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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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!   :lol:   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.[/quote]

From your write-up it doesn't sound like he has any disorders.  It sounds like you are over-motivating him and he is purposely staying under motivated, or at least feels like he can stay unmotivated.  I had one of those in late elementary/middle school.  Very smart girl but lacked any motivation with almost all school after 3rd grade.  She too loved to manipulate, loved to build, Legos, read a ton.  But she was bored.  She also wasn't very social because most of the "normal" fun of middle school wasn't fun to her.  She preferred staying home reading/building legos than dances, parties, etc...  She was an introvert and completely fine with being one.  Now me, I was a social butterfly and I initially thought like you.  This isn't right.  She is depressed.  She must be getting bullied.  Why doesn't she want to spend time with friends?  Why doesn't she WANT to get good grades if she is so smart?  Why can't she just APPLY herself, ugh!!  It was so frustrating.  The more I tried to "help" her the worse she got.  So my husband and I talked and we decided after doing some research to go in a different direction.

This was the book I read about introverts and it helped me a lot.  
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307352153/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0761123695&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1TQVMFRW3BV19EYKAS33

So we talked to her in 7th grade and told her that we are going to back off from "helping" her and although she could always come to us for help, we aren't checking.  We know she is a smart girl, we know school can be boring but if you want to do something really cool later in life, you need to just get it done.  We had a whiteboard with her weekly expectations/chores so we didn't have to fight.  If they were done, she got $20.  If she got anything below a C- on a test/quiz and did not come to us or a teacher for extra help prior to, that weekly money was taken away.  The goal was a Lego Mindstorm Robot.  Anyway, it started off well for 1 week and then bombed for a few weeks. We held our ground (cringed at some crappy grades) and dealt with some "it's not fair" when the $20 wasn't given but slowly she made her way out.

Long story short, she preferred managing her own life and it wasn't always what we exactly wanted but it worked.  She did go thru cycles of bad grades versus good grades in middle school.  Teachers would have to meet and talk with her and that was more of an impact than us pushing her to remember everything and the teacher having no idea there was ever an issue.  It was TORTURE to see bad grades but once she got into high school, it just clicked.  Plus she was able to take some really cool electives, get in the Robotics club, find a coding club thru meet up.com and have a little bit of a social life.  We compromised on "social settings."  Instead of forcing her to go to a dance, I would say "If you don't want to go to the dance, that is okay, but why not try to meet up with someone and see the sci-fi movie coming out?"

But we did make sure she wasn't depressed.  Changed the diet around some, vitamins, no screen time after 9pm (none in the room) and also interacted with things she liked.  And honestly, looking back on it, I wish I was more okay with it.  It is actually nice to have an introverted child.  She didn't go thru a lot of crap middle and high schoolers do.  She never aimed to please anyone.  A few teachers told me she was gifted and so comfortable in her own skin.  I should be so proud of her.  It was humbling.  It felt like I failed her.  I felt like for years she hated me because I chose not to "get" her but to mold her and that made her dig her heels in, not show any interest, felt like something WAS wrong with her.  I think about if I stayed down that path, she could have gone into a very depressive or anxious state.

Anyway, just try cutting back and let him fall a few times. He may even fail a class.  Give him a positive incentive to do things for himself and even come to you.  Take an interest in that volcano.  Look for lego, robotics or coding groups near you.  Respect him.  Always tell him he can talk to you and if you back off and start to take him out in a non-threating way (dinner and movie) he may just chill out and talk about stuff.  [/quote]

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