My daughter is breaking my heart?

Question

As I am typing this my bladder has moved up to my eyes and wiggle wiggle all I need is a shake or two and I think I might burst into tears and cry myself in coma. My daughter just don't want to study or swot for her exams - year in and year out - we have tried EVERYTHING - praise, reward, punishment, we do almost everything together and just this weekend again I explained with a little effort she will be done with grade 10 please please please, she got her test and almost all the answers just had to put in a little effort a guaranteed 70 % - no she got 20 - and the reason "I don't know" - everything is I don't know.

If someone is not going to help me I am going to the green roofs

Answer 1

set her straight. tell her that when she leaves school you won't provide for her, you will only provide for her if she goes to college or university. by providing i mean letting her live under your roof and eat the food you buy etc.

Trust me, she will start to think about what shes doing.

also tell her that her grades are making you unhappy because you want to see her do well in life.

Answer 2

it shows she doesn't really doesn't and wont care about school,so just do double until she learns her lesson

then she would be afraid to bring a 65 to the house and never reward her for doing good in school just say good job,just take everything right now for about a week and tell her this would happen if she doesn't do better at school,sounds harsh and she wont probably like it at 1st but she gotta learn

Answer 3

We have found out from experience that you can't motivate a teenager to succeed in school with bribes or punishments. They have to want to do it on their own.

My son was an average student in high school.  He could easily have  been at the top of his class, but he didn't see the point.  We offered to buy him a car if he made a certain GPA.  We showed him how much scholarship money he could earn for getting high grades.  Didn't make any difference to him.  He is now nearing the end of engineering school and will have to pay off his own loans.  He realizes now that it could have been different, but he doesn't regret going to college, even if he has to pay for it all.  He knows how much he is paying for every hour he spends in class, every textbook, every homework assignment, and every exam, and all of a sudden he is motivated!

My youngest daughter has a 4.0 GPA. She scores in the 95th percentile or higher on standardized tests.  But she has no interest in college. Her dream is to become a pastry chef - and even that will wait now, because she's pregnant at age 16.   It took me a long time to come around to this fact: it's her life, not mine.  I cannot tell her what to do with it.  If she wants to bake cakes and raise a child, she can succeed.  If she changes her mind later, she can still go back to school.

My older daughter graduated #1 in her high school class.  She got all kinds of scholarships and is in a prestigious college majoring in a science.  

All three of my kids are happy.  They are kind and generous people.  They have friends. I'm sure that 10 years from now they will be financially stable, good citizens, and will have created some type of good lives for themselves.  They will look back and see that in their own way, each of them overcame the challenges of their youth.  How I felt about their grades or test scores will be irrelevant.

What does your daughter want to do with her life?  If she doesn't have a goal of some sort, try to help her find one.  Then accept it, whatever it might be, and help her figure out how to get there.  She will grow up no matter what you do.  She will have to be responsible for her own life.  Now is a good time to start.  

Answer 4

There is no subject in school that cannot be passed, escpecially Science, Social Studies, and Languages. Math i can understand, but the other subjects just require straight memorization and studying. Im fifteeen and my parents lay it hard on me, and Im thankful for that. As soon as I get home from school, I take a shower and begin my homework. After my homework is done, my parents make sure i go in every subject and take notes and study the lesson from each day. Im from New York, and the curriculum is ok, and I have been doing great. Im not allowed on the computer or T.V on weekdays and I get rewarded only If I score 94 or higher. My parents are strict with me, and thanks to them, I am an honors student. I suggest being harder on her. DOnt bribe her either, and dont show her you are desperate. Talk to teachers and talk to some tutors as well. There is no reason for her to fail like that. She must be distracted by soemthing...

God Bless.

Answer 5

try getting her a study pal, maybe someone who shares common interests such as sports or other activities with your daughter. her study pal will be able to encourage your daughter into studying.

find an activity she really loves to do like soccer or dancing or something. sign her up and tell her she needs to keep up her grades in order to be allowed to attend. that should motivate her to study and work harder if she truly loves what she'll earn out of it. most high schools do that for athletes. i'm pretty sure they must maintain a C average or higher in order to stay on a sports team or they are kicked off.

good luck with this, and please cheer up. i feel for you

Answer 6

What punishment have you used? Yoir daughter seems lazy so ban her from everything.... if this doesn't work I used to be a huge slacker but my parents sent me to boarding school and i ended up having fun! try that it might work.

Answer 7

its called being a teenager

Answer 8

Take her to a learning center like Sylvan where she can individualized help with whatever homework she has -- sometimes admitting you don't understand or are struggling is hard and the defense mechanism is to just start saying you don't care.  Positive reinforcement is always a good thing, so find something she really wants or someplace she wants to go....a fabulous weekend shopping trip in Chicago or Manhattan or whatever if she graduates with a 3.0 GPA or whatever the goal is....if that alone doesn' t work, though, you may have to get more drastic.  My mother would have taken away my car keys (if she is there yet) and refused to let me go out.  Get proactive and work with her teachers.  Call the school and see if someone can work with you to send home a list of her homework every night and you can check it yourself to make sure it is done...no talking on the phone, dates or social outings....not even TV until then.  She may claim to hate you now, but she'll outgrow this phase and someday thank you for it.  It sucks, but sometimes you have to let go of being a "friend" and keep a stiff upper lip to be a mom.  She won't hate you forever!

Answer 9

i would bring her to sylvan

Answer 10

Buy yourself a paddle and USE it.

Answer 11

Well good luck because it has been my experience that you cannot make kids study unless they want to.  I was telling my son's psychiatrist this (he has ADHD) and he said to me 'well he can read and write, add up and tell the time - he's perfectly employable!'  And he was right.  He didn't finish high school but he's had a steady job for the last 4 years and is perfectly happy.  Now he's 21 and has applied to university on Adult Entrance because he wants a better job.  It all works out in the end.

Answer 12

I work in an office where we hire people based on previous work experience, confidence and respectability - grades don't even come into it.

You need to sit your daughter down asnd ask her what she wants to do with her life - and listen - don't speak back.

Listen, listen, listen to how you are making her feel.

It is good that you care about her future but you are pushing her too much - some children comit suicide because they don't make the grades that their parents wanted them to - have you considered how irrelevant it all will become if this happens to you?

If she has a goal in her life for example to be a marine bioligist - then show her exactly how she can make that happen and what grades she may need. Help her find the right schools and colleges etc...

If she doesn't know yet find out her interests and show her jobs she could possibly do with those interests if she had the grades she needs.

You see at the moment grades mean nothing to her - they may in the future.

But if she fails her exams that doesn't make her a failure - I was a very bright grade A + student that went to pieces during exams - I had to resit until my nerves let me pass - I fainted in exams at the fear of them.

And where did it get me? Nowhere - for I went in a completely different direction, cretaed my own company from scratch with no money and now employ about 11 people. I didn't need the grades I had but I could have done with a business degree - see where I am going with this?

It's not about how clever your child is it is about motivation - you are going to have to accept that she needs to live her own life and not yours.

Where did your grades get you? Do you work for someone else?

She may need help finding motivation in her life to find something she wants to be - apart from that - stuff the grades, send her to a college that teaches her about setting her own business.

And calm down before you lose her forever - if my Mum had put extra pressure on me as well as my fear of exams I think I would have felt like not wanting to live......you have a healthy daughter to be proud of - so tell her you don't care what grades she gets as long as she is happy - and watch those A's come in!

Answer 13

When you yell at her and threaten to take things away it won't harm her anymore because you have done it to her before and it will make her madder and she won't do it even more. Unless she has never been grounded. Try and sign her up for something that she really enjoys in school and then she will have to try and study more or else she will get kicked off of the team or kicked out of the club. Maybe you can get some off her friends together and they can all study together. It might also be if her friends don't do their homework or study either and she thinks that she has to be like them or else they might not like her.

Answer 14

Hi, I was that kid 10 years ago (boy though).  She just needs to find something that interests her.  It should turn out OK if you just accept her choices and support her.  Guide her but if you forbid or punish her for a life choice, she's going to do it again.

It took me a while to find myself, but i'm now doing very well in an IT company.