Suffer that kind of behavioral approach backfires in the long term.
Ok, thanks everyone! My parents are starting to change their ways based on tips like these. Really appreciate all the help!
Best of luck, @basedchem. In addition to encouraging your parents to back off a bit and let him make more of his own decisions, he might also consider taking a gap year. Some kids (like mine) just need more time to mature before they are ready for the responsibility of college. Kids also need to feel that college is their own decision, not their parents.’ It’s too expensive and too much work to be doing it for someone else. Taking ownership is key, even if it leads him in directions your parents aren’t envisioning.
Hi,
I’m also a junior too, and I find that the best way to motivate someone is to show them how important doing well is for college, and the rest of life too. My dad used to try motivating me by telling me “go study, look at your friends, they have 4.0 GPAs.” Needless to say, instead of motivating me, that just annoyed me and made my willingness to study even less. Your parents should talk to him and ask him “Do you want to work at McDonalds?” or something else that would bring him to his sense and motivate him to work harder in school. Also, instead of pushing him toward activities, your parents should find his passion (basically, something he doesn’t hate to do) in a subject and have him develop his talent in that area. At least, that’s what I did, and great things happened.
I agree with @mommyrocks.
Your brother might be interested in exploring the business side of the video game industry. He might enjoy taking a look at where the money comes from and where it goes, and how different contributors get paid for their contributions. Maybe he would be interested in reaching out to professionals in the video game industry, and maybe ask them cool questions that he can publish as interviews, which will bring a lot of positive recognition.
This is the kind of work I do with students. I try to get them to see the business side of the things they love so they can get involved in ways that most high school kids aren’t doing, which can help them stand out on their college applications…
Do you think that’s the sort of thing that would motivate him, since he’s into video games to begin with?
You can PM offline if you want to bounce some ideas.
@basedchem,
I sent you a PM
I had a brother like yours and he was put through college but barely passed. Long story short, my parents got fed up with him because he was 23 years old, had a degree, and was working at Staples. So they kicked him out and now he had to live by himself for the first time. He got his shit together and now he has an apartment and a respectable job. He is doing much better now that he experienced the real world.