What is the best way to deal with bad grades from middle schoolers?

I tried all the things you mention with my son and I really didn’t find a solution that worked. He is such a bright kid but he was just bored I think and nothing we (his teachers and parents) couldn’t get him interested. I think the kids he was hanging around with didn’t help. He always seemed to pick the kids who weren’t good scholars, who wanted to play around.

What I did do was email his teachers regularly and got them to tell me when assignments were due so at least I could (as much as possible) make sure he did do the work required. It didn’t always work but if I knew what he had to do I could take him to the library, sit and talk to him about assignments, find films about eras in history or situations they were discussing and try to make it more interesting. Also, it let the teachers know I did care and I was interested and motivated to help him.

In the end @DigitalBlue all you can do is stay motivated yourself and try to find ways to bring whatever it is to life. Be open to listening to them too. What are they saying is the problem? Is there something going on they aren’t talking about? Other than that try to find ways to make it more interesting. There is a thin line between pushing too hard and not though.

Hope you find a solution and I would be very interested to hear if you do find something that works or if other parents have.

@Bellatrix hard to say. Their response is always “I dunno.” I really just don’t think they are interested. They really don’t seem to care, and I feel like that is something that I can’t force them to do.

Yes, I heard the ‘I dunno’ often too. Is there someone else they might talk to? Try not to nag. I think I failed this one at times because I was so frustrated and worried. We can’t force them unfortunately. If there is something you know they want to do after school, perhaps getting someone who works in that field to talk to them about what they need to do at school would help. Didn’t help for me but you never know!

They have friends who think doing poorly in school is cool. This is a disaster and maybe even a gang thing. I would look at getting them into a private school or if you are in a bad neighborhood, move. You know what I mean by bad neighborhood.

I didn’t really have trouble with this, all of us are high achievers. My best friend removed her girls’ bedroom doors when they made a C. The door stayed off for the whole 6-week session.

@PurpleClouds oh, no, it’s not like that. It’s a nice neighborhood, and they were moved from a nice school to an even nicer school. I’m sure their friends think that video games are cooler than homework, but, nothing crazy… they are all generally good kids. We’re also not looking at any behavioral problems, they aren’t getting into trouble or being tardy or getting detention or acting out at home, they just don’t do their homework.

Your twins sound a bit like mine because they are obviously close (the fact that they’ll lie to cover for reach other, etc). With us my twins’ attitude always seemed to be, “What do you mean I have to clean my room? My best friend (their sister) is over!” When I wanted to punish my girls, I made them sleep in separate bedrooms! You’d have throught I was torturing them!

Perhaps if you took away a bit of their closeness (don’t let them spend so much free time with each other. Sending them to separate schools (not just different home room teachers) might also make a difference.

@snowberry I think you may be onto something.

It’s a hard question to answer, and despite having a boy who is smart enough, I can’t get him to do his homework. He’s now a sophomore, and still not consistent.

Whenhe was in 6th and 7th grade we did what @Bellatrix suggested, we had weekly progress notes from teachers. Plus there was a website for assignments in some classes. But it is still a puzzle. One semester he and I did his math together every night, only to find he didn’t turn it in.

His therapist is working on him realizing it is for him, not for his parents, because he is to the point where despite wanting to go to a four year college he is sabotaging himself.

One thing to remember is that this is very common in boys. I told my son I wasn’t going to yell at him anymore, or nag him, because that was not working and just getting me angry. I told him I would support and help him, but he needs to do it for himself.

I haven’t given any solutions, because I am looking for them myself. I am open to any answers that might work.

If nothing else, it is comforting to know that we’re not alone. If nothing else, it’s a relief to hear that this is not just us failing at parenting.

Since everything else failed, I would level with them. Tell them that if their grades do not pick up, they are not going to be able to get into college, and that if they do not get into college, their job prospects are not rosy. Tell them you understand that school can be dreary at times, but that if they are willing to put in the work, their efforts will eventually pay off. Say that you are willing to provide tutoring or anything else that they feel they need in order to improve. I do moonlighting for an online tutoring company. This might be helpful, because the student gets to choose when to be tutored.

After saying all this, I must confess that I have a nephew with a similar problem, only he graduated from high school. He flunked out of college and is now attending a community college. My brother says that my nephew just does not seem to get it and that the family is contemplating going into family counseling.

School isn’t really designed around what motivates boys. I read somewhere that school is designed around the idea that all students are females or should act like females.

Some things that I see to support this:
-very little competition (we don’t want losers)
-emphasis on balance and harmony
-emphasis on being quiet
-emphasis on sitting still and behaving

I know that we (mostly my wife) oversees every aspect of his school experience. We have discovered a myriad of disciplinary measures, rewards, pressures, and theories to get his grades to passing.

It feels like we are trying to steer a ship by texting the captain of the ship…when the cellphone reception is sketchy.

No one technique, theory or discipline seems to work consistently or for very long. So, in light of my experience, the only way to get my son to consistently do well is:

Don’t give up.

I have heard from friends that homeschool that this motivates boys, because it is goal oriented and for ‘free time’ their have more options than to be allowed to play on the playground.

The author of the question doesn’t say whether the twins are boys or girls, so some of my answer may not apply to the actual question.

Family therapy could help. Getting the twins to talk about what’s going on is needed. It’s a common enough problem for that age group of kids, but you do need help. Good luck.

I don’t think it is unusual for kids to be disinterested in learning or applying themselves, especially during middle school. Is it possible they are a little depressed? Just throwing that out as an idea, I am not assuming it.

Do they have an extracuricular activity they enjoy? Sports, art class, dance, volunteering, working? Just coming home every day and being able to dilly dally all afternoon will not motivate them to get things done. I am not assuming anything about their day, just writing down some thoughts. Plus, being around other adults I think is a very good thing. And, feeling as though they are good at something, helping, or enjoying themselves in an activity, also important.

I wasn’t very interested in school, and I hated, can’t emphasize it enough, having to wake up at o’dark hundred to be there. My exhaustian in the morning was torture. It greatly impacted my school career. I usually did my homework, but didn’t care much about learning at that age except for a few subjects. I was a B student, I tested well and was pretty bright, but could have been close to straight A’s if I had applied myself at all.

I did better when I started to work, was able to make friends at work who did not put any pressure on me to drink or drug, which I never wanted to do or be around. Maybe they are having some social pressures you are unaware of?

I didn’t really give advice on what to do, so I am not sure I really answered the question, but I do think there might be things at play you are not aware of as their mother.

Well…how consistent have you been? I grounded my son semester after semester for TWO YEARS. He thought he could get away with it at the end of one year because summer was here. I simply made a modified grounding…he had to be home by 8:00 every night. Well before dark. This was when he was 15 and 16. The following year he turned things completely around, and graduated with honors.

We’ve had similar troubles with two of our girls at certain points in their schooling. What we tried to do was to stay on top of things, and if grades started going downhill, we acted promptly. Generally, we banned all electronic devices except necessary computer usage (for homework only), until they brought their grades back up. Confiscated phones and iPods, no TV, etc. We had to do this repeatedly, and it does get old, but it did help keep things from spiraling out of control. We’re still doing this with one of them on occasion, but the other, for whatever reason, has become self-motivated this past year. Her grades have been great, with no effort on our part at all! I think it may have to do with just growing up a bit more. Whew!

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My advice would be to take an interest in their homework. Don’t make a big deal about it but make a point of going over their homework with them every evening. Make it a family moment and help them as much as you are able. At the moment the twins are reinforcing each other’s negative attitude. It is possible to swing it around so they help each other with their homework.

@flutherother – we are trying that strategy with our 6th grade daughter (same problem). It seems to be working.

Could school be boring them?? I found when I was in grade school the receptiveness the teacher did made me zone out and actually dislike school altogether because I found it too easy. If they seem to understand the material then the school needs to challenge them more to keep them motivated otherwise the bad grades are going to continue into high school. Another thought is maybe private school where the classrooms are smaller and they are better able to adjust to the learning of the student instead of a cookie cutter type of teaching which is what I find a lot of public schools do.

Can they get study hall as one of their periods in school, and do homework then?

@noraasnave mentioned something that really did work for my son at the same age as yours, competition. The teacher used to set up little maths competitions. He would pose really tough problems and the brighter kids would have to solve it. There was no prize at the end just this good natured competition between the brighter kids in class. It wasn’t done in a way to make the other kids feel dumb but it did resolve that ‘boredom’ factor in kids who were more advanced. My son loved this and he and the other boys and girls who got involved absolutely excelled when studying with that teacher. This teacher really knew how to work with boys and how to motivate them to learn.

I don’t want to get too far off topic, but the book The Great Math Experience tells of a middle school teacher’s introduction of math brain teasers, not just too the brightest students, but to the whole class. Just about all the students enthusiastically tackled the problems. In the introduction, the author said that these problems converted some of the students from math haters to math lovers. Sometimes it seems that the way subjects are taught, especially math, is deliberately designed to make them as dull as possible. The type of reasoning used in brain teasers allows students to get a feel for the creative type of thinking done by mathematicians. Being a math lover myself, I am not surprised that students respond enthusiastically.

I had the same problem when I was in middle school and now I am a high schooler. I was doing basically the same exact thing that your kids are doing. Hiding assignment, tests, it was all a huge mess :/ But what made me want to do well was realizing the importance of it. Maybe try explaining the importance of good grades and college. I think they’ll come around eventually like I did but it did take a long time. I thought I was stupid too. But in the end its all hard work (: Also a little presents help. If they do well on next weeks test they get 10 bucks, or a movie or whatever strikes your fancy I guess. Hope I helped!