Smart but not motivated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is like that. DC is really good and kind, but lazy. I don't care what he does once he turns 18 as long as he is out of my house. And he will, because he already lives with his father.
There is nothing holding him back and that allows me to not worry. He can work low wages jobs if that makes him happy.

You are a mother?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son has an extremely high iq, but has no drive, like none. What are my options? How do I get him to care? He hates the minutiae of school, but that's part of life. He admits that he wants to skate through life. What am I supposed to do?!

That's a common issue. Let him see a therapist, enjoy his extracurriculars, build social circle and just do good enough in school to graduate. There are many paths to success, just one life to live. If he is smart, he'll get to better schools and career through community college.

Therapy for what? Having lazy parents?

What do you suggest? Ruining his mental health and your relationship with him pushing him to reach his "potential"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Smart but not motivated" describes more than 90% of poor performing kids. They are all pretty smart but they don't try. Your kid is one of them.

No it doesn’t. Not everyone is smart, because smart is a relative term in and of itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Smart but not motivated" describes more than 90% of poor performing kids. They are all pretty smart but they don't try. Your kid is one of them.

No it doesn’t. Not everyone is smart, because smart is a relative term in and of itself.

I was thinking the same thing. Every parent thinks their child is smart but if the average IQ is 100, that means half of the population is under 100. I would think smart would be someone with an IQ of over 125. And yes there are different kinds of smart but we’re talking academically smart here.

[Anonymous]

My brother was like this. I suspect he had ADHD but it wasn’t a thing back in the 70s/80s. He did poorly in high school but did decent in core subjects like math and science. He somehow got into a good college but did poorly there too. He had to take time off and that was his wake up call, something snapped and he got his act together. He took extra classes then went grad school. He has a very successful career now. My parents had to give him A LOT of support and he caused them so much grief but in the end it worked out okay. Long story short, the motivation has to come from within.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Self-Driven Child by Bill Stixrud addresses this situation. He has another book that’s more of a how-to that I haven’t read.

For my smart but unmotivated teen, I had him tested for ADHD and learning disabilities to make sure we knew what we were dealing with (because of family history, we wanted to know) and then hired an executive function coach to meet weekly. It keeps the micromanaging off of us- my kid is a lot more responsive to the coach, and it’s helped preserve our relationship.

+1

Sometimes what looks like a motivation issue is really being frozen in their tracks due to other issues. I wish we had done this sooner, it is a major game of catch up for my HS son.

OP, is your child passing classes? Doing enough to get by? Mine was not, and I knew there had to be something else going on besides laziness or just hating school to hate school. Unfortunately, this didn't come to light until 9th grade got real and what he had been doing to compensate until then stopped working.

[Anonymous]

OP, you should define what you feel the right amount of drive is.

Drive can be crazy ambition or enough drive to live your life in taking care of your daily needs (enough food, shelter, basic, etc). Some people want the world and others are fine with less.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that you can't actually manufacture ambition - it's innate. I have a girl who does not want Bs or Cs in school. She absolutely gets that it's OK for Bs and Cs but she wants As. My other kid feels that as long as he tries and gets a B or a C, it's not the end of the world. Albeit he has severe learning disabilities and is an uber hard worker but alas, I would suggest she has more drive than him. Same girl - she did not care to continue on a travel sport team because she was sick of losing. Not that she really wants to go pro or college scholarship - her interest in playing is purely recreational in that she just enjoys having fun but losing all the time was not something she wanted to experience. I call this Type A Drive LOL She is someone with a high bar to reach. She may or may not be happier than my other kid but she may very likely be more "successful" than him. Does this sense?

You can't teach drive/ambition/etc. Some of it is indeed background (immigrants or someone with some sort of hurt will often have stronger drive than a well adjusted perfect happy childhood kid) but it's mostly innate is my experience. You don't need to be poor to have drive. You can poor and have no drive.

You have only so much power over your kid. If it's not a mental health or learning issue, you need to let him work out what he wants. People also change a lot from 12 years old so there's that to consider Ultimately, there really isn't anything you can do to "help." Just watch him and learn what he's like. In life there is also such a thing is luck and how much people like you Just because you have drive does not actually guarantee you anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I promise you he will be fine. I will always choose smart over doing well in school. Once he gets to a certain point he'll choose what he wants. If he really is smart he will do well because he wants better. He will figure it out.

If he doesn't he will be fine because he will have chosen this. School is about rules and what you are supposed to do. Life is not like this necessarily. Life is about more than just hard work. The best thing that school can help you with is understanding the value of hard work. But he will learn this in or out of school at a certain age.

I was like this, my DD is like this and I personally know people like this. You have to wait until something clicks with drive.

You also don't always need drive to be successful. You can absolutely figure out how to make a great living without wanting to run the world. I am the laziest person ever who hates to work. Everyone who knows me things I'm really driven and ambitious. They could not be more wrong! Through a combo of luck and ability, I do very very well. Nothing to do whatsoever with drive. There is nothing wrong to work as smart as you can to do well without wanting to work as much as possible. Smart is the name of the game. Have some faith in him.

The only thing that negates the above is if it's something about learning disabilities or mental health impacting his abilities. That's important ti assess.

Funny but I would chose working hard and being a good citizen over being smart.

You do have some good tips but that is where I disagree

What I mean is -if you are smart - the chances are that you will figure things out and your ability to do something really well is likely higher than someone with less ability/smarts. I'm not suggesting being a good citizen or working hard are not great goals. I'm suggesting that if you are truly (in this case OP seems to be) worried about how well your kid is going to do because they are saying they want to coast and not go nuts trying hard, that they can actually still get from point A to point B IF they have a great deal of ability/intelligence. I know a ton of people who didn't click in the school department but post school years, started their own business and became wildly successful. But, they are also very sharp. They were no dummies. So while they were slackers, they had great potential. Now you can be a really great person and hard worker but if you aren't the sharpest knife, you can still find happiness and so fine but what I'm suggesting is your likelihood of what OP any someone looking for "success" is less than that really smart person. That's all I meant. Intelligence does count for something. Not everything, not happiness and certainly effort and kindness are even higher on the list of goals, but if you have brains, your life is going to be hell of a lot easier.

Let's face it, many many many people who are successful have both brains and worked hard so often you need both but in the context of OPs concern that her kid only wants to coast by - I'm just saying - he well may be able to coast by if he really is that smart and don't worry too much about him cause he's not going to completely fall on his face no matter what! What he ultimately wants to do will be within his choice but anyone that smart is probably going to figure out how to get where they want to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is like that. DC is really good and kind, but lazy. I don't care what he does once he turns 18 as long as he is out of my house. And he will, because he already lives with his father.
There is nothing holding him back and that allows me to not worry. He can work low wages jobs if that makes him happy.

You are a mother?

NP - I mean what is she supposed to do for him at 18?? I mean honestly, if she's sure it's his choice, maintaining her relationship with him I would think is the best possible outcome. You don't know what she's tried or not with him but actually I think she's smart not to kill herself with trying to help an adult. Just because you're a mom doesn't mean that you can make your kid into who you want them to be! And I have 2 VERY SUCCESSFUL kids. Even if they weren't, what can I do. Some of this is just luck you know?