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[quote=Anonymous]Hi, would love to hear your thoughts or advice about how to help my 11 year old son with motivational challenges.

He has always had motivational challenges, but these have increased in the last few months since starting 5th grade.  He's really not interested in anything other than screens/video games.

He does well in school but "hates school" and has no interest in studying or putting in effort to excel in school (right now he can coast by putting in almost no effort but I think when the workload increases in middle school he may have challenges).  He rushes to get his school work done as quickly as possible, makes some careless errors, and just wants to turn it in.  He does not enjoy learning and feels school is pointless.  He does read at home but this has decreased in the last few months.  I have noticed he avoids anything that requires sustained intellectual effort, which is one of the reasons why I feel he has ADHD.  However, for the most part, he just doesn't care enough to want to do productive things.

He has no real hobbies or interests other than screens and video games. This last week with being home for a week due to the snow was terrible.  He wasn't bored, he just wanted to only watch TV. His ideal day is spending the day watching TV and playing video games.  I want him to do productive things with his time.

He is athletic so we started him in a sport, and he now plays on a team. However, he doesn't care about the sport and could take it or leave it.  Besides the team sport he is in two other after school activities but could take or leave those, he only does it because we want him to be busy after school a few days per week so that he turns to screens less often. He has tried 10 other types of after school activities over the past 5 years, and had no interest in those either.  When they ended (like chess club, robotics club) he did not want to stick with those activities.  He also does summer day camp all summer where he does different fun classes.  In other words, we are introducing him to a lot of different interests and opportunities, but he has not interest/motivation in any of them and all he wants to do is TV/video games. It worries me that he doesn't have anything he wants to put his time, energy, and talents into other than video games.  My husband and I were not like that when we were his age.  We both excelled in school, loved everything about school, and both had our individual hobbies and interests that we spent a lot of free time on.

He has friends at school whom he sits with at lunch and plays with at recess, but he never wants to meet up with them outside of school, and has not done so this year.  He is able to text or call them when he wants, but rarely does.

He is working with a therapist because I want to rule out or rule in ADHD, depression and anxiety.  Right now the therapist says he is not depressed, does not have anxiety, and she doesn't think he has ADHD either.  She does think he has a lack of motivation, but I'm unsure of the cause.

Any suggestions or advice on how to approach this situation?[/quote]

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