My son doesn't like schoolwork and doesn't see the point of it. He did poorly in some of his classes but then scored 1570 on his first SAT and 5s on all his APs.
What I see is a person who only does what pleases him and that doesn't fly in the workplace. This has panned out on his first job where he showed up late and demonstrated a lack of enthusiasm. It was a retail job he inherited from his sister when she left for college.

He has basically said that whatever he does, it has to be something he went after. In an ideal world that would be great we don't live in an ideal world. There are times of grunt labor and certainly a junior intern will be given unexciting work. Am I right that it's discipline and grit that is lacking?
I can't do anything about this attitude. It seems so entitled.

I just wanted to respond this from a PP:
“The problem has always been in DC that there's not much in between the private schools and the over-enrolled and under-staffed publics.”

So I have a really happy 10th grader at Templeton Academy (private, lower cost) In downtown DC. I do think of it as being in the “in-between” mentioned above. The kids are conscientious but truly not competitive with each other. It’s a project based learning model (officially it’s called Gold Standard PBL) and they really emphasize working together, in groups, on things they find meaningful… my kid is right now doing algebra II project combing thru DC crime statistics. And his English class in his 2nd half of freshman year was about dystopian worlds. It’s cool and interesting. Kids are smart and engaged.

It’s a micro-school, about 15 kids per grade and is by no means for everyone but just wanted folks to know it exists. (And, they always accept a few mid-year students. They are happy to welcome kids who are miserable and want to try a new way. 2nd semester starts Feb 2nd. Not too late to reach out to them, I asked this week.)

And yes my kid is socially happy there. Has a group of like minded kids that cuts across grade levels. They get Taco Bell, and do fantasy football, just normal teen social stuff.

Anonymous wrote:I have a 15 yo DD freshman. She started on time in VA with an October birthday. Many are 15 in 9th grade. She also hates school.

My older son, recently graduated, hated school from K-12. So did DH and so did I. None of us needed therapy or medication.

It’s a grind and there’s a lot that’s not enjoyable about school. Some people love going and others just don’t.

Now, there were parts some of us liked. I liked my sports teams and so did my son. My daughter likes her friends and seeing them. I don’t think my husband liked anything about school.

My son is going to college for a major he wants to do and a career he wants to go into. That is the motivation for him. He still doesn’t like classes and doesn’t have to but sees the endgame to get the degree and training.

DH and I went to college for similar reasons.

Alternatively, college isn’t for everyone. And the value of many college degrees is about to plummet due to AI.

Too many of you are overly-fixated on college for your kids, when you should be more concerned about their future well-being and what’s best for them (it is not always college).

Anonymous wrote:You should remind him that school is his 40-hour-per-week job. Yeah, it is a pain, but we all have to do it. So he should stop complaining and concentrate on choosing rewarding hobbies to do in his spare time... Cooking? Hiking? Woodworking? Tennis? Photography? Gym? Guitar? Rock climbing? Fishing?

It's more than 40 hours a week.

I could have written this except we're not in a private. 15 yo freshman DS is not thrilled about school except he likes one class. He doesn't see the point of the grind and competition just to go to the next level of the grind and competition.

His career aspirations are all over the place and mostly based on earning potential, but it's still not quite enough motivation to be a star student.

He's an introvert who has a few good friends but isn't engaged in extracurriculars at school, though has some hobbies he enjoys out of school.

I was an introverted extrovert who prioritized extracurriculars but also wanted to do well enough at school to go to a certain tier of college. So I white-knuckled through the school day so I could thrive in my afterschool activities, and that, plus stellar SAT and AP scores, got me into a competitive college.

He's very different, and it's so hard to figure out how to motivate him.

So OP, all of that to say I hear you. This is definitely not an easy year for boys, in my experience.

Explore new interests and keep the communication going. If the conversations are not with you or another family member then consider putting him in therapy. Make sure he knows how much you love him and that you are tuned into getting help for whatever he needs. He could be going through the hormonal roller coaster of puberty.

I am seeing similar in my house too! Voice is cracking, emotions are all over the place, doesn’t want to do much else but stare at a screen…find fun moments, which can be as small as a walk and talk (or just listen to him) through your neighborhood like others suggested. Take care of yourself too.

And definitely YES with physical activity. All humans need, especially teens, especially people feeling down. Go for walk with him for 30-40mins after dinner at least. Send him to do errands for you by foot (eg pick up some more dish soap at Safeway).

When my kids says this, I say "Okay, yeah, screw school. Let's take you out of it. We can just do homeschool and travel anywhere in the world. Where should we go to??" Then she gets scared and backtracks because one year we actually did that and she wasn't a fan. LOL. I hate school too though :/

I just make sure there's always a few really fun weekend things planned. Sometimes I take my kid to an all ages concert that she wants, or we have a trip somewhere, or we go to a professional sport game. Use that as motivation. "Finish all your hw so we can go to XYZ".

Also talking to your kid about the content of their learning, the books they're reading etc. And integrating into relevant convos helps. It shows that what they're learning is useful. Also if you can talk about things adjacent to their learning subjects but that are more interesting to them. Show everything connects.

My kids has a club they really like and that's a big motivator. Maybe encourage him to try some new extracurriculars or electives to see if there's something that really clicks with him.

Anonymous wrote:You should remind him that school is his 40-hour-per-week job. Yeah, it is a pain, but we all have to do it. So he should stop complaining and concentrate on choosing rewarding hobbies to do in his spare time... Cooking? Hiking? Woodworking? Tennis? Photography? Gym? Guitar? Rock climbing? Fishing?

My mom tried this like on me and said that school would be the best time in my life and enjoy it before I had to work. The opposite was true. I loved it when school was over and work started. It was so much easier having a full time job, even a low paying one, and getting PAID. I don’t understand how parents tell kids school is there job when they are sitting there, all day, and then have HW and don’t get paid.

I have a 15 yo DD freshman. She started on time in VA with an October birthday. Many are 15 in 9th grade. She also hates school.

My older son, recently graduated, hated school from K-12. So did DH and so did I. None of us needed therapy or medication.

It’s a grind and there’s a lot that’s not enjoyable about school. Some people love going and others just don’t.

Now, there were parts some of us liked. I liked my sports teams and so did my son. My daughter likes her friends and seeing them. I don’t think my husband liked anything about school.

My son is going to college for a major he wants to do and a career he wants to go into. That is the motivation for him. He still doesn’t like classes and doesn’t have to but sees the endgame to get the degree and training.

DH and I went to college for similar reasons.

I think most kids hate school. Who doesn't with endless deadlines and lots of work? In the end, they should find something that they enjoy. Sometimes there's a cool teacher who makes a class interesting, but it's more likely to be an extra-curricular activity (clubs, sports, drama, choir etc.) that makes kids feel that they fit in, that they "represent" the school, that they're part of it. At the end of the day, kids like HS experience when they feel that they belong.

You should remind him that school is his 40-hour-per-week job. Yeah, it is a pain, but we all have to do it. So he should stop complaining and concentrate on choosing rewarding hobbies to do in his spare time... Cooking? Hiking? Woodworking? Tennis? Photography? Gym? Guitar? Rock climbing? Fishing?

Take him out of Private school.

Why in the world are you paying for that?

Is he used to homework? Mine had none in public MS and then hours in private HS. He said he hated school too.

OP here. Thanks for the helpful posts, including book recs and ideas about exploring what crossovers there are between individual and shared activities. The point about my needing to be more thoughtful about arranging what were once playdates but are now "hangouts" is important for me to remember, because we don't have the benefit of the unplanned neighborhood drop in.

As for having gone private, we live in DC and have cycled through blocks of time at public and then private. Public elementary was a good fit, private middle was a good fit, and I think, overall, it will be true for high school too.
And yes--as someone mentions, we noticed a growing difference between when his older sister was at the middle school he attended and how the hard-driving (and richer) parents started to change the atmosphere. The problem has always been in DC that there's not much in between the private schools and the over-enrolled and under-staffed publics. Our friends with kids at Walls and Duke and Banneker have kids who are pretty down on school, too. The public high school we're zoned for is way too big and overwhelming for a kid like him who'd get lost in the noise, and while, yes, it would be much easier and with much less homework, that's would cause different kinds of stress in that chaotic an environment and will catch him up with increased stress in postsecondary ed. (College prof here, seeing more of this in the era of the turn-in-nothing, still get a 50% environment that affects the whole class' approach to learning. But I also see the flip side of the students who crack after so many years of academic pressure, once they're somewhat on their own, and so we've tried to be smart about the high school situation and make sure it was his choice. And the young men in college, in particular? So many of them are struggling emotionally.) It's all tough.

And no, I don't want to "drug him up" or "fix" him. To be frank, there's a long line of depression and anxiety from both sides of the family (also, migraines! Great genetics, mom and dad!), and my GP actually told me to talk frankly to both of my kids about it and be open with how and when they're feeling more down than usual. It's part of why I posed the question here, to get some outside perspective. It's a good sign to me that he and I have been talking about this together and trying to think through what might help.

I don't need him to love school or get high marks or be anyone he's not. I absolutely do not care if he gets into a "top" college or even decides not to go immediately (or never, if he finds something he loves instead). (With the way things are going in higher ed, who even knows if colleges will still exist or matter in the same way we think it does now, in three years...). I'd like for him to feel good enough about things that he could try new things and be open to learning, and maybe find his way to something that's intrinsically meaningful to him, and so I'm just trying to find ways to support him in that journey at what I know isn't the easiest developmental time of life.

Thanks again for the support here.