12 year old son has no motivation/isn

[Anonymous]

My oldest child has always been a child who needed more....more Legos, more time by himself, more allowance, etc. This trait alone would be enough to handle, but it also comes with a total and complete lack of motivation to do ANYTHING: do sports, homework, clean his room, invite friends over, talk to new people, go out for a walk with his family, play with his sisters, basically LIFE! The only time we ever see him motivated to do anything is when it's physically making something, like a volcano or a new Lego - then, complete focus. He does well in school, but only because we are constantly checking the teacher's websites to make sure he doesn't miss anything. 9 times out of ten he says they never told him there would be a quiz or a test, however teachers do not agree. We have a rule that his special toy (a model train set) goes away when he grades go below a B, a rule he came up with when we agreed to buy the train for him. He made a 3 page plan for how long it would go away for, and for what circumstances. All very mature, we thought. But now the times that it actually needs to be taken away, he yells and complains that it's not fair. This taking away stuff NEVER motivates him, never did. Nothing does. His swim coach tells him over and over again not to bend his legs while swimming, he's been doing it the wrong way for months now, completely ignoring her feedback. My husband and I sit down with him on weekends to do review of school work, and he absolutely hates it - we think he gets mad because we are holding him accountable. Sometimes he ends up crying because of it, and let me say we stay completely calm the whole time even though we are jumping out of our skin! He rarely writes down his homework, and I think his 900 person school isn't helping. He seems so scattered, but mostly he doesn't seem happy.

All this leads me to think....he needs to go to military school! Of course that isn't actually true, but with two other kids who never give us this kind of trouble, mostly do what we ask of them, want to participate in life, and usually wake up happy and ready to embrace the day...we are wondering, is there something different about him that we need to investigate further? Should we have him see someone? We aren't meeting his needs.

[Anonymous]

OP,

First, help him learn basic study/organization skills. These skills don't come naturally to most kids. This is a good resource:
http://www.amazon.com/Homework-Made-Simple-Solutions-Stress-Free/dp/0971460981/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421876856&sr=1-1&keywords=ann+dolin

Second, stop nagging him on everything or expect him to be someone he's not. He doesn't need to be motivated in every area of his life. If he likes building things, sign him up for a wood working class or cake decorating. Foster the interests he has.

[Anonymous]

This is an exact description of my now 13 year old four years ago. In his case, he really started slipping academically in school and having some behavior issues. Following intructions became a nightmare, zero organizational skill, could not concentrate to safe his life in some classes, yet laser focus on things he found interesting.
Long story short after tons of therapies, tutors, tests of every kind he was diagnosed with ADD inattentive sub-type. Started medication and his life changed 100%. He is now a straight A student, with lots of friends and pretty easy going all around.
Motivation can still be an issue, though. One of his doctors once told me that ADD is not so much an attention deficit disorder as a motivation deficit disorder. He suggested we had to try to always make him earn stuff instead of threatening to take it away. Sometimes this works, spmetimes it doesn't, but it is worth a try.
Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an exact description of my now 13 year old four years ago. In his case, he really started slipping academically in school and having some behavior issues. Following intructions became a nightmare, zero organizational skill, could not concentrate to safe his life in some classes, yet laser focus on things he found interesting.
Long story short after tons of therapies, tutors, tests of every kind he was diagnosed with ADD inattentive sub-type. Started medication and his life changed 100%. He is now a straight A student, with lots of friends and pretty easy going all around.
Motivation can still be an issue, though. One of his doctors once told me that ADD is not so much an attention deficit disorder as a motivation deficit disorder. He suggested we had to try to always make him earn stuff instead of threatening to take it away. Sometimes this works, spmetimes it doesn't, but it is worth a try.
Good luck!

I could have written this post, word for word, except it's my 13 year old daughter. It's sooooo validating to hear this, meds made our lives 100% better as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an exact description of my now 13 year old four years ago. In his case, he really started slipping academically in school and having some behavior issues. Following intructions became a nightmare, zero organizational skill, could not concentrate to safe his life in some classes, yet laser focus on things he found interesting.
Long story short after tons of therapies, tutors, tests of every kind he was diagnosed with ADD inattentive sub-type. Started medication and his life changed 100%. He is now a straight A student, with lots of friends and pretty easy going all around.
Motivation can still be an issue, though. One of his doctors once told me that ADD is not so much an attention deficit disorder as a motivation deficit disorder. He suggested we had to try to always make him earn stuff instead of threatening to take it away. Sometimes this works, spmetimes it doesn't, but it is worth a try.
Good luck!

Interesting. The Dr. said this yet your DS still went on Rx? A motivation deficit disorder doesn't seem like a real disorder to me. People are unmotivated in areas of their lives that they find boring. That's normal. Like for me, that would be exercising. I am so unmotivated. But would I take a rx to make me more motivated to exercise?

Why not try the earning stuff rather than Rx?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an exact description of my now 13 year old four years ago. In his case, he really started slipping academically in school and having some behavior issues. Following intructions became a nightmare, zero organizational skill, could not concentrate to safe his life in some classes, yet laser focus on things he found interesting.
Long story short after tons of therapies, tutors, tests of every kind he was diagnosed with ADD inattentive sub-type. Started medication and his life changed 100%. He is now a straight A student, with lots of friends and pretty easy going all around.
Motivation can still be an issue, though. One of his doctors once told me that ADD is not so much an attention deficit disorder as a motivation deficit disorder. He suggested we had to try to always make him earn stuff instead of threatening to take it away. Sometimes this works, spmetimes it doesn't, but it is worth a try.
Good luck!

Interesting. The Dr. said this yet your DS still went on Rx? A motivation deficit disorder doesn't seem like a real disorder to me. People are unmotivated in areas of their lives that they find boring. That's normal. Like for me, that would be exercising. I am so unmotivated. But would I take a rx to make me more motivated to exercise?

Why not try the earning stuff rather than Rx?

I'm the PP but not the author of this post. I disagree with your doctor that it is a motivation problem and not an attention issue, my daughter wasn't motivated because she couldn't focus. We had to cure the focus issue and the motivation issue cleared right up after that.