Reply to 15 year old losing interest in school work

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our 15 year old boyis a 9th grader at a public school and simply does not care about his grades. He cares about sports and friends, but considers school work just an inconvenience.  He has decent grades (a few As, lots of Bs, and a C+) but could have consistent A's if he put in a decent amount of serious effort.  When my DH and I try to talk to him he just blows us off and refuses to discuss.  His friends are nice kids, but do not take school work seriously and are a bad influence in this respect.  We arranged a tutor for the subject where he is getting a C+ but he refused to go.  We have tried giving consequences (loss of cell phone, grounding) but then he retaliates by putting in even less effort.  We have considered pulling him out of sports, but that is the biggest positive in his life, and if we take that away, we worry that he would turn to kids who are a bad influence in terms of drugs/alcohol, which (so far) he has stayed away from.  We feel like hostages because we care about his grades but he does not.  What to do???  [/quote]

Let him retaliate. Who's in charge here? You take the phone and he doesn't go out with his friends. He can stay home and stare at the walls if he wants.[/quote]

No, especially for the child whose parents are concerned about keeping him alive. If the underlying issue is lack of motivation, a tutor won’t help. If the reason for a lack of motivation is emotional, isolation will make things worse. If the emotional issues are depression or anxiety, isolation will increase his struggle and risk of suicide. Most people who start therapy do so years after they should have, when it’s an emergency and often too late. Part of the reason I know this is because of a sibling was punished, who then attempted suicide.

Sit and talk to your kid in a non-judgemental way. Ask about his future. Does he have desires? Fears? Is he watching other kids do well wondering what will happen to him? What excites him? There are plenty of jobs that could be appealing to him like video game programmer or sports management or physical therapy. Use that to see if he can do better in relevant subjects. If he has challenges getting over negative projections, like he thinks robots will take over all jobs, he might be showing signs of early depression. If he expresses a large number of fears especially around his own abilities it might be early anxiety.[/quote]

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