How do I deal with my teenage son

securityguy

All the talk about apprenticeships and jobs appears to skip around the key issue:

What qualifications does he actually have?

What qualifications does he have a realistic chance of obtaining in the immediate future?

What are he and you doing to improve matters?

Mojisola

securityguy wrote: »

All the talk about apprenticeships and jobs appears to skip around the key issue:

What qualifications does he actually have?

What qualifications does he have a realistic chance of obtaining in the immediate future?

What are he and you doing to improve matters?

And what has the school done to help a student who has been failing for years?

securityguy

Mojisola wrote: »

And what has the school done to help a student who has been failing for years?

Quite.

Although I'm afraid my sympathy for people who have teenage children with no qualifications and simply adopt a sanguine "well, he always hated school and failed all his exams, but what can you do?" attitude is pretty limited. Any child who arrives at the end of compulsory education with no qualifications should have been the subject of multiple interventions, and even if not actively statemented should at least have been the target of School Action Plus. Unless the school is run by idiots, or the parents have colluded in total inaction, there should have been at each stage when it was obvious things were going wrong a proposal about what to do. If there wasn't, then the parents should move the child to a school that isn't run by a useless shower.

When it became obvious, OP, that your son was going to fail all his exams, what did you actually do about it?

alwaysworried_2

he has always struggled at school. When he was at primary school they gave him additional support and I asked for extra homework for him. His dad and I would sit with him to help him with his school work, sometimes he would get it, sometimes he didn't. We didn't push him with it, if we felt he was getting overwhelmed with it, we would take a step back.

just before he went to high school there was a meeting between the primary and the high school and ourselves, where a plan was discussed to put in place to help him with his work. I also arranged to get a private tutor for him twice a week (son said he did need help with his school works so was happy for this as well), the tutor went on for 36 months. When he was seeing the tutor, the tutor said he was a boy who could do better if he wanted to, but the impression he got was that he just wanted to chat and didn't want to work unless it suited him!!!
When the time came for him to choose his subjects for 3rd and 4th year another meeting was called, with the school and his teachers and myself and husband. The school still kept the additional support in but advised it would be better for him to chose subjects that weren't as overwhelming and wouldn't give him a big work load.
there would be times when he would sit tests and do well, the other times when he would do appalling. All his teachers agreed that he could apply himself more if he wanted to based on his test result through 3rd and 4th year. When he sat his final exams last year, he just passed and no more, but (before anyone comes down on me like a tonne of bricks) we didn't say anything about him just passing. We made a big fuss of him, and other members of the family made a big fuss of him too.

I feel I've tried my best throughout his school years to help and support him and I still want to continue supporting him, so I am open to suggestions if anyone else can think of something. maybe it is just time for me to take a step back and let him choose himself, I am after all all just a mum.

alwaysworried_2

I should also point out, he was in the lowest classes for all his subjects. he has had one to one teaching whilst in school and when he spoke to his guidance teacher he told her he would like to work in a gym so she told him what he would need to get entry into college but he doesn't have these exam results and I've tried to explain that he will need to try to get better results if he wants to work in a gym and also to try and get him to maybe even join a gym to work out a bit, get to know some of the people that work in the gym and as I said even if he asked to do some voluntary work even one hour a week just to get a little bit of experience. trying to get a job these days for young people is so hard.

fivetide

So he basically sounds a bit idle. No offence but given your reports from school it isn't necessarily a lack of ability it is simply a lack of motivation on his part.

Aside from that, think about the good stuff. He's not out all night and coming home blind drunk or getting in trouble so that's good.

He's playing games on the PlayStation not sealed up on the internet looking at god knows what 24 hours a day.

If he likes talking to people etc what about steerign him towards some sort of social work? could you volunteer together for something? I don't know, working at a food shelter one weekend so he can see how much he has compared to some?

What about makign a deal with him on Australia, every £10 he earns you'll give him a fiver or something? Just something to frankly, get him off his backside

balletshoes

Brighton_belle wrote: »

He's getting into his pyjamas by 5pm? That seems very odd to me.

Not to me ~ we all do it in my house if we have no plans to go out after work/school.

Threebabes

Boys!! Who'd have them...

My son is 18 and in the middle of resitting Year 12. I do feel they lack a maturity to girls.

We are wanting him to concentrate on his studies and wait till university before looking for work.

We have paid for his driving lessons and even changed the car so we can get him put on the insurance. Do we get a thank you......... no.

All I can say is you are not alone.

Mojisola

alwaysworried wrote: »

His dad and I would sit with him to help him with his school work, sometimes he would get it, sometimes he didn't.

When he was seeing the tutor, the tutor said he was a boy who could do better if he wanted to, but the impression he got was that he just wanted to chat and didn't want to work unless it suited him!!!

there would be times when he would sit tests and do well, the other times when he would do appalling. All his teachers agreed that he could apply himself more if he wanted to based on his test result through 3rd and 4th year.

I do sympathise. It's extremely frustrating trying to help someone who has the ability but won't apply themselves. I've worked, as a volunteer in school, with a young man like this - one day he could breeze through the work, the next time he would look blankly at similar stuff as if he'd never seen it before and couldn't make sense of it.

He had a very laid-back, easy-going attitude to life and was very likeable. Unlike most youngsters who are affected by failing at school, it didn't seem to worry him at all.

I don't think the school was ever able to get him to focus. The teachers ended up hoping that, at some point, he would want something enough to apply himself and work at it but they couldn't make him do it.

I don't think there's an easy answer - it may be that you have to step back until he realises that his future is dependent on what effort he's prepared to make. Very hard on you!

[Deleted User]

securityguy wrote: »

Then he'll need a numerate degree, with the real shortage being in people who can code but also have postgraduate qualifications in physics. Computer science degrees usually require A Level maths (there are a handful of exceptions, but in general those that don't wouldn't come close to equipping you for work in the games industry) and the degrees in "Game Design" and so on are quite competitive and there is some question as to how attractive the graduates are.

Given this is a discussion about someone who appears to have failed all his GCSEs and doesn't have GCSE English or Maths, graduate careers involving A Level maths seem a little unrealistic.

Writing someone off at 16 because they're unmotivated and not doing well is a pretty dreadful thing to do. At no point has his mother said that he couldn't do well, just that he doesn't. If he wanted to study any of those things that you have mentioned, he has plenty of time to do that.

If something were to capture or grab his interest the I'm sure he would apply himself.