The ninth grader does not want to study. Teenager child does not want to study, psychologist's advice
Many parents are familiar with the situation when the child studied well until the 6th-7th grade, then suddenly the lessons became uninteresting and the grades were indifferent to him. He can sit at the computer for hours, lie on the couch, listening to music, or disappear from the house. Every year this "disease" infects new teenagers.
What to do? - eternal question which many generations of adults ask.
Reasons for lack of interest in studies
Psychological and pedagogical science distinguishes 2 groups of factors - physiological and social.
Physiological problems
Puberty and stormy physical growth, giving rise to heart problems, as well as a change emotional background lead to the fact that the teenager becomes irritable. He is nervous about a minor issue and cannot calm down.
The growth of muscle mass does not keep pace with the growth of bones, which is why the child is overtired and experiences constant fatigue. There are spasms and pains in the heart, the brain does not receive enough oxygen. Absent-mindedness appears, psychological processes are inhibited, perception and memory are difficult. In this state, absorption educational material is not easy.
Social factors
Physiological problems give rise to social ones. The inability to control emotions worsens relationships with peers and teachers. The inability to resolve conflicts makes a teenager avoid them, skip school. The need for communication and the desire to be understood can lead him into bad company.
Adolescence is a period of reassessment of values. If you have before your eyes an example of how an educated person did not find his place in life, and a former loser became successful, then the motivation to study is sharply reduced.
Problems in the family affect student performance: lack of comfortable conditions, workplace, supplies, conflicts between parents. Both total control and connivance when parents are not interested in the child's school life are equally harmful.
The desire to learn disappears due to hyperactivity, excessive enthusiasm for gadgets, or due to stress when, in addition to school, the student attends different circles and sections.
Identification of the causes is the first step to solving the problem; the mechanism of specific actions of parents depends on them. Psychologists recommend starting with simple and obvious things.
Set up your workplace
Create comfortable conditions and properly organize the workplace for homework. The child should have a personal space, a separate room, or at least his own corner.
Diversify your leisure time
Observe the child to determine his interests, which can be a bridge to interest in the educational subject. He must quench the age-old thirst - self-knowledge. Throw him books about modern teenagers that will be understandable and close. Tell him about your own growing up without embellishment. Look for incentives to teach your child. Quarter performance rewards include going to a rock concert, going kayaking, going to a competition, or buying a computer.
Change school
If the reason for the reluctance to study is in a conflict with classmates or a teacher that is not allowed, it is worth thinking about changing the class team or school.
Hire a tutor
If you have problems mastering a particular subject, you need to try to fill in the gaps by doing it yourself with the child. Now there are many online training programs. If financial possibilities allow, hire a tutor.
communicate more
Talk daily about school life teenager, show interest and patience, even in response to impudence. Give examples of the advantages of studying and prospects: an interesting and highly paid profession, work abroad and career growth.
Learn to listen and hear the child, trust him, be frank, respect his ideas, reasoning, praise and find something for it. The main thing: love your son or daughter the way he is, show that you believe in him and will always be on his side.
Transitional age is the most difficult time not only in the life of teenagers, but also their parents. This is the age when a grown child longs for independence, requires making his own decisions, looking for himself and his life purpose.
Unfortunately, quite often this age is accompanied by problems with studies. More recently, a diligently studying child suddenly begins to demonstrate an absolute rejection of the school and everything connected with it. The diary of a teenager begins to fill with twos and threes, interest in learning drops sharply, and teachers simply shrug their shoulders, unable to do anything.
Initially, every child strives for knowledge; by nature, curiosity and a desire to understand the unknown are laid in him. However, the current school system is far from ideal. Many parents and teachers are most interested in diligent children who do not have their own opinions and listen carefully to what the elders say. Not surprisingly, many students oppose this system. It is understandable that the child does not want to learn.
Remember yourself, did you really like all the academic disciplines studied at school? And how much school knowledge was useful to you in adulthood? Perhaps the problem is not as serious as you think.
To understand your difficult teenager”, it is important to identify the cause or combination of reasons that discourage the child from learning.
It is likely that the unwillingness to learn can be provoked by excessive workload. Many kids are so busy doing homework that they don't have time for the usual teenage joys.
The second reason is disappointment in the teaching staff. Child younger age looks at the teacher as a king only because of his professional affiliation. By the age of 12, a teenager himself is able to form value judgments about the people around him. Boring, sluggish presentation of information and a rude didactic tone of the teacher for a long time will discourage the child's interest in the subject.
Difficult relationships with one of the teachers or with classmates cause a strong reluctance to go to school. Here parents must intervene in the situation, otherwise bad relationship with an authoritative teacher or peers can lead to sad consequences.
A common reason why a child loses the desire to learn is problems in the family. Parents tend to believe that their petty family scandals have nothing to do with their child's twos and threes. However, this statement is wrong. A teenager who does not perceive the family as a safe haven does not have the resource to gain knowledge, since all his moral strength is spent on experiencing family conflicts.
If a teenager does not want to study: the advice of a psychologist will help him and his parents to set priorities correctly and establish a difficult relationship with the school.
How can you help a teenager?
- Do not ignore his feelings by forcing him to sit down for lessons. You cannot shove knowledge by force, and irritation and anger are inevitable;
- Do not indulge in idleness. There is no need to “calm down” the teenager, they say, you don’t like going to school, well, it’s okay: here Nikolai Vladimirovich also studied for one deuce, and now he has become the director of the company;
- In no case do not compare your child with a peer who studies much better than him. In addition to antipathy towards this same peer and distrust of you, you will not achieve anything by this method;
- Never discuss school or teachers in a negative way in front of your child. For him, the words of mom and dad are of great importance. And if you don't like school teachers why do you expect your child to like them;
- There is no need to intimidate a teenager with statements about what a terrible fate awaits him if he does not steadfastly sit at his desk and do all his homework. “When you grow up, you will be revenge yards” is the most favorite horror story of most parents. Also, do not talk about the fact that you owe your professional success to the fact that you looked the teacher in the mouth for 11 years;
- Praise your child more often. Do not scold for a bad grade, calling it a crooked lazy person, better tell me how to fix it or just try to cheer up the child;
- If your teenager is more interested in building relationships with the opposite sex than studying, do not try to prevent this. In the end, the first falling in love is the most important stage in the formation of the personality of the child, which forms him further relation to marriage and family. Quite possibly, this is even more important than sines and integrals.
The main advice to give to parents is to trust your child, love him and give him the right to choose his life scenario.
The performance of all children by adolescence is greatly deteriorating. By adolescence, the need for knowledge, the desire to realize oneself through continued education, increases.
Poor academic performance may be due to subjective or objective reasons. Objective - violations of some brain structures (possibly hereditary) due to which the child slowly counts or analyzes, but the child is healthy. Unfavorable relations in the family, poor material conditions. Subjective - parents (perhaps the first teacher) did not sufficiently form the cognitive activity of the child, motivation for learning, did not instill skills for learning. The child has a negative attitude towards learning. There is no attitude to knowledge as a value in the family. Parents are arrogant about teachers, school and people in general. There is no setting in the family for work as an effort to achieve the goal. teacher in primary school was inattentive and insensitive to the individuality of the child. In primary school, parents were not involved enough or not at all in educational process showed no interest in school concerns. It is necessary to take a closer look, listen to the child, observe him: what he is interested in, what he is inclined to - to a computer or sports, to literature or physics, and help the child form his interests with studies, help him form the motivation "why study".
If a teenager began to study poorly, it means that his interest in learning has disappeared or decreased. Something more interesting appeared in his life, occupying all his thoughts. It would be good to find out where his energy goes. And if there is nothing dangerous for a teenager in his hobby - to agree on the need to be distracted also by lessons. And you definitely shouldn’t scare him with the fact that he won’t be able to finish school, he will become the worst student of all, he won’t go anywhere.
The reason for the sharp failure can be not only laziness or love affairs. Eat scientific explanation: 1) fatigue nervous system due to changes in the hormonal system; 2) decrease in memory, attention due to changes in the development of the body; 3) problems in communication with teachers, classmates; 4) reassessment of the importance of the subject for oneself. Very often in adolescence the blood supply to the brain is disturbed, heaviness and pain in the heart arises due to the fact that the body grows faster than the vessels and the nervous system.
Poor study is one of the hallmarks of adolescence. For a teenager, it becomes more important to communicate with their own kind, self-expression, search for oneself. And studies are often so far from this ... But this will pass and a little later they will catch up. The main thing: do not press on a teenager, do not fight with him - let him learn responsibility for his behavior now. Do not be afraid: “Here, he (she) does not study - what will come of him (her)?”. Get it, and do not hesitate. After all, you can always catch up with your studies - if only the child himself had a desire. Adolescence will pass - and the parents themselves will not recognize their children. Learning will improve.
We need to find out the reason. Try to help the child if this reason is psychological, to arouse interest in him. It is possible that this problem will be solved by itself as you grow older, but it is still worth understanding the essence specific case If parents are not sure, it is worth contacting a psychologist. Although it is believed that the decline in school performance is typical of adolescence, the causes are always individual. Much has already been written about this, and everything is true. It is worth talking with teachers, listening to their opinions and observations, because after all, you are one team in teaching your child. Of course, it is worth talking in a confidential manner with the child about what is happening. It is best to contact a specialist and find a problem and a solution together. And be prepared that a child’s poor academic performance may turn out to be just a symptom of the problems in your family system, and you will need to work with this as well.
Find out the reason for poor academic performance - it may be a bad relationship with the teacher or fear of answering in front of the whole class, difficulties in mastering the subject, etc. It is very important that interest in learning remains, and grades are always quite subjective.
It is important to talk with the child, which could cause difficulties. Most likely, you and your child will understand why. And then it will be necessary to form a strategy for getting out of this situation. You may need your help and support, it is possible to control the completion of homework, it is possible to reduce additional workloads. Here you need to look individually. And if talking to the child does not clear up the situation, you need to go to school and talk to class teacher, teachers, school psychologist, to understand and help the child overcome the difficulties that have arisen.
Find out the reason. Talk frankly, as with an adult, as an equal. Try to understand the logic of this behavior. Be sure to support and, if possible, remove the obstacle. (There will be more constructivism, if not to criticize, but to voice your feelings. Adolescents develop a conditioned reflex to criticism very quickly. I want to be proud of your achievements” - this can have an effect!)
“The child does not want to study, he is not interested in anything, he used to study with pleasure, but now he does not want to” - these are typical complaints of parents and teachers.
The learning motivation of schoolchildren often falls after the transition of the child from primary to secondary school. But what is the reason for this, and what can adults do about it? Let's just say that this is a frequent phenomenon associated with age-related changes. However, a lot has been written about the features of adolescence, we will not repeat ourselves. Let's stop on the main thing.
1. The leading activity of adolescents is communication with peers, often to the detriment of learning. The influence of parents on teenagers decreases compared to younger age.
2. A teenager has a need for independence, a sense of his own "adulthood", as a result - increased sensitivity to the assessment of his personality by others, vulnerability.
3. A teenager's self-esteem can fluctuate dramatically depending on the circumstances.
4. The instability of the interests of a teenager. He can get carried away by something, and after a while cool off, especially if his interest is not supported by attention from those around him who are significant to him.
5. Long-term prospects, long-term plans are often not perceived by a teenager. He is "here and now".
Of course, much depends on individual characteristics. But in general, all of the above, to one degree or another, applies to all adolescents, although it can manifest itself in different ways, depending on temperament and character.
Let's return to learning motivation or, in simple terms, the desire of a teenager to learn. And the main problem - what should parents do if a teenager does not want to study?
According to studies by neurophysiologists, the features of adolescence, including learning motivation, are associated with certain brain structures.
We will not tire here with terms - the limbic system, the orbitofrontal cortex, the ventral striatum, etc. For those who are interested, we recommend the book - L. Steinberg, Transitional Age - do not miss the moment.
We are interested in practical conclusions and the answer to the questions: “How to increase the influence of parents on teenagers?” , "How to help the parents of a teenager?", "How to influence a teenager?"
1. Research shows the ineffectiveness of negative feedback from adults on the activities of children. They do not increase a teenager's desire to learn.
2. Effectively use positive feedback: praise, recognition of success, encouragement. Due to age, the “pleasure center” in adolescents is much more important than in early adulthood. Teenagers are more receptive to rewards and less concerned about losses. Consequently, it is easier to influence a teenager through positive emotions than to threaten with punishment. It is effective to use positive feedback: praise, recognition of success, any rewards in the form of interesting events.
3. Adolescents have not yet developed self-regulation skills. It is advisable to help him structure time, using some kind of “reminders” for this. For example, a note on a piece of paper that reminds you of something will do.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE A TEENAGER WANT TO LEARN, HE NEEDS HELP
If there is the trust of teenagers and parents, then following these rules will help improve learning.
Unfortunately, it is the mutual trust of a teenager and parents that is often missing.
Do you know, dear adults, what is the most difficult thing? This is to change your own attitude towards a teenager and his studies. The most common of these is that parents are fully responsible for the education of their children.
Rules in order not to lose or regain the trust of a teenager and parents, to increase the influence of parents on their child.
1. It is necessary to abandon the total control of a teenager's studies. Stop constantly asking questions like: “How are you doing at school?”, “Did you do your homework?”, “Did you prepare for the test?”, “Did you pack everything for school tomorrow?” and so on.
What do we achieve with such questions? Only the fact that a teenager has an even greater negative attitude towards learning and irritation towards you. And certainly a sense of responsibility is not formed, because. adults take it upon themselves with their questions.
This does not mean indifference, but attention to the study of a teenager should be without obsession, which only irritates him.
2. Never transfer any conflicts or negative emotions about a teenager's studies to other situations.
Imagine that for some reason you are reminded of everything that was and was not? What will you feel about it?
3. If a teenager’s studies seriously disrupt your life - teachers’ complaints, calls to school, then just tell him about it, discuss it with him, ask how you can help him. But without accusations of all sins, not trying to arouse feelings of guilt, but as an equal partner whose actions complicate your life. (There is a wonderful “I-message” technique for this)
4. Know that numerous studies, both in our country and elsewhere, have shown that school performance is not an indicator of a person's intelligence and further success. Therefore, is it worth sacrificing a relationship with your child for the sake of school grades?
5.Never sort things out with a teenager "on emotions." During the abuse of parents in the brain of adolescents, the center of negative emotions is most activated, and the activity of the centers of control and understanding decreases. In other words, he does not perceive information well in such a situation and hardly controls his behavior.
Finally.
The relationship between parents and teenagers is often fixed for life. During this period, a teenager is the hardest of all, and instead of help and understanding from adults close to him, he often receives additional stress. Resentment or other negative feelings can take hold forever. Do you need it?
MAIN.
The fulfillment of all that was mentioned above leads to the fact that a teenager begins to study better and becomes more responsible and independent.
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If you are raising a teenager, then you know how difficult it can be to attract him to study. Most of them do not need help to go shopping, play on the computer or communicate with friends. But when it comes to doing school homework, your push to study is what will make the difference between an A student and a child who falls behind. We offer you several ways to get a teenager to study.
Try to find out why studying is not interesting
How to find out why your teenager does not want to study? There are many reasons why he or she puts off homework and ignores teachers' demands. Perhaps other things take up all the time?
Communication in social networks and gatherings with friends are good in moderation. Or has the child been taken over by video games? Whatever it is, if you are clear about where your time and attention is going, it will already make it easier for you to get your teenager to learn.
As a good mother, you should know how to interest your daughter or son. At first, you can observe, but not intrude on the privacy of a teenager, do not use surveillance and verification of accounts, smartphones, and so on. However, you have the right to ask where and with whom the child spends time, as well as limit his leisure time.
Remember that trusting relationships play a huge role in parenting, create an atmosphere where you trust the child, but at the same time take a strict position - if your trust is deceived, the teenager must understand that it is only his fault.
Consider character traits
In some situations, emotional factors become much more important. One way to get a teenager interested in learning is to increase motivation. This is a job worthy of a real psychologist, but good parents deal with that too.
Direct efforts to help your child overcome the negative factor in himself that does not allow him to achieve success in school.
You can get valuable advice if you turn to a teacher who knows the student well and his weaknesses:
- laziness;
- perfectionism;
- procrastination;
- low self-esteem;
- poor concentration;
- ignorance of the consequences.
Discuss together what will happen in the future if you do not take up education right now. Apply individual approach: an uncontrollable difficult teenager can be intimidated with stories about special schools and boarding schools, and a vulnerable (not rebellious, but depressed by his failures at school) is better to support and tune in to positive, they say, everything will work out, but you have to try.
Rebellion and depression are equally bad for learning, but they have completely different roots, and you need to communicate, given this difference. Desperate to instruct your child, you may give in to thoughts of where to send a difficult teenager to study, but know that these are extreme measures for children from dysfunctional families.
It is better to curb the negativity on your own than to admit defeat and send the child to a boarding school. At the very least, you should know for sure that you did your best.
Maintain positive communication
Teenagers are very sensitive to comments and criticism. To convince a teenager to study, parental control is necessary, but it can be done in different ways. Practice positive control techniques.
When you see that your son is busy with the right things, he is trying, collected and persistent in the classroom, he gets a good result - be sure to express your approval in the correct form. This means that you should praise the action, not the person.
Similarly, if your son reports that he failed an important test at school, gather all your patience not to scold him, but you can also state in a calm voice that you are unhappy with this result (and not with your son). This will create a healthier atmosphere in the family and save your relationship with your children from conflicts and quarrels.
Track the influence of friends
Surely your children have schoolmates who do not care about the rules, their future and whether homework is done or not. Their influence cannot be underestimated - children too quickly adopt a bad example, especially if they want to seem "their" in the company of their peers. A teenager does not want to study because it is “not cool”?
Explain that it is possible to be "cool" and have high grades in school subjects at the same time. Tell the stories of your friends about how they coped with their studies when they were schoolchildren. If you do not have suitable examples, remember yourself and your problems.
Share your own experiences and feelings that you had then. This will support your child and help him see you as more than annoying adult but as a friend and kindred spirit. Emotional closeness with family members is very important for support.
Limit computer time
If your son or daughter works on a computer, make sure they don't "hang out" on the Internet instead of studying. Warn that you will check the browsing history in the Internet browser from time to time, explain that you are not going to deprive them of their personal life and leisure, but just want to help them not become addicted to online communication.
Don't get personal, don't make a fuss if kids break your rules (and they will!), just warn you that you will block access to their favorite sites or internet connection, and don't be afraid to do it in reality if your rules are ignored.
Help start
How else can you help your teenager study well? Sometimes they fall into a state in which they simply do not have enough energy, an impetus to get down to business. And you will be such an impetus: affectionately and kindly, but persistently, you can send your son or daughter to the table, bring him (her) a backpack with textbooks, ask him to start learning lessons immediately.
It seems too easy and obvious, but in many families, pushing like this helps kids do better in school.
Do not annoy with advice, do not criticize, just follow simple instructions: " start right now», « open a book and read», « your table is waiting for you" And so on. Refuse to read morals and commanding tone - this always causes only protest.
Many parents look forward to their child's adolescence with a mixture of dread and hope. Fear - because during this period many children change so much internally that even close people sometimes do not recognize them, hopes - because parents secretly hope that these problems will bypass them.
How to return the desire to study if a teenager, who used to be quite successful in all subjects, is now not forced to sit down for lessons? What can be done before everything has gone too far?
After all, now good grades and solid knowledge are a pass to a university, a way to get a profession that will bring satisfaction. However, in any high school class, it is not easy to find a motivated teenager who is able to think about things like consistently good grades.
What is the reason for the sharp decline in interest in learning?
The main problem that prevents a teenager from learning is a shift in life priorities. If in primary school I so wanted to please my parents with good grades, because they were the central figures on which the child depended, then in adolescence such categories as the ability to understand oneself and others came to the fore.Before this goal, which, of course, is not realized by children and most parents, mastering the wisdom of school cannot be compared. It is here that the reason that a previously modest and obedient child cannot now be forced to do homework is that he disappears into in social networks or in the company of peers.
Understanding yourself as a full-fledged personality with your own interests and individual qualities, mastering the formation of yourself in a team according to the laws of human society and its nature occurs precisely in adolescence.
- How to gain authority;
- how to make people like you;
- how to look better
- how to get out of a conflict situation;
- how to evaluate the actions, their own and other peers;
- Hereditary features of a teenager, type of nervous system;
- Significant overload of the child with additional activities;
- The inability of the teacher to interest in his subject;
- The biased attitude of teachers towards children (why study well if a teenager is still perceived as a C student and “ordinary mediocrity”);
- Poor relations in the family, lack of trust and understanding both between parents and the child with his relatives;
- Mental laziness, or, in other words, intellectual passivity;
- Weak motivation for learning - it is difficult to convince a teenager that diligent study at school and the knowledge gained as a result of it will be useful to him in life.
Where will it end?
In most cases, having paid tribute to nature, the child goes through a period of formation and returns to learning. Now the main thing is to bring him to the right motivation.The incentive to do well in school cannot be put into a teenager's head, it must come from within. Growing up, a high school student sees his goal, builds a plan to achieve it, and looks for ways to implement it.
And here it is no longer necessary to force a teenager to do homework, children, as they say, “take up their minds” and choose the direction in which they are going to receive further education.
How to motivate a teenager
Forcing a child to study better, most likely, will not work. Advice to deprive him of pocket money and other benefits, to control every step, to force him to do his homework until midnight, also does not work, they can seriously undermine a trusting relationship with a son or daughter. Children will begin to hide their problems from their parents, they may even stop studying and show up at school regularly.If the desire for information is not developed in the family, there is no respect for knowledge, no interest in reading, then you need to start with a reassessment of values. A child will not study well, in whose family the only printed products are supermarket catalogs, where words of condemnation of the school and teachers are constantly heard. In other cases, it is necessary to form a positive motivation for learning in general and for school in particular.
If the problems began in elementary school, you should not make a good student out of an underachieving child right now. Learning skills, interest in learning, the desire to learn are formed precisely in the first grades, and now this moment has already been missed and it is incredibly difficult to achieve progress.
The best tactic is to analyze the child's inclinations and build on this basis the priorities for choosing subjects at school. Collecting soldiers, insects, computer, basketball, wrestling - all these hobbies can become the basis for a revival of interest in school.
In the event of a decline in academic performance already in secondary school, you need to rely on psychological features character:
- If the child has strong ambitious sides of character, he can be pushed to study subjects that are useful for his career in the future, to show that if you do not do homework now, this will greatly hinder entering a prestigious university in the future;
- You can convince a child with a demonstrative temperament to study by showing him how good study will help to stand out among his peers at school;
- Sympathy for a peer of the opposite sex will also help to make homework, especially if the object of romantic affection is a good student and has strong aspirations.
Let peers come home, give them the idea of doing something useful and productive: modeling, cooking, soap making and other interesting activities that teach something interesting, and even in the company, after that they will help to do compulsory lessons better.
Tell us what you were like at that age, only without excessive idealization. Help to look for literature for teenagers, special and artistic, about their problems and things of interest.
Do not put labels on children like "mediocrity", "stupid", "three-man". Such negative assessments will not help to do homework, but it is very easy to lower self-esteem and increase the level of aggression.
Do not manipulate the fact that poor schooling of children makes you unhappy, sick, happy ... then continue on your own. They are not obliged to make you happy, children do not study for you, and they sit down to do their homework not in order to please mom and dad.
In order for such problems to arise as rarely as possible, it is necessary from an early age to form in children the desire to learn the world and take an active part in it.
The problem of underachievement in secondary school, with the attentive attitude of parents and teachers, has many solutions. Trust and understanding is the key that opens all doors.
