Punishment for my son. I need ideas!

I teach 7th grade. My advice would be to, as much as possible, focus on the positive. If he does one assignment, give him 15 minutes of screen time. If he does two, give him 20 minutes. Baby steps...

Why aren't all you nice teacher people in this thread teaching at his school?!

My son's math teacher just laughed when I suggested that he might be bored and in need of more challenging work, and said she would never consider moving him forward with his homework issue. If anything, she would move him BACK. I told her that was a great idea--so he could not turn his homework in for that class too AND not learn anything AND fail AND have to do it again.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!

If a kid's bored, moving them forward can sometimes help the issue. I would NEVER suggest moving a kid back due to lack of homework completion. As far as moving him ahead, I'd have some reservations. How can I tell what a kid knows if they don't do anything? It's a tricky situation.

I have a 13 year old who won't do homework or chores around the house without my throwing a hisses fit and crying. I have found that at this age he values his privacy very much. The best I can do is threaten him with the removal of his bedroom door. Try that for a week and see if that helps.

I have a teenage daughter that sort of went through this. Never to this extreme though. She never "tried". She did fine on tests and stuff but barely did homework and did the bare minimum when it came to projects. She didn't fail but it did earn her D's and C's.

Same timing though. Some kids just think they know it all for a little while. And then they don't, and then they do again. I hear somewhere in the mid 20's we can expect our kids to start appreciating everything we do.

That being said I didn't hover. I mentioned occasionally and punishments were doled out based on report cards. Each C was a week of cleaning, each D two weeks and each F would have been a month but luckily it never went there.

After the third round of punishments she made some snarky teenage comment about how having to clean clearly wasn't changing anything and I explained to her that one of two things was going to happen:

A) She would eventually get tired of picking up after all of us and get her act together
or
I was preparing her for life because if she wasn't going to try to succeed she had better get used to having to clean up after people.

Then I tipped over the salt shaker and let it spill on the table, smiled and walked out. We still laugh about that. :laugh:

Every kid is different and unfortunately its going to be a lot of trial and error of anything and (almost) everything your MFP pals are suggesting.

Good luck!

I haven't read all the responses, so apologies if this is redundant.
You are describing me, from about the seventh grade through high school. There was nothing my mother could say or do that worked. But then, she never sat down and talked to me about it, nor asked me what or what it would take. Have you considered giving him some control of the situation? There is a couple of excellent books out that I think my help. I think it might have helped in my situation.
How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk. (Read this one first)
How to talk so teens will listen and listen so teens will talk.
What have you got to lose?

Get him to clean the toilet and then tell him thats his job for life if he is lucky if he doesn't get a good education!!!!!!

I teach high school. I can tell you with certainty that kids do not have the capacity at this age (7th grade to about 10th grade) to see how not doing their math homework is going to affect their career choice when they are 25. I teach seniors that think once they are accepted to college they can fail the rest of the year as they are already accepted into college. These kids are 18 years old. Some have lost scholarships etc but they just don't believe those that know better when they don't want to. Not all kids/ teens/ students etc are clueless, but it is not uncommon.

I say back off the kid but set a consequence at report card time. Make sure the consequence is reasonable. Do not ask a kid who has never gotten straight A's to get all A's "or else" but set a consequence like that makes sense for that kid. For instance, all grades must be higher than a C and at least as good as reported at the last progress report at year's end or there will be a weekly book report due during the summer to earn the right to play XBox..etc.

Offer whatever assistance he might require to earn high marks, like a tutor if he feels he needs one, an appropriate newly appropriated study area, new highlighters ,etc. Set him up for success and see what he does with it but have some medium term goals/consequences (further than a few weeks away but less than ...he won't get into a good college...ie end of the term) in place so he does not get to high school behind and frustrated.

Have him pick up trash along a two mile length of road.

Then let him know since this is what he is aspiring to, he may as well get used to it now.

From that point on, give him the opportunity to do 2 hours of picking up trash or 2 hours of homework.

As a secondary affect, you get a four mile walk for exercise.

Did this for my son twice when he was 12, it solved the problem.

Just one old man's opinion..............

I like you. You're smart.

Nice set of exercises for chastising a wayward son.
Awesome OP that you are motivated toward your son.
When I think of punishment, I think of something that the governing authorities would do TO your son.
When I think of CHASTISEMENT, I think of something that you, a parent, would to FOR your son.

A few more things to clarify:

1. My kids all do regular chores. They do not get paid for these chores because that's part of being a family. We work together to take care of things around the house. The chores I listed are the things that I will normally pay a small allowance for. These are "extras", so that they have an opportunity to make some money and learn to manage it. But only after regular chores are done. I have 5 children at home. No free rides! I regularly get compliments on how clean my house is though.

2. Several people asked if he may be struggling with the material. I should have included in my OP that, while my son is failing several classes, it is ONLY because of the missing homework. For instance, in Advanced Math, he has a 98% average for tests, quizzes and classwork, but a 45% in homework. So, he's failing. It is the same story with the other classes. He understands. This is strictly a homework driven.

3. I can't try the "take away privacy" thing. He shares a room with his 8 year old step brother. He pretty much has no privacy anyway. Never has. :laugh:

ETA: I can't spell.

I have a 12 year old son...this sounds so much like him. He is in 7th grade but he's taking high school courses....he's at a high school. If he doesn't keep up, he'll have to go back to his old school, otherwise next year, he'll be in 9th grade. He loves it, so I know he would be disappointed if he had to go back to his old school next year. Fortunately he has a 26 year old brother who's constantly on him concerning his grades and why it's important to keep his grades up... (besides his Dad and I). We can all check his status online daily, so if he has any missing homework, we know right away. After struggling with him this last semester, I've decided to take this approach. I check his grades/missing homework before I pick him up from school. If nothing is missing, his computer is on his desk...if not...it's gone. There is no conversation about it. As far as his bedtime, he has to have his homework done by a certain time and if it's done he can stay up another hour. He's constantly telling me that he's older now and I need to give him more freedom. I found that the more I told him to do anything, the less he did.:noway: So, I've decided to take the other approach and back off. It actually has been working. In fact he has been getting ready early in the morning and we've been to school early since coming back from winter break. Last semester, he was late often and our mornings were stressful. So far, mornings have been peaceful! :happy:

Sit at the table with him, giving him nothing to do other than his homework, until it's done - after which, you can reward him with free time.