Dear Cloud,
You asked how to help your twelve year old son who isn't interested in school and spends a lot of happy time on his hobbies. You pointed out that I earlier wrote my ideas for raising young children and that your son is much older. The way
you train your young child is what keeps the path of good communications open between you, so that you can guide your older child well. Parents of little children, you may want to consider the importance of the kind of training you give while they're little. It will help a lot later.
There are many things that could cause this disinterest in lessons.
Could, are your son's hobbies sports and things he does with other people, or are they hobbies that he does alone? Maybe it has something to do with introversion or extroversion? If he prefers quiet games by himself he may be more introverted. Then you would need to think whether he is getting too much exposure at school for his own comfort. If he's a big boy, interested in sports and the outdoors you may consider if he prefers lots of people and being involved with them
rather than sitting down to study.
It's quite normal for a boy to prefer his own choices of hobbies and interests to his schooling. He prefers to be free to do as he likes and not to learn what
doesn't interest him. At the age of twelve, especially! I hope you will be able to help him to get into regular study habits. It could help if you and anyone
else in the house were to have a fixed study time together after dinner, (or whenever it is most convenient.) You could all sit at the table together and do your work or reading, each individually and quietly. Nobody should be doing anything in the house that he would rather be doing. That time should be sacred from phone calls or visits by friends. That would make an atmosphere that would help to support him in good regular study habits, and the rest of you may find it
restful and enjoyable, too. That's what my daughter did when her son and daughter at about the same age, were having similar problems. They also got their kids some tutoring to help them over some rough spots. Tutors can take more time with the individual student than the busy classroom teacher can. Sometimes that'
s all it takes. Their daughter had a lot of trouble with math. Now, although maths aren't her favourite subject she does very well in them, and her marks have
been good enough to greatly broaden her available choice of fields now that she's about to enter university.
In the case of the boy, he had become too fat, and was being teased about it by
other kids at school. No wonder he was becoming unhappy with school. They got
him interested in swimming, and running and accompanied him, and he began to enjoy sports. He's built like a swimmer with a good chest and shoulders, and we let him know that. Also, our daughtaer started running, too. She began to watch
what kinds of foods were available in the house for snacking, not to have them available and not to eat them herself. There's a lot of diabetes on both sides in our grandson's family. So it was good for our daughter also to become more lithe and sporty. Now the problem is that some of the bold girls think he's an absolute "hunk" and so they've said embarrassing things so his mother has talked with him about that so that he could learn to handle it well. You see, there can
be so many reasons behind neglecting school. This is just to give you some insights from other families to help you consider what reasons may lie behind your
own son's disinterest.
Has he fallen behind because he missed some important information he needed to be able to go ahead in his classes? If he begins to feel incapable compared to others he might prefer to drop away rather than suffer. I was a kid like that. Maybe he has trouble making certain vital connections, for instance in maths, if
a person doesn't understand an important step it can cause great difficulty and
, like me, they soon think they're not good in math, anyway, even though they may be quite good once they get over the missed part and their mental block. If
that's the case in some of his subjects it would be a good idea to get help for
him to cover what he missed. You could talk to his teachers about it, or look at his marked tests and homework to see if you can understand what it is he may be missing.
He's old enough to be able to express his own feeling and thoughts clearly to you as children nine years and younger often can't. Some children (like my own son David, as a child,) draw into themselves if you begin to talk to them directly
about something they feel uneasy about. They feel they're in trouble. I found
if I went to his room at some quiet time when he was there, sat quietly and looked around at things he had their and asked about something be could explain to
me that we would talk about that and he would relax. After a little while I casually introduced the prickly topic and we could discuss it together quite easily
.
Once I found that he didn't want to go to school because a boy he knew would grab the back fender of his bicycle and push him out into traffic on a busy road!
His father went and talked to the principal of the school about that, and it stopped. I also encouraged him to talk about another bully named Mark that he had
to deal with and made up some dopey names for the guy. I don't know if that was
a good idea or not, but I intended to reduce the bully's power. It doesn't really sound as though your son is bothered by a bully, but you should keep it in mind in case somebody is teasing him and calling him "the brain", or in any way making him feel that life is easier if he isn't one of the brightest in the class. This may not be a problem in China, but it can be here in North America.
This is an important time in his development. He's just on the brink of adolescence and the teen years. What kinds of friends does he have, and are *they* good in school, or is he being influenced away from it?
Do you think that you may need to use the carrot and the stick? Such as taking
away some privilege that he enjoys until his marks improve? A reward given for
improvement, such as some little thing he would like for one of his hobbies? Ithink this is a last resort.
Some brilliant people have not been good in school. Sir Winston Churchill was one, Albert Einstein was another. My own husband wasn't good under a harsh school master with a long switch which he used to hit children. This man humiliated
him and other students before the whole class, and Ben hates him to this day. Ben, my kind and dear husband. When he thinks of this man he immediately becomes
very angry. Ben excelled at learning under a kind older lady teacher his parents hired to help him. Ben's highly intelligent, gifted in getting along with people, and has three times in our lives together developed for himself a whole new career through his own efforts.
When you talk with your son, approach him as one caring friend to another. Of course you will need to feel your own way to what works. I imagine you've probably
already told him this, but you might share that your reason for conern isn't because you want him to excel in school for your own pride and status. Rather you
know that it is important for him for the rest of his own long life, and for the life of any future family he will have. If you can illustrate what you say with some example he knows about it might be good. Don't talk too long with him on the subject, or question him. If he seems to get a little tense you should ease back and casually move to some other topic and try again another time. Make it very natural.
This is all I can think of just now. Of course I don't know your family, the school and teachers, or your son, so this is all very general. There is one other
thing: --
A harsh teacher can cause a child to find it impossible to learn. A teacher who
suddenly sharply raps out a question, and points at him for a quick answer. A
teacher who shouts. One who uses a long cane to rap knuckles. One who shames
students. All of these can cause the kind of trouble you are seeing. Try to find how his teachers behave in the classroom to their students.
I hope this is some help to you, and to others who may have similar problems.
Best wishes, Mary
