Rating:
Knowledgeability Clarity of Response Timeliness Politeness
9 9 10 10
Comment: thank you, i will talk with her doctor
Questioner: FERNIE
subject: 11 year old with bad grades and lies about it
Question: My 11 year old daughter is failing three subjects at her middle school. We have tried to motivate her to bring her grades up, we have also tried grounding, taking things away, yelling, and finally now the threat is private school which I know she really does not want.
She seems more concerned with her friends and her clothes and being “cool” than working at getting her grades up.
I have told her to talk with her teachers to see if she can do make up work, or re-do test, but it seems like I have to hold her hand through it all because if I am not on top of it, she wont do it.
I have to remind her 2-3 times to get something done. It is exhausting because she has 3 smaller siblings that I have to care for and I truly feel she is old enough to take responsibility for her grades and work to get them up and ask questions when she is in doubt. She does not do any of that. It seems like she is just going along for the ride.
Please help.
Answer: Dear Fernie:
Okay what you are saying is what you are doing is not working. Stop doing that as it doesn’t work.
First, get her to her doctor and make sure all is well physically. If this is so, then ask for an assessment to determine rule out any possibility of a learning disability. (You don’t mention any other “undesirable” behaviors so I suspect she may have a learning challenge.
If she doesn’t the next step is family counseling.
You mentioned she has 3 smaller siblings. Sometimes children will do what they need to do to get our one on one attention, just a thought.
M Kay Keller
