 6th year of college (thank goodness the first couple of years were at very low cost community college). It looks like he will probably graduate next year (fingers crossed). He seems to be in a good place now, though, obviously there have been struggles. I was so frustrated with him, esp. in middle school and high school, and (and with S2, too, who had same issues, but was more successful academically), and nagged, yelled, took away priveleges, lectured, tried bribes, etc. Well, none of it changed anything really. Last fall we were talking during a long drive down to San Diego when my dad was ill, and my first born son told me it seemed as if I didn’t like him. All that frustration trying to get him to perform in school and the end result was he didn’t feel loved/liked/appreciated. Horrible. The one thing I always wanted for my kids was for them to KNOW that they are loved. I can’t believe I screwed that up so badly! Of course I told him that I love him, and that if I hadn’t cared, I wouldn’t have gotten so upset at him. But, I’ve thought about it a lot, and if I could do it (those teenage years, esp.) over again, with him, I would be calmer and more loving and encouraging. </p>
<p>And in a way, I am getting to do it over again. The boys have three younger sisters. Two of them are very good students. (Gosh, so much easier to be a <em>good</em> parent when that is the case!) However, my seven year old is following in her older brothers’ footsteps. Creative, distracted, can’t focus on anything she’s not interested in at the moment. I’ve told her teacher that it is very difficult to get her to do her homework, but I refuse to get upset about it. Her teacher told me she didn’t do to well on a test he gave, one problem being that she put down two answers to a question, even after he specifically told them to only put down one answer to each question. Oh, boy, here we go again. And I have a conference with this teacher today. I’m disturbed. Not with my daughter, but with the way her elementary school is changing because of all the “no child left behind” stress placed on teachers to get the kids to perform well on tests in second grade! Uck.</p>
<p>Mstee, the “can’t focus on anything not interested in at the moment” rings a bell, though I’m so thankful it wasn’t my D, because it would have aggravated me into bad parenting, I’m sure. If you haven’t ever read PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME, by Keirsey & Bates, an accessible moderately in depth examination of the Myers-Briggs temperaments, you might want to take a look. </p>
<p>It was recommended to me by a friend and I remember thinking, “This is utter bull****, nobody would ever–” and in mid-thought it came crashing in that one described to a “t” the behavior of several people who had always driven me nuts and whom I hadn’t understood at all.</p>
<p>[The SP type lives very much in the moment, isn’t engaged by long-term planning, and tends not to take external rules or directions very seriously.]</p>
<p>This thread has been very useful to me. I too have a son. In my case, the son has followed an academically successful daughter. Son is actually doing well also. However.</p>
<p>Son doesn’t really care about the material in the way that daughter did. Son thinks it is stupid that he has to do homework. Get him going on college basketball, Worlds of Warcraft, or 1970’s soul music and he can talk for hours with enormous passion. But he pretty much thinks school is dumb, most teachers aren’t as smart as they think they are, and only occasionally does he show actual interest as opposed to the dutiful “OK parents, I will go for the A”. Math can be fun. Chemistry can be fun. UPUSH teacher is at least funny. But on the whole, he is a reluctant participant in the system. Nothing has challenged him, certainly nothing has inspired him.</p>
<p>I now believe he gets the grades he does because the expectation was set by the big sister. If he were the first one, and we hadn’t also had our expectations set, I bet we might not even know what he is capable of, although we would always have suspected.</p>
<p>Here’s my theory. Biologically, girls NEED to buy into a social system and grok it to bring up their babies. Ever try to fight a monster while nursing? V. difficult. You’re gonna need some help. Biologically, boys NEED to find a skill or a topic they can excel in, otherwise they can’t add value in the monster fight, and they lose in whatever competitive displays the tribe engages in. So girls do well in school because they are really learning the system and the society. Boys only do well in school if the particular school topic grabs them, hence the math boys, the science boys, the debate boys, the occasional writer or theater boys. But rarely the “Gee I just love school! And my teachers are so cool! And I sit in their offices and chat with them for fun!” boys.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter whether you have an A student boy, a B student boy, a C student boy. Seems to be all part of the greater pattern.</p>
<p><em>gets down from spot reserved for those who make unprovable pronouncements with great authority</em></p>
<p>mstee-your post is so heartwarming. I did have the same revelation about my parenting with S. I rode him pretty hard for a number of years till I realized the problem was mine–not his. His grades remain far below what they could be, but I must say that a kid who comes in the door and smiles when he sees me is much more gratifying than A shiny report card. S is following a Sister who is perfect at all things too.(Like Alumother) To all parents interested in this thread----I don’t think any change can occur with these kids till you and your child are on the same page with school AND life. My son and I weren’t even in the same book for awhile.</p>
<p>I think we have another common theme going here. My son also followed an older sister who was darned near perfect. He hasn’t yet started smiling when he comes in the door, but at least he has stopped throwing heavy objects at me. I’m still working on getting in his book, but at least I now know its Dewey Decimal number.</p>
<p>ahh, the parallel universe…not quite so big after all.</p>
<p>Amazingly, the older, perfecter sister is very close to S. She has been instrumental in turning things around socially in this house. I wish I could be her…she is such an amazing kid with a golden heart. I hope that she lands a HUGE scholarship somewhere–she has worked so hard at everything and yet is mostly known for being a REALLY nice kid.</p>
<p>did you love that word…perfecter??</p>
<p>youngest S does have a “perfect” older brother (no girls in this house besides me…even the dog is—I mean was—a boy). There is, however, one other S in between “perfect S” and “unmotivated, gifted S”<br>
This in-between S also had trouble turning things in for a few years, but that wasn’t because he wouldn’t do them; he would do his assignment and then go waltzing off to school. I’d later find said assignments laying on his bed :rolleyes: He tests well too, but not to the same degree as “perfect” and “gifted” do/did.</p>
<p>Sounds familiar. On the rare times my son does do his homework, it usually gets lost in the black hole that is his backpack before being turned in. I swear that thing must have stuff in it from kindergarten, even though he has only had this particular one for a couple of years. Either that, or he is carrying around a couple of anvils.</p>
<p>Hmm.</p>
<p>These are all second or third kids? Hmm. And it was cc that prevented me from hounding S. I was all ready to sign him up for over-achievement that would have left him grim and sorrowful. As I have explained in other threads, his greatest pleasure is playing mediocre saxophone in the band. Does he practice at all? What do you all think:). Sax rarely even ever comes home…</p>
<p>
ISTP here … boy does this ring true for me … when I was at a Myers-Briggs seminar the instructor pulled me over during a break and asked me if I often felt out of place at school … I asked why … he told me my type, ISTP, usually do not do well at school and often do things like drive trucks or fly planes … he was wondering because of my 2 degrees. For me, the Myers-Briggs stuff was pretty powerful … helped me understand myself and, more importantly, how different other people were in the way they are fundamentally wired (for example, as an introvert be floored when Marian said the best part of the ski trips were the parties where she didn’t know any of the 500 people at the party … my idea of living h**l!)</p>
<p>It also helped me understand my procrastination and difficulty with longer term projects that require a lot of planning … it also helped me understand why I thrived, while others panicked, in situations that require improvisation and last minute bursts of activity. The only “bad jobs” I have had is when I strayed too far from areas that are my strengths into areas I know I dislike and am not that good at.</p>
<p>An interesting book I read out of my public library last year was [The</a> Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243560/]The”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243560/). There are some amazing scientific studies cited in that book about how poorly validated personality tests are.</p>
<p>In kids the constructs measured in the Meyers-Briggs are typically referred to as ‘temperament.’ There is a huge literature on the subject, some of the best books are by Carey, Turecki (‘the difficult child’) and Sheedy Kurchinka.</p>
<p>I think personality or birth order or any other single measure of who a kid is is useful only in the construct of a complete and broad profile. For any kid not ‘not working up to potential’ it is also key to look at developmental acquisition- as subtle variations can undermine success (Mel Levine, "The Myth of Laziness). Beyond this there are family factors, medical issues, ‘fit’ issues…As to gender, the reality is that boys are more vulnerable to mild neurological variations…but I also agree that boys are often more ‘topically sensitive’ in their learning…</p>
<p>Finally- beyond this, are the great unmeasurables- the biggest one is tenacity and its cousin, high frustration tolerance…Hard to measure, key to success in the case of a kid who is ‘discrepant’ in any way.</p>
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<p>Oh, that’s my oldest D! 
(heh… a first child and a girl…) She always managed to receive good grades anyway - with few exceptions (“What? How can I have a C in Bio, I had 100’s for all the tests! What projects? There were no projects this semester…”). And our “perfecter” kid is a boy, and he is #3… 
but of course we never had any straight-A students in our family (just me and DH), the kids just never cared enough. Maybe because we (the parents) don’t care much, either.</p>
<p>I am trying so hard to learn from this thread…</p>
<p>I had a moment of surprise while driving somewhere yesterday, wherein S#2 (described earlier) informed me, “How can someone NOT go to his classes at college? I mean, I would ALWAYS go to EVERY class. I might not do my homework, but I DO go to every class, that’s where I learn things! That’s one thing you won’t have to worry about when I go to college, I am going to ALWAYS go to ALL my classes.” </p>
<p>This meshes quite well with my observation of him as an auditory and kinesthetic learner. Reading and writing just don’t do it for him: give him a discussion or a lecture or a project and he’s golden. Maybe this is key to keep in mind when we discuss his future plans.</p>
<p>Mootmom, if he’s really a hands-on type, and he’s interested in engineering, the schools with co-op programs might work very well for him. RPI, Northeastern both come immediately to mind.</p>
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<p>mootmom, so true of my D too… And, as a very creative thinker, she sees plenty of connections where “none” exist! This is great for art, creativity, for problem solving and thinking outside the box, but it is bad for a multiple choice tests (where, for her, it could be A,B or D…!).</p>
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mootmom, I hope you have that on tape ;)! Better yet, transcribe it, get it signed and notarized. … …Just in case he finds himself in an altered state of mind when he arrives at <em>college.</em></p>