How to motivate an 8th grader who doesn’t want to do anything besides homework?

[Anonymous]

You can’t force someone to be intellectually curious. They either are or they aren’t. She’s getting her schoolwork done with straight A’s. Let her alone to pursue her own interests and friends. They need downtime, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused what the problem is. She does her homework and classwork well and completely and has a healthy social life. What else do you want her to do?

When she gets to high school, encourage her to join a couple clubs.

+1

You’re basically requiring her to want to volunteer to do more work. If there’s something specific you want her to accomplish, you can compel her to do it, but you can’t compel her to enjoy it. You can either compel her to do something or allow her to volunteer, but volunteering means that she is free to not volunteer. If you’re upset at her for not volunteering, then it wasn’t voluntary after all.

You can require her to do things you feel are important (whether it’s a specific activity, picking an activity just to be doing something, participating in a family activity, etc.) and expect her to do it without raising an unreasonable fuss (although she might respectfully comment), but don’t necessarily expect her to be happy about it or to be motivated to do more.

You can also seek out a wide range of opportunities to offer her and encourage any interest she shows in anything. There’s a lot of the world to explore beyond academics, music, and sports.

If she likes skin care, maybe you could see if she’d like to go to a spa or have a spa day at home. You could offer to get her a kit to create her own makeup. Here’s a website I just googled about combining cosmetics and science, if she’s interested. I’m sure if you look, there are probably lots of others, as well.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-experiments/cosmetic-chemistry/high-school
Who knows? She could end up being a dermatologist or chemist someday.

Frankly, at this stage, learning to navigate social situations and relationships are important skills, themselves. Assuming her friends aren’t negative influences, it’s probably great for her to hang out with them.

As for the teen romances, as long as they don’t violate your family’s values, reading in general is positive. You might take her to the used book store before spring break to stock up, pick a tame romance to read to/with her, or pick out some chick-flick’s together for a movie marathon.

Don’t worry about what to tell the teachers. If she was disruptive to the class or struggling academically you would have a responsibility to help solve the problem. Your child is not a problem. The teacher’s primary focus may be on academics, but you have to balance the different dimensions of your daughter’s life for her overall well-being. If you put too much emphasis on achievement, the resentment she develops could ultimately be counterproductive. Moreover, burnout is real, even for teens. My eldest pushed herself too hard and ended up too stressed in high school. I was constantly trying to get her to relax and take a break. The trick is to find the right balance.

Good luck to you and your daughter. It sounds like she’s a great kid.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful answer!
We got her to try a lot of different activities when she was younger but once she is in middle school she just refused to do anything. She even hates PE and finds all kinds of excuses not to participate, but her teacher still gave her a pass for the class.

It’s mostly consuming nowadays, pop culture, influencers unfortunately. Long wishlist of skin care and clothes pushed by influencers. These days their “peers” are online.

I appreciate your perspective on the importance of social emotional learning at this stage. Hopefully that’s what’s going on. There seems to be a lot of talk about boys, friendship drama and gossips and I assume that’s normal for this age and maybe taking a lot of their bandwidth? I guess we will just have to wait patiently.

Does she come to you about these things? Do you listen to her? This is the time of life when teens begin to learn how to make their own decisions and values, but could use the guidance of others.

If you spend this time listening without judgment, being open, and encouraging communication, you might have a chance to share your values in such a way that she’ll actually listen. But if you’re too focused on getting her to do the activities that you think are right for her, and thinking this type of talk is a waste of time, then she will go to others (likely peers and influencers) to get guidance on these issues that are so important in life.

[Anonymous]

Kids this age are really not self-motivated. Parents need to put in the same amount of their time to guide the kid that they expect the kid to spend. But, parents want kids to be on auto-pilot.

Be careful about the romance novels. Many romance novels nowadays are basically softcore porn with steamy or sextreame scenes. For your hormonal 8th grader it is not going to be easy to wean herself off of it, especially if every other friend in her group is already into boys too. This is a form of addiction.

I have no advice for you. Easy to prevent such behavior than to stop this. The only thing I will say is that in today's day and age, if you want your kid to make good choices, then you have to devote your time and make sure that you surround them with good choices.

[Anonymous]

She is in 8th grade!

You are in charge.

She must do something to be physically active. Hiking, yoga, it doesn’t have to be a traditional sport. Tell her she MUST pick something.

She likes makeup? Theatre, stage makeup. Art class.

Take away the phone at night. No electronics in bedroom.

Encourage in person meets ups.

Encourage some new friendships.

Btw I have an eight grade girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids this age are really not self-motivated. Parents need to put in the same amount of their time to guide the kid that they expect the kid to spend. But, parents want kids to be on auto-pilot.

Be careful about the romance novels. Many romance novels nowadays are basically softcore porn with steamy or sextreame scenes. For your hormonal 8th grader it is not going to be easy to wean herself off of it, especially if every other friend in her group is already into boys too. This is a form of addiction.

I have no advice for you. Easy to prevent such behavior than to stop this. The only thing I will say is that in today's day and age, if you want your kid to make good choices, then you have to devote your time and make sure that you surround them with good choices.

Thank you for the point on teen romance novels. I had assumed they are innocent coming of age stories. I’ll read one myself to see what it is about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is in 8th grade!

You are in charge.

She must do something to be physically active. Hiking, yoga, it doesn’t have to be a traditional sport. Tell her she MUST pick something.

She likes makeup? Theatre, stage makeup. Art class.

Take away the phone at night. No electronics in bedroom.

Encourage in person meets ups.

Encourage some new friendships.

Btw I have an eight grade girl.

We have been very supportive but not controlling because we wanted her to learn to make her own decisions and become more independent. Then when we started to tell her to do things recently she resisted strongly. This year we asked her to pick one of the school sports. She did but then found all kinds of excuses not to do it, crying and yelling when confronted. I think maybe we gave her too much freedom and trust for this age and need to step back.

As you and others pointed out social media and screen time is too much for an eighth grader to control by themselves. Her dad thinks we should just trust her to make the right decisions, but now I start to think this is like giving a toddler a box of candy and asking them to make the right choices…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t force someone to be intellectually curious. They either are or they aren’t. She’s getting her schoolwork done with straight A’s. Let her alone to pursue her own interests and friends. They need downtime, too.

This. Kids need to have some motivation to do extra things. I would limit screen time. DS is only allowed an hour a day after school, although that tends to end up being closer to 90 minutes. He does not play video games until his school work is done and he has completed whatever he needs to for his activities. There are days where he has no screen time because other activities take up his time. But his time on screens is limited. He is in 7th grade and does not have a phone. We told him to let us know when he wants one and we would discuss it. We are hoping to wait until he is in 9th grade.

I do think allowing unlimited screen time removes the desire to do other activities. I know it is easy for me to get caught up with reading or playing games or chatting or posting on DCUM. If it is easy for me as an adult, how much easier is it for a young teen? Limit the screens. When she is bored she might find that it would be cool to do other things, like a club after school or a sport or an art class or something.

We have always required DS play a rec sport but he selects the sport. He has tried a lot of different sports, which was kind of the point of the exercise, but has settled on soccer. The sport was required because movement is good and because it was good socialization. It also helps to teach how to win nicely and lose with grace. We also know that many boys discuss sports and think it is good for him to be able to participate in those conversations. He did ask to not do a sport this winter season, which we said ok to but he asked to sign up for soccer again in the spring without our having to ask him.

DS chose his other activities because he was interested. He chose math competitions because he likes math and wants to do it. We appreciate that and also support his interest. we do have to remind him to do his homework for his extra class from time to time but there is never a fight. He choses to do it. He has friends who did not have a choice and they begrudgingly participated but it was a fight. I also know kids whose parents forced a sport and the kids fought it.

He also does Scouts. He loves the camp outs and the activities. He understands that earning Eagle would be good for his college applications and future so he is aiming for that but merit badges are not his reason for participating. Some he has enjoyed, some he hasn’t. I think it helps him to learn that there are things you want to accomplish in life that are valuable even if you don’t like every step in completing them. He thrives on the camping and activities though, loves those.

[Anonymous]

I have a daughter in middle school and understand OP's concern. I think kids at this age need extra guidance from parents. They are too young to be expected to make healthy choices on their own when they have a "box of candy" open to them.

I strictly control the amount of time my kid can spend on her phone, and she's not allowed any social media apps. I keep her busy with activities after school, so she doesn't have time for drama. When I talk to other moms at her activities they have the same idea.

Kids tend to say no to something new, but often once they get into it they'll find they enjoy it. It doesn't have to be something academic or school-related.

[Anonymous]

This was me in middle school, except I also started hanging out with some kids who were making poor choices (drinking and smoking). My grades were still straight As, because I was smart, but I didn’t care about school at all.

Then I went to a different high school and got new friends. Everyone cared more about school/grades/college and I got excited to learn again.

There is literally nothing my parents could have done to make this happen. At that age, I was 100 percent peer driven.

I think if she is doing ok in school, you gotta wait out the rest of the middle school nonsense. Be there to listen, and don’t judge too harshly.

[Anonymous]

She sounds like a well-rounded 8th grader. I don’t understand your complaint, unless you’re a super tiger mom, in which case, you really need to read the book because ultimately it’s a tale about the mom getting her commupance from pushing her daughter too hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was me in middle school, except I also started hanging out with some kids who were making poor choices (drinking and smoking). My grades were still straight As, because I was smart, but I didn’t care about school at all.

Then I went to a different high school and got new friends. Everyone cared more about school/grades/college and I got excited to learn again.

There is literally nothing my parents could have done to make this happen. At that age, I was 100 percent peer driven.

I think if she is doing ok in school, you gotta wait out the rest of the middle school nonsense. Be there to listen, and don’t judge too harshly.

Thank you for sharing your experience. This is exactly what I was trying to explain. Grades are not everything. I can feel that she is not engaged and worry about that.

Good to know that things change with a different peer group. She is going to a different high school so I sure hope she will become excited to learn again.