Poor Academic Performance Is A Different Animal

Dear Mark................my wife and I continue to refer to your notes over and over again. We are making progress with our 14 year old son. He has been more compliant lately. My wife and I are being transformed in the process as well. We hardly ever nag about chores or homework, etc. We are less confrontational. We have been encouraging each other as well as our son. We are more graceful and listen better.

Our struggle is not yet over. Our son is in the 8th grade and his grades have dropped significantly. He received (2) Ds and (1) F on the last report card a few weeks ago. The consequences were loss of his cell phone privilege Monday - Friday afternoon and loss of privilege to have friends over or go out with friends on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. He can participate in our church teen midweek service which is mostly a fellowship activity.

Our son has accepted these consequences; however, there has been no noticeable improvement in his grades and we are holding him totally accountable. We have made it clear that we are available to help. We have told him that his poor grades are hurting him and no one else.

Yesterday, he started using the Instant Messenger feature on the internet to stay connected with his friends. I had blocked his access to the AOL instant messenger but he is now accessing it via Internet Explorer. I can remove the wireless adapter on his computer and he will not be able to access the internet if I choose to take this step. I can use the security password feature on the two other computers in the home to prevent him from accessing them if I choose to do so.

Question: We are expecting a progress report in the next few days and we do not expect much improvement. What should we do to help our son realize that his poor academic performance will only hurt him in the long run? Apparently the consequences are not changing his behavior or attitude? Apparently his ODD tendencies have created a technology contest that I prefer not to engage in.

Many thanks in advance.

J.

```````````````````

Hi J.,

Grades are kind of a different animal (as if we didn't have enough twists and turns).

Please refer to the page entitled Emails From Exasperated Parents [Online Version of the eBook -- Session #4].

On that page, scroll near the bottom and look for where it reads:

"My son brings home straight F's on his report cards. I ground him for the entire grading period, but he continues to fail in nearly all subjects. I know my son is a bright kid and can do the work when he wants to. What can I do to motivate him?" -- B. R.

NOTE: If your teen has a history of poor academic performance, and if poor academic performance is an ongoing source of conflict, then follow the recommendation.

Mark

Online Parent Support

Child abuse rises when dad is away at war—

Mothers are twice as likely to physically hurt kids, government study finds.

Children in some Army families are vulnerable to abuse and neglect by their mothers when their fathers are away at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a large Pentagon-funded study finds.

Mothers were three times more likely to have a substantiated report of child mistreatment when their soldier husbands were deployed than when the fathers were home, according to the research. Mothers at home were nearly four times as likely to neglect their children and nearly twice as likely to physically abuse them during deployment periods.

Army officials said the study confirms what they’ve seen at large military bases for nearly two years, overwhelmed and depressed mothers neglecting their children.

This is another recognition of the stress that families are experiencing with multiple deployments, and that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Army to hire more people to support families—

The Army recently announced it will hire more than 1,000 additional “family readiness support assistants” to help families of deployed active-duty, Army Reserve and National Guard units. The Army also recently added $8 million to its respite child care program and increased home visits to parents of young children at 13 bases with the highest rates of neglect, said Delores Johnson, the Army’s director of family programs.

The study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Army staff reviewed the manuscript before its submission to the medical journal.

The researchers analyzed information from two large Army databases from 2001 through 2004. Since then, the pace of deployments has increased, making the findings even more important.

Only families with at least one report of child mistreatment were part of the analysis, so the findings apply only to families with some underlying risk.

The researchers found reports of abuse and neglect for nearly 3,000 individual children. The mistreatment included neglect, abandonment, physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.

Dads at home may be more likely to get help—

Women accounted for about nine out of 10 incidents by civilian parents during deployments. For fathers at home while their soldier wives were at war, the effect of deployment on the likelihood of abuse or neglect was insignificant, suggesting men may be more likely to get help from extended family or other resources.

Overall, the study of almost 1,800 Army families worldwide found that reports of child abuse and neglect were 42 percent higher during times when the soldier-parent, regardless of gender, was deployed.

Experts cautioned that situations not generally considered neglect by most city child welfare workers would be called neglect by Army social workers. Robichaux, a former Houston child welfare worker, said Army families tend to get help sooner than civilian families.

Two previous studies have found increasing rates of child neglect in Army families between 2001 and 2004, and increasing rates of child mistreatment in Texas military families during a time of large-scale deployments.

The new study was hailed by a researcher involved in the Texas study. It is important, especially given the current military and political situation in which deployment occurs more frequently and deployments can be longer.

Stacy Bannerman, a member of the anti-war group Military Families Speak Out and the wife of a National Guardsman who fought in Iraq, said she’s seen mothers neglect their children while their husbands are in Iraq.

“We pretend the trauma of war can somehow be isolated and contained,” Bannerman said. “Nobody’s really taking care of the caregivers.”

Online Parent Support

It has helped reduced our level of "freak-out"...

Mark -

We are studying your web presence and it has helped reduced our level of "freak-out" with our 16 year-old, "out-of-house," but still near-by daughter.

Carla

Online Parent Support

ONLINE PARENTING COACH

Poor Academic Performance Is A Different Animal

Child abuse rises when dad is away at war—

Mothers are twice as likely to physically hurt kids, government study finds.

It has helped reduced our level of "freak-out"...

The Science of Rebellion: Understanding the Psychology Behind Teen Defiance and Growth