Last Spring was ROUGH for us. As a newly minted teenager, our son thought he was immediately smarter than us. Now while I knew this was coming (being a previous teen monster myself) I was still not prepared for actuality of living through it with my own child.
So began the CRACKDOWN.
Backstory- Let me set the scene
When early Spring report cards came in I was a little shocked. My previously good student was pulling in a D, two C’s and a B. What the heck?! What in the world was happening with school. I saw him doing homework at night, I checked his assignments weekly before turn in, I even had to sign his homework folder every week as part of his weekly grades. So what in the world was going on?
I immediately logged into the parent portal for his school account and saw almost all A’s for in-school work and tests, and straight ZEROs for homework assignments.
Turns out, he was doing all that work, then not turning it in at the end of the week. Sounds dumb, right? I mean who in the world would go to all the effort of actually doing the homework just to not place it on the teacher’s desk. My son, that’s who.
So we punished, we took away things, we limited free time…. and then when the last report card showed up and we saw his final grades for the school year there were………….. Even worse grades!!!
It was an epic failure in parenting on our end. What we did, didn’t have the affect we wanted at all. In fact it made things slightly worse.
The thing that saved us
One of the things we did do right was give him a warning. We let him know that not bringing his grades up would result in an electronic detox and limited time away from us. So when it came time to put-up-or-shut-up, we put up.
- No TV
- No phone
- No sleepovers
- No games
- No staying home when I ran errands- he ran them with me.
That one warning was the catalyst for what turned out to be the “best summer ever”. <———-His actual sentiment.
What we did to grow responsibility in our teen son
- The very first thing we did was enact a weekly chore chart. He always had chores before, but we would let him slide on busy weeks because we wanted him to focus on school work. That obviously wasn’t helping so we went back to it and made it a mandatory list. It was harder chores than what he previously had: weed eating, bathroom maintenance, and mowing were added to it.
- Regular fitness: Luckily my husband and I both have jobs centered around exercise. He was given a workout program and kept on a schedule. Some days I would find him doing an additional workout in the yard or extra running in the neighborhood because he had gotten really into it.
- Gave him an actual job. He was my babysitter for the summer break for his little brother. It worked out very well. He was paid $5/hour, that maxed out at $25/day.
- Started a checking account for him, with a debit card. (This one was major) No more days of asking for something at the store. He now knows that if he doesn’t have either cash or his card on him, that he’s out of luck. I handed him the card while saying the lines, “I’m not a credit card. You cannot get loans from me.”
- Paying for privileges. This one was enacted after a full month of no electronics or phone. After the debit card, this may be number 2 on the list for the thing that worked best.
- Set up the environment: We moved desks around, cleaned out closets and play spaces and generally made the overall living and work spaces that he used daily a lot more inviting, calmer and organized. This way he could make sure his mind stayed clear of clutter and he wouldn’t risk losing his homework or books in a mess. (This one took a lot *a lot* of effort in the beginning but has been easy to maintain.)
Let me go over numbers 3 and 5 together- working to pay for privileges
They really played off of each other over the next few months. After his initial complete ban from all things awesome, we started letting him choose how he wanted to earn back our trust.
Each day after babysitting he would get to choose how he wanted to be paid. He could either take the money, or trade in $5 per hour of TV time. Now what he chose to do with that TV time was up to him. He could watch a show or play video games, but he had to set a timer. (We actually had him buy his own egg timer for this.)
Most days he would split it up, with an hour or two of TV time and the rest into his checking account. But when he wanted to buy something, he would put it all into his account and reward himself with whatever he wanted to.
He loved the arrangement so much that he was the one now coming up with more jobs for him to do so he could earn more.
I now know that it takes a 13 year old boy, 2 days to thoroughly clean all of the baseboards in our home. And that it will only cost me $10.
The Unexpected Bonus Effect of His Summer of Responsibility Training
He is happy. He smiles all the time now. He hasn’t had one of those teen angst moments since the beginning of summer.
We actually had a nice heart felt talk about it last week and he reported he feels a lot less emotional and like he has been heard all summer, simply because we required him to be in charge of his own actions.
Maybe it was an exercise in respect for all of us? He respects us as parents and we respect him as a growing individual that just needed a little guidance.
School is back in session now. So far we haven’t even mentioned study habits, yet they are starting out really great. We’ll see how it goes…….
North Carolina, USA