Sounds like an underachieving gifted kid. It is a common situation. Check out sengifted.org and hoagiesgifted.org to learn more.

Anonymous wrote:Boy age 13. Just does not see the purpose in school and does not care that he’s failing. Completely impatient with it. Incentives don’t work. Punishment doesn’t work. He politely just refuses or doesn’t participate in school projects. Yes I know there’s a group of people here who just say take away all electronics and punish him till he complies but that just doesn’t work for this kid. Some depression going on but it’s medicated. He just doesn’t care about School but continues to do very well on standardized testing but grades are nearly failing in all subjects. Can’t imagine how this is going to play out when we move to high school next year. It’s been a full year with this attitude so it’s not just a passing phase. And seems to be getting more entrenched. Any advice?

Your DS's medication is probably helping with depression and also decreasing motivation. Combine that with hormonal quicksand of MS age, and "Bob's your uncle." I would talk first with your DS's psychiatrist about the meds and what to expect.

Keep in mind that "not caring about school" is common with MS boys- at least it is with mine, and my friends have complained too. My DS was 50/50 weight/height last year to to 32/75 this year. He has almost a completely different body and still changing rapidly. Good for you to keep extrinsic rewards and punishment out of play- there is increasing evidence that it damages intrinsic motivation long term.

Finally, no work and doing well on standardized testing indicates a lack of challenge (previously mentioned). My DS is placing top of his grade in a district math competition and just failed a math test. He's verbalized that he finds his math class to be mind numbing-- he didn't even bother reading directions for the test. Missed every question- frustrating.

Anonymous wrote:
You owe this kid an evaluation, OP.
My son presented some of these symptoms and he had inattentive ADHD. Add in medication, and he's a straight A student.

+1 Same with my DS, evaluated freshman year. All of middle school I thought he just didn't care. Now my biggest difficulty is figuring out if it's ok for him to take the full schedule of AP classes he wants to take next year.

Also, some kids, and I think especially an issue for boys, would rather you think they don't care and that's why they aren't doing well vs. showing that they do care/are trying and failing. No kids *wants* to do badly in school. I'm sorry it took us so long to figure out DS's issue and so he spent a lot of years feeling like the "bad kid" in class.

OP what does he care about?

Just throwing out another idea here, but is it possible he's bored and needs to be challenged a bit more? Maybe an out-of-school class (enriched math or something) would help?

talk to therapist
he may be in the wrong kind of school for him, may need a smaller or more experiential school to engage him

Suggestions:

What does he say is the reason he doesn't care? Have you asked him directly?
Talk to school guidance counselor
I agree to have him re-evaluated about his mental health
I would absolutely take away privileges or fun things if grades were an issue.

You owe this kid an evaluation, OP.
My son presented some of these symptoms and he had inattentive ADHD. Add in medication, and he's a straight A student.

In high school, it helped to visit some nice reach schools so she had something to work towards.

What is he doing otherwise if not doing school related work.

OP, you can't make him care. You can - maybe - make him do the work (actions) but you can't make him care (feelings).

You say that this has been going on for a year. How was it before then? What's different now?

I'm not sure if this helps, but in high school, I shaped up myself because I realized I wanted to go to a good college.

In middle school, for whatever reason, I just did not want to do any work.

Show him what it's like to live in the real world when you don't have a good education - lower paying job = struggle financially.

Give him an allowance, and then make him pay for his own food, clothing, by way of taking $x amount for food, $X amount for utilities.. etc....

There was a Cosby episode of this with Theo (despite how you feel about Bill Cosby now, that show was still pretty great).

Anonymous wrote:Boy age 13. Just does not see the purpose in school and does not care that he’s failing. Completely impatient with it. Incentives don’t work. Punishment doesn’t work. He politely just refuses or doesn’t participate in school projects. Yes I know there’s a group of people here who just say take away all electronics and punish him till he complies but that just doesn’t work for this kid. Some depression going on but it’s medicated. He just doesn’t care about School but continues to do very well on standardized testing but grades are nearly failing in all subjects. Can’t imagine how this is going to play out when we move to high school next year. It’s been a full year with this attitude so it’s not just a passing phase. And seems to be getting more entrenched. Any advice?

Ugh. This is tough. I'm sorry you and your son are going through this. How is he socially? Does he have a group of friends he likes to hang with, or is he a loner? This sounds like a complex situation, so I can only offer the advice that comes to mind. What is the carrot and stick for him? What can you take away, and what can you offer as a reward? Personally, I think it's a consideration to hold him back next year. If you don't believe this is resulting from a medical issue, he does need to experience a consequence. That might be the one that works for him. If he continues to fail at everything in high school, he won't get into college anyway. I'd consider making him get a work permit at 14 also so he understands the purpose of getting an education and taking it serious. Perhaps look into ways to get him to truly understand the long-term consequence of opting out of education, which is what he's doing. Best of luck.

Boy age 13. Just does not see the purpose in school and does not care that he’s failing. Completely impatient with it. Incentives don’t work. Punishment doesn’t work. He politely just refuses or doesn’t participate in school projects. Yes I know there’s a group of people here who just say take away all electronics and punish him till he complies but that just doesn’t work for this kid. Some depression going on but it’s medicated. He just doesn’t care about School but continues to do very well on standardized testing but grades are nearly failing in all subjects. Can’t imagine how this is going to play out when we move to high school next year. It’s been a full year with this attitude so it’s not just a passing phase. And seems to be getting more entrenched. Any advice?