I want to show my kids the same mercies God shows me. But I am not sure what that looks like. I know He doesn't want me to just let everything get crazy around here with no respect for others. So we talk about that and we make the kids apologize when they are mean and things, but when it comes to school, they resist. And it is constant. You would think after 5 and a half years we would know that this is how it is, but still no. There is argument. Especially from my 12 year old. He starts it. He thinks he doesn't have to do anything. And many people will probably tell me to let up, change it up a bit. Well, believe me, I do. When he seems bored with worksheets I grab a computer game, when he gets bored with that we use board games or story books, we use all sorts of different methods and still he refuses. I know it is a character issue. He even refused to do a bible study my husband wanted to do with just the two of them.
How do we rein this back in after apparently failing to train him to do these things up to this point? I mean, I never think I do a good job and of course think I have many failures but I thought we were doing a fine job of this character training.
I don't want a robot, but I also want respect. And I want my son to love to learn and he just pouts, does bare minimum and fights me all the way. (and, to be honest, my husband just yells at him and commands him to respect and obey his mom. well, it's not working and I don't think that is the right approach.)
I have a 12 year old boy too! And while I don't experience the same type of things in school with him as you mentioned (he's a pretty eager learner/perfectionist), he has started to get a bit of a snarky attitude...and I really think it is a little bit of the pre-teen hormones coming into play. Growing up and attitude looks a bit different between boys and girls, but I'm sure that is a culprit of some of the newfound attitude in our boys. My husband handles it much the same as yours - commanding respect no matter what. But I try to take advantage of less heated moments to remind my son that the reason that we require certain behaviour and respect from him and his sisters is because of our desire to have him grow up into a responsible, caring young man capable of doing many things. You may also just want to call him out on his lack of motivation with school and see if inviting him into the planning might help. Like saying "It is pretty clear that you are bored or unmotivated with school lately. What is true is that we are going to do school every day no matter what. But maybe school would be more fun/interesting for you if you were able to help me come up with some topics or activities we could do over the next few weeks that would be of special interest to you." If he seems to like that idea, then brainstorm with him what topics, field trips, activities, etc. he'd like to do over the next few weeks. Then if his attitude or lack of motivation continues, you can remind him that these were school things he helped plan and you'd like to see him a bit more motivated, or else you may be inclined to go back to your regular school plan.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally just throwing ideas out there of how I have or would handle a similar situation with my 12 year old boy. It's not easy...but hang in there despite the resistance...he will come around eventually!