motivate HS sophomore

[Chilly Mike]

Hello,
My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
GPA indicates. I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
help. Then I think that if he doesn't improve his grades, I'll cut
back his TV time, or his online time, or his social time, and have him
spend that time studying, but then I'm not so sure that's a good idea
either. I want him to put more effort into his studies, without
turning him off. He is able to skate by with one study hall and
doesn't have to work hard to earn his 3.20, but I know he could raise
his GPA to at least 3.6. Any thoughts? Or should I just be happy that
he's earning a 3.2 GPA? Thanks for any help!

Mike

[Louise]

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:30:57 EST, (Chilly Mike)
wrote:

>Hello,
>My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
>GPA indicates. I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
>report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
>help. Then I think that if he doesn't improve his grades, I'll cut
>back his TV time, or his online time, or his social time, and have him
>spend that time studying, but then I'm not so sure that's a good idea
>either. I want him to put more effort into his studies, without
>turning him off. He is able to skate by with one study hall and
>doesn't have to work hard to earn his 3.20, but I know he could raise
>his GPA to at least 3.6. Any thoughts? Or should I just be happy that
>he's earning a 3.2 GPA? Thanks for any help!

Don't pay him, or you'll reduce whatever intrinsic motivation he has.
Don't punish him, either, because he won't spend the time studying -
he'll just be mad at you. He's at a stage now where his schoolwork is
becoming his own business, not yours.

If you think he should be working harder, then help him find more
challenging courses. Is there anything that interests him that he
could add to his schedule instead of the study hall? Can he take a
grade 11 course, or an enriched course?

Once he's identified some goals for after high school, then you can
help him aim for the marks he needs to reach those goals. But I don't
think it helps to poke at a 15yo about post-HS plans, because he
probably doesn't have any. This is more something to watch for over
the next year and a half or so.

Louise

[Marijke]

"Chilly Mike" > wrote in message
om...
> Hello,
> My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
> GPA indicates.

How old is someone who is a sophomore? (sorry, we don't have those
designations).

I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
> report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
> help.

If it is around 16 or 17, then I don't think you should be offering bribes
or punishing. There's a time when they have to learn that if they don't
work, they don't get where they may want to go. Yes, it can be very
frustrating (I have a 16 yr old son in his last year of high school, we
finish in grade 11 here in Quebec) and I would love for his marks to reflect
his ability, but they don't. And no amount of punishing, cajoling, bribing,
whatever will change that.

At this age, it has to come from *them*. In my opinion, when our kids are
this age, all we can do as parents is go back to the very early days of
schooling and make sure that the "kids" have the tools they need (space,
time, equipment) and stand back.

Marijke
mom to three (16, 14 and 12)

[Bruce and Jeanne]

Chilly Mike wrote:

> Hello,
> My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
> GPA indicates. I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
> report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
> help. Then I think that if he doesn't improve his grades, I'll cut
> back his TV time, or his online time, or his social time, and have him
> spend that time studying, but then I'm not so sure that's a good idea
> either. I want him to put more effort into his studies, without
> turning him off. He is able to skate by with one study hall and
> doesn't have to work hard to earn his 3.20, but I know he could raise
> his GPA to at least 3.6. Any thoughts? Or should I just be happy that
> he's earning a 3.2 GPA? Thanks for any help!
>
> Mike
>

Punitive actions would pretty much guarantee a rebellion and not what
you want. I would try to motivate him by talking about what he wants to
do, what's he interested in. Even if he's a part-time employee at the
local skate / surf store, talk about setting up a business and what the
store does.

Also, a 3.2 GPA, while not stellar, really isn't bad. My parents were
tough on me and it did absolutely nothing to raise my GPA, it just made
me feel stupid and worthless. My mother took one look at my PSAT score
and remarked "Well, that won't win the National Merit Scholarship" (my
brother actually got this), so I felt awful. When I told my friend my
score, with the comment "it's not very good", her eyes bulged out and
she said "It's one of the highest scores in the school."

Jeanne

[Kevin Karplus]

In article >, Chilly Mike wrote:
> My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
> GPA indicates. I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
> report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
> help. Then I think that if he doesn't improve his grades, I'll cut
> back his TV time, or his online time, or his social time, and have him
> spend that time studying, but then I'm not so sure that's a good idea
> either.

The time to limit his TV watching was about 6-10 years ago, so that he
never developed the habit of wasting time this way. If you are going
to limit his TV watching now, it will have to be a family decision to
limit (or eliminate) TV for all members of the family. Probably
difficult to do if you've already let him become addicted (or become
addicted yourself).

Rewards can work as motivator, though there is some danger in relying
entirely on unrelated rewards, as motivation may disappear as soon as
the reward is given. Still, the learning (particularly of study
skills and problem-solving skills) does not disappear immediately, so
rewards may be a useful way to get past a temporary loss of internal
motivation.

> I want him to put more effort into his studies, without
> turning him off. He is able to skate by with one study hall and
> doesn't have to work hard to earn his 3.20, but I know he could raise
> his GPA to at least 3.6. Any thoughts? Or should I just be happy that
> he's earning a 3.2 GPA? Thanks for any help!

Have his grades always been around 3.2, and you've only just now
started getting worried about it, or have his grades been sliding over
the last two years? Is he worried about his grades? Have the courses
been getting harder without his effort level increasing, or have the
courses remained about the same relative difficulty with his effort
level decreasing? It may be easier to get him to return to a previous
level of effort than to get him to put out effort for the first time.


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Kevin Karplus]

In article >, Louise wrote:
> Don't pay him, or you'll reduce whatever intrinsic motivation he has.
> Don't punish him, either, because he won't spend the time studying -
> he'll just be mad at you. He's at a stage now where his schoolwork is
> becoming his own business, not yours.

It is still appropriate to show an interest in what he is doing in
school and to let him know that his school work is important to you.

> If you think he should be working harder, then help him find more
> challenging courses. Is there anything that interests him that he
> could add to his schedule instead of the study hall? Can he take a
> grade 11 course, or an enriched course?

Good advice, if the school offers anything he is interested in.
Other possibilities include encouraging an extra-curricular activity
that would be synergistic with his schoolwork (an acting class when
they are doing Shakespeare in literature, TV production work with a
local cable channel, internship at a local tech company, ...).

> Once he's identified some goals for after high school, then you can
> help him aim for the marks he needs to reach those goals. But I don't
> think it helps to poke at a 15yo about post-HS plans, because he
> probably doesn't have any. This is more something to watch for over
> the next year and a half or so.

My older brother found working one summer loading trucks in a
warehouse enormously motivating for finishing college---on the other
hand, he later started a wholesale food business and ended up not only
loading trucks, but driving them, buying them, balancing the books,
and all the other tasks that small business owners face.


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Tamex]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 09:30:17 EST, Bruce and Jeanne
> wrote:

>Also, a 3.2 GPA, while not stellar, really isn't bad. My parents were
>tough on me and it did absolutely nothing to raise my GPA, it just made
>me feel stupid and worthless. My mother took one look at my PSAT score
>and remarked "Well, that won't win the National Merit Scholarship" (my
>brother actually got this), so I felt awful. When I told my friend my
>score, with the comment "it's not very good", her eyes bulged out and
>she said "It's one of the highest scores in the school."

I was thinking the same thing. In my high school, 3.2 would still get
you on the honor roll. I could see a reason for concern if he had
been getting a 3.6 and it's slipping to 3.2, but if he's always been a
"B" student, I wouldn't start punishing him for that now.

Or has grade inflation really gotten that out of control?
--
Tamex

No matter how much Jell-o you put in the pool, you still can't walk on water.

**remove Tricky Dick to reply by e-mail**

[Kevin Karplus]

In article >, Tamex wrote:
> I was thinking the same thing. In my high school, 3.2 would still get
> you on the honor roll. I could see a reason for concern if he had
> been getting a 3.6 and it's slipping to 3.2, but if he's always been a
> "B" student, I wouldn't start punishing him for that now.
>
> Or has grade inflation really gotten that out of control?

Grade inflation varies enormously from institution to institution (and
even from department to department within a university). There are
very few places left where a C represents average work---most common
is for B- or B to be average. In some schools with an extra half
point for "honors" classes, the average grade may be well above 3.0.
I believe that some college admissions forms ask for a rank and class
size (50/350, for example) to help recalibrate inflated GPAs.

At some schools a 3.2 represents a very respectable grade, and in
other schools it is barely above the middle of the class (which may
still be quite respectable, but usually won't help in getting into the
best universities).

It is important for parents to find out the grading standards of the
schools their children go to, so that the grades can be properly
interpreted.

Colleges are probably worse than high schools at grade
inflation---particularly in the humanities. There are a lot of young
professors who seem to believe that the grading standard is
"A=average, B=bad, C=catastrophic", and who fear failing students.

The engineering schools tend to have stricter standards and less grade
inflation---it is not unusual for 1/3 of our students to fail a
course, particularly in the freshman year. I have seen examples at
UCSC of 70% of the students failing a particular offering of a class,
though I've never had that bad a performance from any of my classes
(30% failure rate is about as high as I've ever had to go).

--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Tamex]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 05:47:24 EST, (Kevin
Karplus) wrote:

>I believe that some college admissions forms ask for a rank and class
>size (50/350, for example) to help recalibrate inflated GPAs.

IIRC, that was standard proceedure ten years ago. GPA was only a
means of obtaining class rank, which was the really important number
as far as colleges were concerned.
--
Tamex

No matter how much Jell-o you put in the pool, you still can't walk on water.

**remove Tricky Dick to reply by e-mail**

[Rosalie B.]

(Kevin Karplus) wrote:

>In article >, Louise wrote:
<snip>
>> Once he's identified some goals for after high school, then you can
>> help him aim for the marks he needs to reach those goals. But I don't
>> think it helps to poke at a 15yo about post-HS plans, because he
>> probably doesn't have any. This is more something to watch for over
>> the next year and a half or so.
>
>My older brother found working one summer loading trucks in a
>warehouse enormously motivating for finishing college---on the other
>hand, he later started a wholesale food business and ended up not only
>loading trucks, but driving them, buying them, balancing the books,
>and all the other tasks that small business owners face.

It may take a boy longer to get to the point that he will work on
grades.

My dh was a B-C student in school and got an appointment to the US
Naval Academy through the reserves. His HS principal said he'd flunk
out in the first year. He didn't - he graduated on the
Superintendent's list (equivalent of the dean's list), but his first
year was rough.

My ds really never got the 'point' of going to college until he was
married with a kid, at which point he said to me "I want to be paid
for my brains and not my muscles". (He was loading trucks for UPS at
night at that point in addition to his day job.)

My oldest grandson was also never a stellar student - my dd and SIL
refused to let him drive until he got good enough grades for a good
student discount, and even that wasn't enough motivation. He dropped
out of college as a freshman, and it isn't until this year after 5
years on his own that he's gone back.


grandma Rosalie

[Chilly Mike]

Louise > wrote in message >...
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:30:57 EST, (Chilly Mike)
> wrote:
>
> >Hello,
> >My son is a HS sophomore who is capable of doing better than his 3.2
> >GPA indicates. I've been considering rewarding him with money if his
> >report card GPA is higher than 3.20, but I'm not sure if that would
> >help. Then I think that if he doesn't improve his grades, I'll cut
> >back his TV time, or his online time, or his social time, and have him
> >spend that time studying, but then I'm not so sure that's a good idea
> >either. I want him to put more effort into his studies, without
> >turning him off. He is able to skate by with one study hall and
> >doesn't have to work hard to earn his 3.20, but I know he could raise
> >his GPA to at least 3.6. Any thoughts? Or should I just be happy that
> >he's earning a 3.2 GPA? Thanks for any help!
>
> Don't pay him, or you'll reduce whatever intrinsic motivation he has.
> Don't punish him, either, because he won't spend the time studying -
> he'll just be mad at you. He's at a stage now where his schoolwork is
> becoming his own business, not yours.
>
> If you think he should be working harder, then help him find more
> challenging courses. Is there anything that interests him that he
> could add to his schedule instead of the study hall? Can he take a
> grade 11 course, or an enriched course?
>
> Once he's identified some goals for after high school, then you can
> help him aim for the marks he needs to reach those goals. But I don't
> think it helps to poke at a 15yo about post-HS plans, because he
> probably doesn't have any. This is more something to watch for over
> the next year and a half or so.
>
> Louise

Thanks for all your help! I also left this message with the Dean of
Students at my son's high school, and he had the school counselor call
me back to discuss this subject. She said the same things that you
all have mentioned here. She recommended against any "rewards". She
said to consider things he's interested in. That really rang a bell
with me, because he's involved with his school's JROTC program. He
was in the first group of sophomores (like most USA HS sophomores,
he'll turn 16 years old while a sophomore) to be promoted to Corporal,
which is the only promotion available to his class, so he's pretty
proud of that. The quarter ends within two weeks, so when his report
card arrives, his mom and I will talk with him about his goals, HS
goals like earning leadership positions within his battalion, where he
is regards class rank and honors courses and GPA. He's mentioned the
service academies in the past, so we'll encourage him to visit his
guidance counselor and talk about what it takes to be accepted at
those schools. I should check w/his Academic Dean about this, but the
school counselor also said that a 3.2 GPA at this HS is taken by
colleges as a 3.5 GPA, due to the (I guess) difficulty of the courses
at his HS. Thanks for all the good advice, it was right on target!
I'm glad I checked with others before trying my motivation plan ... it
would have made a mess of things!