How do you motivate a 14 year old to care about school?

Parent Cafe
37

<ol>
<li>Breathe. He is fine. He is a 14 year old boy. Of course he isn’t interested in homework. </li>
<li>Remove the cellphone from his hot little hands during homework time.</li>
<li>The homework computer/laptop has to be in a part of your home where you can (very casually) keep an eye on it.</li>
<li>Homework is NOT EVER done upstairs, in his room, in the basement, or in a place where there are distractions like nerf basketball. Set up a spot that is sort of quiet, but where you can (very casually) see what is going on. He should not be able to watch TV where he is sitting. That completely unused dining room table is ideal.</li>
<li>Be very clear, and be absolutely sure he understands, the relationship betweeen bad grades and sports participation. Most high schools have a clear policy.</li>
<li>Set an agreed time for him to do homework. After dinner, maybe.</li>
<li>Be available, but not helicoptery. An occasional, “How’s it going?” is enough. That will jerk him back into the moment, give him a chance to ask for help, and not be too intrusive.</li>
<li>Be very sure that he is in classes appropriate for his developmental level. Not the classes you think he <em>should</em> be taking, no the classes his older sibling took, not the classes your friends’ kids are in, but the classes that are right for him.</li>
<li>Look (without making him or yourself crazy) for issues that might also be contributing to this. Probably there aren’t any, but listen and look.</li>
<li>Back off. He has to do this himself.</li>
</ol>

<p>I have a very smart, very stubborn, very athletic, very anti-homeworky daughter. As a hs junior she is fine. But up through seventh grade she was awful, in terms of homework and working to her ability. What changed?

  1. She got older.
    ***<strong><em>2. We took her out of the gifted math class she had tested into. </em></strong> This was the single most important thing we did for her! Her grades were OK, but it took too much effort for her to maintain. She avoided ALL homework because she didn’t want to do that math homework. That single class affected everything else in her life.
  2. I backed off homework patrol, and let her flail a bit.</p>