Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Motivation

My son, who is 8, is completely unmotivated, especially by schoolwork (he is in Gr. 2). At this stage he is still doing well but it is going downhill FAST.
He does well in tests, but does no homework, writes illegible, forgets punctuation, capitalization, etc. We have spoken to him about this, but he seems to simply not care. His response was "weird", since he is super sensitive to criticism or correction. When I look at the work he brings home, it is hard to believe that it has been done by a brilliant boy.

Is this the beginning of him simply giving up? He is terribly bored at school, and continually gets into trouble for not paying attention, daydreaming, etc. (While still scoring perfect on test after test.)

What to do?

Is it a maturity thing, or simply that he is bored beyond caring?

If this describes your DC, when did it change?

Another possibility is that he already KNOWS all of what is being taught, and he is simply not motivated because it feels like incarceration, and he's tired of being a model prisoner, since there doesn't seem to be anything in it for him.

KWIM?

He can do it if he wants too, is motivated, interested or trying to please his parents/teachers.

I will tell you that our neuropsych says that when she hears parents describe their child as "lazy," eight times out of ten, she ends up diagnosing that child with dysgraphia.

This is a big reason why I think correct diagnosis can be very helpful. Can you imagine being the child labeled "lazy," for years, in school? Much better to have the right name for what's going on, IMO.

DeeDee

Is his birthday early in the year? (ie 8 and in gr. 2)? If he's one of the oldest kids in the class that would exacerbate the boredom problem. If he's scoring perfect on test after test that's a big red flag too. Could you consider a grade skip?

When my DD, who had written beautifully at age 4, started churning out barely-legible work in school, that was another indicator of how much she was hating school.

It changed when we pulled her out and started homeschooling.