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I am also leaning toward to having my "own" boring assignments for him to do when he tells me there is no homework. Make him do homework daily wether it be MINE or the teachers.
Anything else to add?
I like that idea. If I was your son, I probably would wait you out a bit, but then would totally start doing my real homework...especially if your work was worse.
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Originally Posted by momtothree
He is in high school. I did try emailing his teachers but they emailed back that he knows very well what the assignments are and that he needs to inform me of it. I understand what the teachers are saying, he is old enough to do this on his own. This is HIGH SCHOOL.
I am thinking that I am cutting his 3 hours of computer time to only on weekend for an hour or so.
I do like the dry erase board and will look into that. He is getting all new teachers next week and I will be emailing them all to see if I get a different reponse. Maybe ask how often will they assign homework and take it from there. (his school does split scheduling-he takes 4 classes for the first 2 quarters and the other 4 classes the last 2 quarters-this week it is finals for his four classes)
I am also leaning toward to having my "own" boring assignments for him to do when he tells me there is no homework. Make him do homework daily wether it be MINE or the teachers.
Anything else to add?
It's important that you aren't doing any work or any organizing for him, just that you do not give him any peace until he has done it himself.
I totally understand the teacher's response that your son should not need help from his mother with his assignments, but I would expect a bit more cooperation from someone who should recognize that a concerned parent is trying to fix a gifted student's attitude problem.
I do not think it would be unreasonable to get a copy of the syllabus so that your son can't hide anything from you.
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Originally Posted by bibit612
What we did was device a pay-for-performance incentive program based on a permutation of A's & B's. The dollars are significant...on a good semester, my 9th grader can take home $750, my son in 7th grade as much as $400. These amounts are not for them to spend...they are being banked as future downpayment for their cars. They have been told that the less downpayment they have, the clunkier or older their cars would be.
Jimbo and Regarese - steal all you want...glad to be of help! Raising teens is a whole new arena, and all parents could benefit from sharing what works. Down here, they can get learner's permits at 15 1/4. She just turned 14 last month, so she understands that the more money she can rack up, the sooner she'll get her car. Boy, she has expensive taste, and she knows it. By God, she is working for her toys as far as I'm concerned!
Punishing him won't help but rewarding him for good grades might.
My children are both in GT programs, and like you have moved from schools up north where they coasted through GT. Like your son, neither one of them would go to the regular classes, although we would have forced them there if they had C's. What we did was device a pay-for-performance incentive program based on a permutation of A's & B's. The dollars are significant...on a good semester, my 9th grader can take home $750, my son in 7th grade as much as $400. These amounts are not for them to spend...they are being banked as future downpayment for their cars. They have been told that the less downpayment they have, the clunkier or older their cars would be. This works for everyone all around as hubby and I feel that regardless of their grades, we would have to get them vehicles for college, esp. if they would be out of state, or even in-state but not live at home. Why not make them earn it at the get-go?
We are also encouraging my daughter to shoot for AP classes as soon as she could (probably as a junior). She understands that they are harder, but the more AP credits she can get, the shorter her college stay would be, the less of what we have appropriated for her can go to tuition and will go to her instead. I think the trick is to make them understand that they will eventually be responsible for something in the future and that their performance today affects that future truly and absolutely. My daughter has been advised that she would be responsible for her share of auto insurance at that time. However, if she gets scholarships, the money we would have used as tuition, we would pay instead toward her insurance so she doesn't have to work part time to pay for it. Whenever you can, throw the repercussions of their actions now to their life in the future. If you paint a scenario for them where they will have to work harder then than now, I think they would rather work harder now.
We did this as well. We told him if he maintains a B average in all his classes, he will get a computer of his own at the end of the year.
He gets a 90 or above on final exams this week, I will get him an expansion pack he has been wanting. He picked the 90 as he says he can get that on all his exams.
When my son has issues with completing assignments, I fall back to the "have the teacher sign a note saying you did your assignemnts" rule. Basically my son has to write a note that says "So and So" has completed all assignments for mm/dd/yy" Then he has to take this up to all his teachers and have them sign it. If he comes home without the signatures, he looses privilages & does the missing assignment. No arguments.... if it is two days in a row, he looses privialges, does the assignments and has manual labor... three days... I guess I'd probably banish him to his room.... it has never gone that far.
Honestly, I think that EVERYONE who has posted advice so far is right on track. Such helpful and insightful advice!
I like the money idea too. I once had a boyfriend whose mother did this with her children. She even offered the deal to ME! Unfortunately, I didn't take her up on this. I think she offered $100.00 for every "A" on a report card.
Why is he in honors? If he's not doing the work, he should be booted out! I'm against honors classes altogether.
An A average in regular classes looks better to a C average in honors classes.
We tell our kids that they HAVE to go to college. They're raised with this idea, it's not a choice. They know that to do so, you can't have less than a B average. If you want to choose your school, you'd better be a 3.5 or higher. What school they go to is THIER choice. We definitely didn't raise our kids that they're automatically getting a car.
The $ amounts are highway robbery in my opinion! They get $5 per A, $4 per B, and nothing for C's. If they get lower than a C (only happened once in 5th grade), we determine the cause and get help accordingly (tutor, etc). If they're just lazy, they lose privileges. PERIOD. Their ONLY job right now is SCHOOL. They can't watch TV, play games, drive a car, or do anything until the grades come up. Tough love is the only way around this one I'm afraid. They'll thank you later (in their 30's), but it will be worth it.
Don't worry about being the "friend-parent", just be the parent.
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Raising teens is a whole new arena, and all parents could benefit from sharing what works. Down here, they can get learner's permits at 15 1/4. She just turned 14 last month, so she understands that the more money she can rack up, the sooner she'll get her car. Boy, she has expensive taste, and she knows it. By God, she is working for her toys as far as I'm concerned!
