<p>You are not alone. It’s a big problem for a lot of families. My boys were not interested in academics either. and it was difficult pushing them along the college track. If we were not a college set family, and they did not go to school where everyone went to college, I doubt they would have gone. Nothing to do with ability either. They too tested well, one outstanding, but just didn’t like school work, and frankly the idea of office work. Wanted to be free. </p>
<p>There really is little advice when you have kids like this–well, actually a lot of advice, but little that does any good and can be followed. These kids, mine and yours, are at high risk for drugs, illegal activities, just being bums. It’s too easy to morph into nothingness. What I did was pretty much make them work at job so they had something to do all of the time, take tough courses so they were challenged since they performed just as well on lower level courses, and keep them with peers that were college bound. I restricted social activities especially the free lance sort tightly. I see what loose high schoolers do with no place to go, nothing structured to do and it is not good. </p>
<p>Kids go through this insanity as they morph into adults, and most of us come out reasonably ok in the end. We just don’t want them to hurt themselves, ourselves and others during those crazy years. Keeping a structure is very helpful, and of course they absolutely hate it. I kept the structure in place even when I was tired of doing it. I was scared to let it loose and with good reason. Every slack I gave was rewarded with trouble for a while. </p>
<p>My cousin’s son was floating away doing nothing–brilliant kid who got his EAgle Scout designation at age 13 or so, and never got interested in any other activity. Tried a lot of them and dropped them very quickly. He has a job now after school and weekends at a nursing home, and is beginning to realize that this is not the life he wants to live. He’s actually looking more interested in the college viewbooks his mother leaves lying around, and was talking college when they visited us. His mother has told him she is fine with him continuing to work at the nursing home after graduation, but he would have to pay rent and car costs once he is out of school. The prospect is not tempting him in the least. The important thing is to be cheerful and not denouncing in making these pronouncement because these kids seem to really like to get our goats, which are easy to get. Part of the growing pains, as inevitable as labor pains. If you keep emotion and disdain out of your reactions and are accepting of some alternatives that are not attractive to the kids or to you, you have a bit more leverage. </p>
<p>A college that may interest a kid like your son is Cornell in Iowa. The one class at a time block system seems to get a lot of directionless kids more into the academics. Some just cannot focus on 4 subjects at the same time and throw it all into the winds, whereas they can focus on one thing at a time. Also taking just one course instead of a full load at a local school paired with a full time job might be a better route than investing money on a full semester somewhere if you well know the chances are poor that he will make it. On the other hand, if it looks like it just might fly, it may be a worthwhile investment to take a chance on it. </p>
<p>I looked for non traditional programs, things that were different since my kids were clearly not academic aficiandos. Throwing them into a higher level, less personal environment where they have to take even more accountability and responsibility for a bunch of courses they already hate did not seem to me to be a good idea. They all found programs at colleges that were very different from their college prep courses at high school, and that made a big difference I think in their approach to their new lives. They were just done with the traditional school by the time they were in high school.</p>