Jules- that sounds so much like what I went through in MS & HS. I am so sorry. I know how painful it is for all involved.
I can give you a little insight into exactly what I was thinking when I was around that age -- though it may have absolutely nothing to do with what your son is going through.
I remember making a conscious decision to concentrate on the social stuff because I had felt lonely and isolated for too long and in my mind, being smart and doing well in school were mutually exclusive to being liked and having friends. I really believed it was one or the other and I decided to choose friends because I thought that there was no way I would have a happy life without friends. I was doing the best I knew how to do and trying to learn what I thought I needed to learn. I was also very focused on becoming independent from my parents. So their input had little sway.
Sorry, that is not a solution. But for me anyway, it was calculated and is was a lot of hard work to become socially "successful" and although I was aware I was not doing my best academically (and I had plenty of guilt about it) -- it was a choice, as a pre-teen and teen, that I felt I had to make.
I think mentors might have helped, and also, popular and high-achieving peers (in our school, the popular kids were the rebels who did not achieve -- but that of course went away in college). Exposure to a lot of social stuff outside of school (college talent groups, camps, etc) might have helped as well. My world was pretty small.
BTW, even though I gave my mother much grey hair, I eventually turned out okay.
