Teen's school apathy
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Teen's school apathy
| Fri, 09-15-2006 - 10:26am |
I'm concerned about my 15YO DD's lack of concern over schoolwork. It seems that if she thinks an assignment is boring or stupid, she simply refuses to do it. Her grades are suffering. She didn't do a science project due today, consequently is grounded over the weekend in order to complete that and some other missing assignments.
What has and hasn't worked in your households to encourage studying/schoolwork?
I'm kind of stumped. I can't force her to do the work, but she doesn't seem to care about the negative consequences. Do I shut down her social life until the grades pull up?
WWYD?
worriedma

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"I really don't understand some of the snootiness that surrounds some parents' attitude about jr. college."
I am all for jr college. I went there first and so did my brother, (who now works for Nasa)
My son does not want to go through the jr colleges though. But I feel there is nothing wrong with that, too.
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I can understand your attitude, given your experience. I don't know where you live, but that's not likely to happen where I live."
mom_dragonfly...I take it from oneof your posts that you live in Cali? A person can teach at any jr. college in this state (I love here too) without a teachng degree.
And say you went to a jr. college, you can easly transfer to say a place like Sac State, but not as easy to a UC like UC Davis. UC's will still look at those four years of High School.
I do live in Cali, and I didn't know that. But I don't have the time here to go into why I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. All the teachers at the high school have their teaching degrees, and believe me, it doesn't say much for them.
I will go ahead and tell my boss, the attorney, who is going to send his dd to a jr. college rather than straight to a UC in order to save on tuition. He thinks its okay to send her to Cabrillo College, and so do I. Since you live here, you may know about De Anza's program in which many, many kids have transferred into UC schools from this exceptional jr. college (rated 6th in the nation).
No I dont know about the De Anza program . Sorry.
And I do want to say...I do not think there is anything wrong with a jr. college. Nothing at all. But I still will encourage my son to do his very best every year he is in high school. He may go to a jr. college, or he may do so well his 4 years of high school that he gets a scholarship to a University. I am not going to tell him it is ok to not try to do his best or even give off the attitude that he does not have to try the first two years of high school because we cant afford to send him to anything other then a jr. college at first. All I care about is that he does his very best, and gets the most out of every educational setting he is in.
Wow, I certainly didn't mean to imply that you should tell your teen it's okay to goof off in school b/c they can "always go to jr. college". You're preaching to the choir, here, 'k? If your kid is motivated, cares, does well and you are able to finance (or help) his education without hocking your house and foregoing any possibility of retirement, more power to you!
I'm only speaking about the kids who struggle, and the parents who cannot for the life of them get them to see ahead - something about those kiddos and immaturity, I guess! Forgive me, but I just don't believe that a 15 year old should feel that their life is now in the toilet b/c they goofed off for 2 years and now, horror of horrors! must be reduced to going to a jr. college.
That is all I'm trying to say.
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