• This topic has 37 replies, 28 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by cbike.
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  • Fatherly advice needed for 15 year old son…school work / attitude
  • rosscopeco
    Free Member

    Looking for some advise in terms of dealing with my 15 year old son.

    He’s smart, intelligent, good looking (ahem), well respected amongst his peers and adults in our social sphere however….he’s not mature in terms of his school peers and today we got the first ever call from the school. His attitude is quickly regressing. If he doesn’t get it sorted within the next few weeks then it’s all uphill as prelims and exams are just round the corner…4th year Scottish school system. The real fear is that if he’s does;t improve then the school may not present him for the exams….

    His social circle is good, he mixes with the smartest kids in the school and (as far as we know) he’s on the straight and narrow in relation to the usual vices of 15 year old kids.

    We’ve encouraged / talked / cajoled / implored / cried with him but to no avail. We’ve gone through all the usual things like removing his privileges / rewarding good attitude but they don’t seem to have much effect after an initial flurry of positive activity.

    He’s never been the most ‘compliant’ kid (a bit like his old man) but we always eventually get through to him and he has an amazing ability to apologise ‘properly’ when he calms down.

    Anyways….any advise re getting the message through? Cheers

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Take him for a day trip to the nearest University city.
    Sit in a bar with him for an hour and let him soak up the atmosphere as lots of attractive young students go about their business.

    Next day, spend an hour with him in the waiting room of the local DSS office. Let him soak up the atmosphere as lots of “customers” go about their business

    Let him choose for himself which one he likes best.

    Edit: The rewards that kids are promised for performing well in school are very often abstract in the extreme.
    Telling a 12 year old kid that they’ll get “a good job” means nothing to them. They’ve never had a job.
    Telling then they’ll “be able to go to Uni” is equally abstract as they have no experience to judge the value of that against.
    Just try and make the possible outcomes real by exposing him to the realities a tiny bit.

    BillMC
    Full Member

    ^^^ very good advice indeed.

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    steve-g
    Free Member

    PP – that is pure genius

    allan23
    Free Member

    We’ve encouraged / talked / cajoled / implored / cried with him but to no avail. We’ve gone through all the usual things like removing his privileges / rewarding good attitude but they don’t seem to have much effect after an initial flurry of positive activity.

    Tried letting him talk to you?

    PPs advice is pretty good, but I remember being 15 and no one knew what I wanted or cared. School, family and everyone banging on about a future I didn’t really know about and didn’t want to happen, I’d possibly have just switched off to anything if it was just another adult trying to push me to something I didn’t know if I wanted.

    15 year old was a really sh!tty age 🙂

    Came out right in the end, but if someone had just backed off and let me try and express what I didn’t have a clue I was feeling it might have been a bit easier.

    joshvegas
    Free Member

    Dad? Is that you?

    Oh no wait… good looking… i’m oot.

    iainc
    Full Member

    ours is 13 and in 3rd yr (also Scotland). We had similar issues last year and it was impacting Nat 5 class selection. Tried most of what you have and worked a little, the biggest motivator seems to have been that we have said he will get £100 for each A in his Nat 5’s, so he could end up with £700. Good old fashioned bribery……

    mudshark
    Free Member

    My brother-in-law wanted to drop out of school when he was 15 saying he’d be happy working on a building site. So his parents got him a summer job in one. He’s now doing pretty well in IT….

    nickc
    Full Member

    I think you’re probably doing all the right things TBH. Keep the encouragement up, have the regimes in place. (homework first and downstairs, not in room, activities outside school regular events at regular times) etc etc.

    Like PP’s advice..! 😆

    RoterStern
    Free Member

    PP’s advice is excellent. I also have a 15 year old son with similar issues but it is quite easy to scare him as Mrs Stern’s younger brother is an absolute waister (Penner in German) and spends his days sitting around the city’s train station drinking beer. It’s quite easy for my kids to visualize what happens if they don’t pull their fingers out at school.

    SaxonRider
    Full Member

    What Perchy said.

    And yes, listening too.

    Incidentally, are there any underlying issues that have not been recognised in the past? Oppositional Defiant Disorder, for example? In a mild form, it can look like what you have described. Of course, I wouldn’t want anyone to ‘diagnose’ something that isn’t there, but it may be something worth considering if what he is going through now is something that has actually always been there, and been a confounding aspect of his personality.

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    Genius.
    I am going to do this with my very bright but slacker of an eldest. Coming up fourteen soon and coasting through school.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Also, spend the day “playing” at being a student when it’s warm and sunny. Girls in tight vest tops will only strengthen your argument.

    “Play” at being unemployed when it’s cold and wet and dreary.

    You’re trying to evoke a strong emotional response to make your kid want to do something for themselves.

    Yes, It’s treacherous and manipulative – just embrace it and use every single weapon at your disposal. 😀

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    LOL, freshers week in most of the UK now isn’t it? Find a local Uni and knock yourself out.

    I’m sure your son will be knocking one out soon enough.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Next day, spend an hour with him in the waiting room of the local DSS office. Let him soak up the atmosphere as lots of “customers” go about their business

    +1

    Having had to go down there recently due to redundancy, I now no longer have to wonder where the Jeremy Kyle show get their contestants from, they’re actually about average.

    n.b. not everyone was ‘bad’, there was one mum with two kids, desperately trying to have a talk with whoever it was behind the desk in a completely normal/nice/middle class way, when offspring #1 turns to his sister and shouts at full volume “shut it you stupid cow!”. Poor mum looked like she was about to have a breakdown. Given the language and her reaction I’m going for dad being the waste of oxygen.

    tall_martin
    Full Member

    My folks had me washing lorries in the middle of winter for 75p an hour when I was 13.

    Good call by my folks:)

    I’d suggest sitting out behind pollock halls just after edinbrugh uni go back on a sunny day if you are in that area. What opened my eyes was some time spent in Oxford around the uni and various dinner halls.

    Bit of a contrast to my uni

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Great advice from PP up there

    My older son had two summer jobs a couple of years ago – (1) in pub earning min wage and (2) internship in law firm

    He said, “Dad, working in the pub is so much harder but the pay is lousy compared to the law firm.” And my reply…….

    But OP – dont panic. Same son had an odd year (first year sixth) but was fine in the end. Kids go through them but with love they come out fine.

    fifeandy
    Free Member

    attractive young students go about their business

    Girls in tight vest tops will only strengthen your argument.

    Clearly not been visiting any Scottish universities recently.
    Overindulgence in in Kebabs and deep fried marsh bars make the first quite difficult to find, and the 2nd quite horrifying.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    I think PP is onto something in that adult role models are pretty important. As youngster you have a lot of adults around you that you don’t imagine you’ll ever be. Its impossible to imagine your parents were ever young or that you’ll ever be that old. Your teachers have to maintain a professional distance so don’t really know what their life is like outside of the classroom.

    He maybe needs ideas of the kind of adult he can be – and the whole package, life and work – so that theres a goal to strive towards

    He’s never been the most ‘compliant’ kid (a bit like his old man)

    You’ve maybe said that in jest but the biggest influence you’ll have on your kids is they way they see you treat others. It doesn’t matter what instructions you give – you live as an example.

    binners
    Full Member

    PP – if you’re not too busy, could you bring my kids up for me please? 😀

    One thing you have to remember too is that sometimes you’re only going to learn by making your own decisions, and getting it wrong yourself, taking responsibility for that, changing direction and moving on.

    I definitely did. When I was that age I thought I knew absolutely bloody everything, and you couldn’t tell me anything (isn’t everyone that age like that?). If it doesn’t quite work out as you hoped it would now, its not the end of the world. If all you said about him is true, then I wouldn’t worry too much. He may not get there by the traditional route, but he’ll get there. And maybe the detour will be beneficial.

    Best thing you can do is what you’re doing, but maybe cut him a bit of slack, to make his own decisions, and make his own mistakes. Good luck with it though, but I think you can only do so much, and then maybe it can become counterproductive. There comes a point when, for everyones benefit, you just have to back off a bit and leave them to it

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    PP – if you’re not too busy, could you bring my kids up for me please?

    No problem. Lesson one….

    “Now girls, listen very carefully to yer Uncle Perchy. Pies don’t need pastry all the way round. Your Dad’s been lying to you for years”

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Pies don’t need pastry all the way round

    Right thats it. I’m calling social services

    rosscopeco
    Free Member

    Chaps….great great things here…thanks very much…that’s helped.

    Since posting this….he’s texted both of us saying he was very sorry. That’s a genuine sorry BTW and not a ‘oh man…I’m in deep doo doo when I get home’ sorry.

    maccruiskeen…I totally agree…if we constantly criticise them then should we be surprised if our kids grown up to be critical…and so on. FTR, it was in jest…sort of!

    He joined me and a few chums on our local MTBing evening spin the other night for the first time….incidentally destroying us all on the hills….and we ended up in the local for a beer afterwards (milk for him!). The group is made up principally of professionals / Doctors / Engineers so he’s being introduced to that side of life…it was interesting to see him sit in the corner observing our ‘chat’ about life / work / stuff.

    We’re in Glasgow so plenty of nice & trendy student places to choose from….I’ll just be out of place!

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    What binners said. I made my own mistake (leaving uni and buggering off to race my bike for 15 odd years). Must have pissed my parents off no end.

    Glad i did go to uni first though, a winter of contracting in an office somewhere at a decent wage is far preferable to stacking shelves for minimum wage. Can think of a few of my peers, now in their late 40s and early 50s who are still stacking shelves on minimum wage……

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Right thats it. I’m calling social services

    Again? If I had a pound for every time…..

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member
    fifeandy
    Free Member

    It is a difficult age for sure.
    You are doing a bunch of stuff at school that seems pointless (and mostly is pointless) to get some grades that in a year or two no-one will care about because you have some more recent and more advanced qualifications.
    The only thing that motivated me was that I knew it was the path of least resistance to one day earning enough to have a fairly comfortable life.
    I surely wasn’t motivated by a career, because I certainly didn’t know what I wanted to do (in some ways I still don’t 20 years later).

    Rather than sit down, and put pressure on, try sitting down and asking what he actually wants from life? Odds are the answer will be he doesn’t know. The next step from there is maybe talking to friends and see if you can organise a few days ‘work experience’ in a number of different fields. Maybe one of those will trigger an interest and seem much more relevant than 4th year maths/english.

    globalti
    Free Member

    He joined me and a few chums on our local MTBing evening spin the other night for the first time….incidentally destroying us all on the hills….and we ended up in the local for a beer afterwards (milk for him!). The group is made up principally of professionals / Doctors / Engineers so he’s being introduced to that side of life…it was interesting to see him sit in the corner observing our ‘chat’ about life / work / stuff.

    My son aged 17 and also cruising at college, does this twice a week when he comes out road cycling with me and my buddy, as well as other blokes who sometimes tag along. Having been strongly influenced by my Dad’s charismatic climbing partner when I was that age I believe it’s terribly important for adolescent males to mix with older men from time to time. I don’t harbour any belief that I’m the perfect role model for my son so I think he will benefit from as wide an experience of adulthood as possible. This is why I encourage him to come cycling by buying him a decent bike, nice kit etc. and taking him out on cycling adventures as often as possible.

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    See if one of the chums from the evening MTB ride can give him day of work shadowing. Most bigger companies have some sort of scheme. I know our place is crawling with teenagers (15-19) for the last couple of weeks of the summer term. Then same again (but uni students) around easter time.

    Aus
    Free Member

    In the same boat as OP and it is frustrating. But PP advice is great – planning it now

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Yes, It’s treacherous and manipulative – just embrace it and use every single weapon at your disposal.

    Age and low cunning beats youth and exuberance every time.

    sadmadalan
    Full Member

    Ironically enough one of the problems is that you are his Dad. He needs male role models. I got mine through Scouts and the hockey club. My parents told me exactly what they said, only I listened to them and not my parents! Any chance your cycling buddies could take him out while you can’t make it because of some obscure reason? It will make him part of the group and not somebodies son who has been dragged along?

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    just to offer a contrast, you can go a long way coasting through life. All my school reports were ‘could do better’ – I have a great life, 2 kids a lovely wife, house and new car and I’m still coasting. Not everyone wants to work their fingers to the bone and up the ladder liggity split. Guide your son as much as you want/can but ateotd it’s his life.

    scandal42
    Free Member

    I’m sure the DSS office will be only too happy to let you use it as some sort of middle class trip to the human zoo.

    Oh look son, look at all the stupid poor people who didn’t have life lined up when they were 15.

    Don’t worry, the punters down there will understand the usefulness of the exercise, especially if it helps sort the scamp out.

    user-removed
    Free Member

    Loved PP’s sage wisdom right up until the wrongness about the pies.

    I completely, totally fecked it up at that age. Like your son, I was mostly well behaved, doing well at school without trying very hard and hung around with good, clever kids.

    The pressure to perform, pre-exams is the only thing I can identify which set me off. And I went off like a rocket. Drugs, drink, unfortunate relationship choices.

    I can only echo PP’s advice – show him where his life will take him and hope for the best.

    jemima
    Free Member

    I’m sure your son will be knocking one out soon enough.

    I was going to suggest this anyway – to ensure teenage loon not too pent up to concentrate.

    In seriousness though I’m surprised by

    he school may not present him for the exams

    I would think it would need to be REALLY bad before not being ‘presented’. I think all the positive encouragements here are the way to go but from the other perspective I was smart(ish) and slack and coasted through 3rd/4th year and school and hasn’t done me much harm…

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    He joined me and a few chums on our local MTBing evening spin the other night for the first time….incidentally destroying us all on the hills….and we ended up in the local for a beer afterwards (milk for him!). The group is made up principally of professionals / Doctors / Engineers so he’s being introduced to that side of life…it was interesting to see him sit in the corner observing our ‘chat’ about life / work / stuff.

    +1, I’ve no doubt that turning up an MTB group ride aged 15 probably acted as a bit of a catalyst for working hard (although I was always a A/A* pupil and effed up uni though), the tangible belief that at the end of all this work I’d be the one with the nice bike. That and the bar staff never questioned my age in that group 🙂

    cbike
    Free Member

    There will be loads of graduates in the DSS office. He’s only 15. Stop stressing the lad out.

    I speak from experience as the 15 year old with teacher parents. If I could do it again I would have chosen physics, drama, art, PE. I would fail physics but excel in the rest. Instead I was very mediocre in sensible things like chemistry English maths and geography. It would have made no difference apart from overall happiness at that time.

    It takes until you are about 40 to work these things out.

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