High School Son & Grades

[ks8829]

My 15 year old son is a good kid, but he did not achieve the grades that he is capable of earning this semester what do you do?

My son goes to private school and he received the following grades this semester:

B Science
B Church History
B English
B Art
C Geometry
D language

How do you motivate a sophmore to do better in school? He plays basketball for his school and golf for the varsity along with outside basketball team. Do I take away his sport activities.

[motteler621]

he didnt do that bad except for language. Just ask him why he got that grade and get his story and go from there.

[jamo]

I just graduated from High School last week so I feel like I should have an answer for you, but my parents never really motivated me much for school and my grades were always A's and B's. So I don't know what to tell you. I just never liked the feeling of seeing a C or a D on a test or a paper, and I was intrinsically motivated by my will to be proud of my work. So much so that I made sure I never got a C or a D on a report card. I don't think taking things away is the answer though, that just creates anger towards you. Try rewarding him when he does better. Like buy him a new driver or something if he gets 2 A's on his next report car.

[Colinb913]

Trust me. I am a Junior in High School, and just had that same problem last year. My parents cornered me, and talked to me about my future, and really opened up my eyes. They did take away some of the freedom with friends, but did NOT take away any sports. Do NOT take away his sports. You really have no idea how much sports mean to a young kid. My parents talked about taking lacrosse away from me, and if they did that, then my grades probably would have dropped more. You need to keep atleast C's to make a sport team.

[ks8829]

Thanks for your feeback. I will try to reward him instead of being negative too much. I have talked to him about the path he is heading towards with difficulty getting into good colleges. He will start Monday morning for a SAT preparation class over the summer.

The class he got a D in was with a teacher that was hard to understand and he said some of the student were cheating to get good grades. We had him talk with his counselor and she arrange for a tuitor but he never follow up and got help with the tuitor.

In middle school his grades were between 3.25 - 3.75. I am just worried that he is starting to slip in the wrong direction especially in this critical part of High School when grades count towards college.

[WUTiger]

I'm a college professor in a business school, so I hear this story a lot.

One thing may be a problem of goal alignment .
* Does your son have the same goals for himself that you do? How much does he think about the future?
* Do you envision him going to med school, while he talks about majoring in business and selling real estate?
* Does he have a plan for getting into college? What does he want to do five years from now?

If he can't see beyond the day-to-day circus, he may not be focused on the long term.

Also, make sure his life has not become overly cluttered. School basketball and outside basketball may be a bit much, if the outside Bb is during the school year.

Related to clutter is time management. Golf is a time challenge for students in HS and college, because you must play when the sun's out. And, spring district and conference tournaments can eat up quite a bit of time in a given week. Any chance his language class was in the afternoon, and he missed it several times for matches?

I would suggest you frame your inquiries to stress that you're trying to help him succeed, and set long term goals. If he has hopes of playing sports in college, emphasize to him that prioritizing goals and good time management is critical to the student-athlete combo.

Funny thing about motivation, is that the guys in psychology department tell us you can't directly motivate another person. Motivation is internal. What you can do, however, is created conditions in another person's environment which foster internal motivation.

Enough of my ramblings on motivation. If you have other specifics, dad, send me a PM.

[dblbgy17]

Trust me. I am a Junior in High School, and just had that same problem last year. My parents cornered me, and talked to me about my future, and really opened up my eyes. They did take away some of the freedom with friends, but did NOT take away any sports.

i'm not a parent, so take this advice with a grain of salt but i have helped my mom in raising my 12yrs younger brother. he's a very smart kid but also a very free spirit. we love to encourage his free spirit b/c we feel it's very important to be your own person...but not at the cost of your future. he had a few semesters when he slipped up a bit, i think mostly due to lack of organization. we sat him down and did as colin mentioned above. we expressed how important it is to keep your grades up b/c it opens doors, gives you more options. even if you decide to become a rock star or backpack across europe, at this stage in life you need those grades. otherwise, if the rock star thing doesn't work out, you'll end up flipping burgers at mcdonald's.

and unless your kid is an athletic phenom, he'll need to get into college in order to progress. he won't be able to play without those grades. i think sports are a great tool for a young person to learn. sports teach us so much about life, one of which is balance. i know whenever my sports were in season, i buckled down even more than usual b/c i knew i wouldn't have the time to screw around. your kid sounds like a good kid, with a little help...he'll figure it out.

[Shorty]

He goes to a school where they study "Church History". That sets the alarm bells ringing for me.

[MrSlice]

For me school was one of those things I just had to learn my own discipline to do well

[senorchipotle]

He goes to a school where they study "Church History". That sets the alarm bells ringing for me.

lol... i was thinking the same thing. but it's the u.s., we have lots of parochial schools here. and often they have the best academic programs. i went to catholic school myself until first grade, only to find out that i'd been learning math and reading two grades above public school level. so, there are trade offs.

OP... i'd try to get him more organized, and on a more regimented schedule. get him to write out short term and long term goals, and a planner in which he writes all his activities for the next day and checks them off. but most of all he needs to understand is even now, he is responsible for his actions. he probably doesn't realize it now but all those actions carry weight, everything matters. get him to read this thread as well.

[DaSportsGuy]

I'll be a Junior next school year so maybe I can relate.

Honestly, when my parents ground me or take away something I just want to show them up and make them think it doesn't bother me(usually it does I just don't want to show it) so if it happens again they won't take the same thing away.

What I would do is just talk to him and ask him what the deal is in his class(es). Then take it from their depending on his response. Let him know that he needs to make an effort to improve his grade(s) or you're going to need to give him extra motivation by taking away some recreational that he enjoys.

[ks8829]

Thanks very much for all your feedback, they are all helpful and I am grateful for everyone taking the time to send in your comments. I will have my son read this tread.

[gogolfing]

As a high school counselor I deal with this all the time. As said earlier, does your son have goals? Sitting down and discussing this is important, and then mapping out a path to those goals is needed. The goals don't necessarily have to be strictly academic either. There is a lot of transference of skills in reaching goals. He may have goals related to his sports, and reaching these goals and the discipline it takes to get there will show him what it takes. As well, time management is important. Have set times at home for study and review so they are just part of the routine, and with just doing this his grades should improve. And finally, he is in high school and maturity comes in time for most; I remember having a lot of fun in high school, and the grades weren't always that good, but I eventually matured and graduated with honors from University, and I think there are a lot of adults who went through the same process; if he is a good person and has a decent work ethic, things will turn out fine.

Good luck.

[Meddle]

Does he do homework, or at least, do you have a time set aside where he has to do homework, like an hour after he comes back from school? The more studying and homework you do, the higher your grades will be. That is a set rule at every level of education.

[RedCard03]

Hey did pretty in my opinion, and i think you should ask him whats going on with language. To each his own......

[NormH3]

Make sure Twisted Sister isn't living in his bedroom.

Sorry..couldn't resist. He sounds like a good kid and I'm sure with the proper parenting (and it sounds as if you are doing well) he will most likely be OK. We went through similar things with 2 daughters and both are doing well in a career and college. Perhaps with the assistance of the educators that responded, you will get through this without issue.

[Laxplayer201092]

my thoughts and how my parents handled me in this situation..

i got fantastic grades mostly in middle school, had a 3.5 my freshman year, 3.0 sophmore, then dropped to a 2.0 my junior and pulled pretty much a 1.9 my senior year. Now, i got a 27 on my ACT and can talk circles around half the kids in the top ten, but there is a serious lack of motivation in your average high school kid. He will give you the argument of its just school, what does this mean towards my life blah blah. You will counter with this is how people will view you as you try to get into college. thats what my parents did atleast.. Now your son seems to be on the college route, so our paths differ a good deal, but i can say that i graduated a month ago, got my diploma, and have not seen how my poor grades negatively affected my life as of yet. Perhaps trying a bit harder in german would have helped, but nothing else has brought up its relevance to leading an average life.

As for taking things away, my parents took my phone for a semester, they took away golf, took away lacrosse, took the car, all the usuals. My grades got worse during these periods, and i was in a much worse place because now i had bad grades (which addmitedly didnt affect me too much) but had nothing else to do. so please, dont take his stuff. It ultimately is his decision and he needs to make his own mistakes and learn from them, not from what you can always tell him

and just for the record, i spent every day during lacrosse season afterschool getting help from my chemistry and math teachers and still failed chem and barely barely passed math with a 68%.. so its not like hard work is always rewarded.

Hope this helped somehow.

[Shanks A Million]

He goes to a school where they study "Church History". That sets the alarm bells ringing for me.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.