Reply to How do I help my 13y/o son care about his grades?

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[quote=Anonymous]Second the recommendation for an organizational tutor, which teaches study habits and techniques and, wonderfully, takes you out of the picture for at least this piece.

Get a book like the Kazdin method. Rewards (like money for grades) are out of favor because you can't buy a love of learning. Punishments are also out of favor because the kid associates school with bad things like punishments.

The trick, apparently, is to construct a ladder of "privileges" that he earns as well as "consequences", and to make all of this very clear and automatic. (Yes, as you can see, rewards and punishments never really go away, they just get rebranded.) That way, the next time he gets a C or D, he automatically loses some "privilege," like the right to see a friend before 5pm on Saturday, and instead he needs to stay home and review math or whatever it was until the grade comes back up to a B or better. Write all of this out on a paper and put it on the refrigerator, so that next time you can take out the personal element of you standing over him yelling, and instead it's instead it's clear and automatic.

Taking him to McDonalds or Appalachia will only cause him to say, "I'm better than those losers."  Really.  Also, PPs are right that he gets a bump just from being an upper SES kid.

Go the "hands off, let him fail" method only if you want to stand by and watch him fail. That's for parents who don't set expectations and boundaries in any other part of their kids' lives, either.[/quote]

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