Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. DD has never been that interested in getting great grades. She's solidly a "C" student and believes she's not capable of doing better. It's a cop out because when she gets a not so great report card, she buckles down and does better the next advisory.

The problem is that it doesn't stick long term. My DH and I have accepted that she's an average student. First report card this year was 2 B's, 4 C's and 1 D. That's typical. The newest report card: 1 C, 7 E's.

DD is 15 and a sophomore.

OP, I feel your pain. We just had a very similar report card with one of our kids. I don't have any specific advice to give, but I feel what you're going through, and it is not pleasant!!!!

Whew!!! Good to know I am not alone. The DMV makes me feel like all kids are going to Ivies or Tier 1 or 2 schools and it's a relief to know other parents are also struggling with their teens lack of academic motivation. I still feel like a failure though. Just the other night I thought "did I not go over sight words in K enough?" "Why oh why did I ever allow TV watching during the school week?" "She always knew academics were important, what happened?"....and then I cry myself to sleep. I so want a do-over!

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Will explore summer school. Not happy about paying for it, so she will need to get a job and finance it herself for any classes she fails as a final grade.

All of my other children (including older DD) do well in school. Dealing with a teen who is not academically motivated is exhausting. I can't fathom not caring about being dumb ( or at least having grades that reflect not being smart).

Ah, this may be a part of the problem. When you are in a household where every one excels at something that you are not good at, then it can be a hard hill to climb. If you feel that at your best, you are still less able to do something that the rest of your family, then sometimes it makes it harder to even try because you'll always be behind and feel as if you are always judged by your family members' achievements.

Try to have a talk with her about expectations. Try to reiterate (or iterate, since you may not have said this to her before) that you only want her to achieve what she can successfully achieve and she is not expected to live up to her siblings but to do the best she can do. Also try to talk to her about what she'd like to do, what her interests are, and try to look for ways to help her reach her goals even if they are not yours.

Wow, that's a tough situation.

I think you have two specific issues plus an attitude problem to address.

I can't do anything about my kids' attitudes -- they can feel and think how they want and there's no real way to change that -- but actions are a different story.

Grades below C are not acceptable in our home. The phone and probably many other privileges would be gone, and she would be having supervised study hall at home each night to at least get her to the lowest level of acceptable grade in all of her courses. We would help her either start using better study habits, relearn the material from us if she was confused, or get evaluated for learning challenges if she was still struggling and we couldn't figure out how to help.

Being completely aimless and unproductive with their time is also unacceptable for our kids. They need a plan for 1-3 activities outside of the home that they would like to participate in on a regular basis. They can pick, subject to our approval for cost, logistics, and appropriateness of the activity. We will provided advice if asked or if they seem stuck. At her age, the transition to adulthood is only 2-3 years away so she needs some sort of plan with short, intermediate, and long term goals in order to reach it. At this point, failure to plan is planning to fail. We would sit down with her and help her figure out what she wants to do and how to accomplish it.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. DD has never been that interested in getting great grades. She's solidly a "C" student and believes she's not capable of doing better. It's a cop out because when she gets a not so great report card, she buckles down and does better the next advisory.

The problem is that it doesn't stick long term. My DH and I have accepted that she's an average student. First report card this year was 2 B's, 4 C's and 1 D. That's typical. The newest report card: 1 C, 7 E's.

DD is 15 and a sophomore.

OP, I feel your pain. We just had a very similar report card with one of our kids. I don't have any specific advice to give, but I feel what you're going through, and it is not pleasant!!!!

OP here. Will explore summer school. Not happy about paying for it, so she will need to get a job and finance it herself for any classes she fails as a final grade.

All of my other children (including older DD) do well in school. Dealing with a teen who is not academically motivated is exhausting. I can't fathom not caring about being dumb ( or at least having grades that reflect not being smart).

When I was in school, my mom's rule was that she would not nag us about school as long as we got A's. Anything less, and she was allowed to nag as much as she wanted. My kids are too young, but I think this is the strategy I would try. Maybe draw a slightly lower line (B's?) and try that? Nag nag nag, take away electronics and time out with friends until homework is done, and hold out the nag-free line as a reward?

Anonymous wrote:No phone, no socializing outside of school. Summer school.

+1

Summer school. She doesn't get a social promotion. She takes all of those classes over and in the summer.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. DD has never been that interested in getting great grades. She's solidly a "C" student and believes she's not capable of doing better. It's a cop out because when she gets a not so great report card, she buckles down and does better the next advisory.

The problem is that it doesn't stick long term. My DH and I have accepted that she's an average student. First report card this year was 2 B's, 4 C's and 1 D. That's typical. The newest report card: 1 C, 7 E's.

DD is 15 and a sophomore.

Sounds like she is a "bare minimal effort" type of person. At 15, she is old enough to learn and know that it's expensive to live a cushy life. Do you sit down with her and go over what things cost? We have already started doing this with our 9 yr old, and explaining that to live the life DC has now, DC would need to earn a lot, which in most cases, requires a college degree. If she wants to continue with the "bare minimal effort", let her know that her quality of life will reflect that.

Does she get an allowance? Can you tie her grades to her allowance, paying her phone bill, etc.?

OP here. DD has never been that interested in getting great grades. She's solidly a "C" student and believes she's not capable of doing better. It's a cop out because when she gets a not so great report card, she buckles down and does better the next advisory.

The problem is that it doesn't stick long term. My DH and I have accepted that she's an average student. First report card this year was 2 B's, 4 C's and 1 D. That's typical. The newest report card: 1 C, 7 E's.

DD is 15 and a sophomore.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No extracurriculars, no sports. Spends her time on the phone or doing nothing. Has zero interest in doing well. Just complete lack of care about performing well. Cares more about her appearance and socializing. This is not a depression issue, it's an IDGAF issue and I'm at my wit's end!

She needs a plan. One she creates for herself, not dictated by anyone else. Support her when she figures out a plan, even if it is not the one you have envisioned for her. She doesn't see a future for herself right now, so she is trying to elongate the adolescent time frame and she is scared so she is acting like she doesn't care. I think therapy for her and parents would be a good idea. Ruling out depression is a good idea frequently IDGAF attitude is a coping mechanism for depression/anxiety. If you have not already done so, ruling out any other LDs would be good too. Letting go of your end of the rope is a good idea.

Out of the box things could a gap year where she works, is an exchange student, au pair.... Then CC.

Anonymous wrote:If she is not going to apply herself towards school with an eye towards college, then she needs to start planning for what she'll do instead. That means that effective immediately, she will need to get a job and pay rent and either a portion towards weekly groceries or buy her own food, and she'll need to pay for her phone plan. You'll support her as long as she stays in school and gets passing grades. If she fails, then she needs to provide income for household expenses. Tell her that she has one month to get her grades up to the passing level and if they are not, then she'll need to get a job and pay rent. If you want, you can put anything that she pays for room & board into a separate bank account which you can turn back over to her if she decides to go to college or needs tuition for a technical school, training school, whatever she decides to do.

She can opt to be lazy, but she'll have to pay for that privilege. Plus she'll have a head start on employment for when she graduates or fails to graduate. These days, it's very hard to make ends meet without even a diploma. And it is not a good life for someone who is lazy since many who do not have a diploma end up working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet.

NP - I am also having the exact problem with my DD. I could have written the post myself..scary! Anyway, I never thought about this option, but it's something to consider. DD wants a job, but I have been against it because I wanted her to focus on school, but that is not happening. So, she may as well get a job because at this point, I can't see her getting into a good college for her desired major.

If she is not going to apply herself towards school with an eye towards college, then she needs to start planning for what she'll do instead. That means that effective immediately, she will need to get a job and pay rent and either a portion towards weekly groceries or buy her own food, and she'll need to pay for her phone plan. You'll support her as long as she stays in school and gets passing grades. If she fails, then she needs to provide income for household expenses. Tell her that she has one month to get her grades up to the passing level and if they are not, then she'll need to get a job and pay rent. If you want, you can put anything that she pays for room & board into a separate bank account which you can turn back over to her if she decides to go to college or needs tuition for a technical school, training school, whatever she decides to do.

She can opt to be lazy, but she'll have to pay for that privilege. Plus she'll have a head start on employment for when she graduates or fails to graduate. These days, it's very hard to make ends meet without even a diploma. And it is not a good life for someone who is lazy since many who do not have a diploma end up working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet.

Is your child old enough to get a menial job, like in a fast food restaurant?

If she is, you should make her do this. I realize the job will detract from studying. However, she does it for a while, and then you explain that if she fails out of school, she can expect to do that for the rest of her life.

OP - Hard to comment on an anonymous board, but telling the age of our daughter and her grade level would help for some suggestions. Is there a Dad involved at all who might be a line of communication to her that may be difficult at this point for you? Think back to when this trend started or has school always been difficult for your daughter? You will have a larger, long-term problem if you do not help her figure things out. Not to dump on you, but this situation has obviously evolved as one of poor grades and her doing what she chose as she chose and what has been your previous response?

You might benefit first from some counseling on how to interact with your daughter and then involve her in the discussion, too. Living in the pressure filled area of DMV, maybe she needs to have some personal validation of herself as a person and her interests which others point out may not be in school all that much. However, you as her parent need to help her tie in the fact that school performance does matter in terms of life choices and options. Again the conversation and changes one might make with a 14 year old are very different from a 17 year old.

There are so many factors which might help her - but the route of how she is acting needs to be discerned first, and it could be an unknown physical condition as relatively simple as thyroid being off to a mental health issue or simply being in a funk and now feeling no way to dig herself out. Other ideas would be to look at what your expectations are for her to be doing in terms life skills in the home - she needs to have responsibilities there. Another would be to explore what kind of a part-time job would she like to seek or volunteer work for the summer because being at home on the couch and one the phone will not be happening? But there does need to be a plan or she could have even worse consequences. It sounds like she might benefit from a public or private summer school program if it could help her grades or how to study. If you have the money, then enroll her in appropriate camps - perhaps some away from home so she could get up and out on a scheduled routine. And be open to hearing what she wants to be doing and figuring out how to make it seem doable if even somewhat realistic. The four year, high powered college route is not the only road in town. And parenting, especially if you are a single parent, is a difficult role. Hang in there for both of you.

Lots of folks here are prepared to judge, including OP, but it won't help the situation. OP, this is a confrontation you cannot win. if you make it a battle of wills, your DD holds all the power. You cannot make her study. You can only push her away.

So you need to put down the weapons and try to figure out what is going on here. You say no LDs -- have you ever had her evaluated? This is not something a lay person can judge. Ditto depression -- teens, especially, can hide it well and you need a professional to make those calls.

If you rule all these things out, try having a honest conversation in which you don;t judge, you just listen. You may have to hold that conversation several times. She'll be on guard because she knows you want something from her that she doesn't want to give. You'll only get true information if you give her the sense you are truly open to it and not imposing your will.