Boys to Men and FRUSTRATION

[mrsrandolph]

Can we talk teenaged boys? What are or have been your experiences been with your 13/14/15 year old boys and their school work?

I have my own experiences with my 14 year old son and have listened to podcasts that tell me what is happening in my home is the norm...total lack of enthusiasm for school...lack of motivation...laziness..."I wish I could play video games all day". SIGH

I would love to hear from you...both your experiences and your advice!!

[snadig]

Oh.......I am so glad I am not alone!!! I have two older girls and now a 13 year boy. My thought is they need to burn energy in order to focus on anything!!! Motivation is hard and video games grab their attention so much and the less they do of them the better IMHO.........I think getting them to work with their hands or engaging their minds, they need to fix stuff, feel like they can do men stuff.......It has been a challenge for me lately.

I will love to here from others and will keep praying for wisdom. I will check back at pass along things that work for us.

Have a blessed day!
Stacey

[twolittlebears]

My son is 12.5 and been a needing a lot more sleep! He has never liked school, he just wants it to be over. LOL! He does love nature study and reading, but hates to write. I remember taking a class on child development, and they said that teenagers are going through baby/toddler faze again! That their bodies are changing just as much as when they were little bitty and that we need to be very conscious of their true need for more sleep. That to us is looks like laziness, but they truly are like caterpillars turning into butterflies. They need more guidance, more support, lots and lots of hugs! (this really stuck with me) and gentleness from us, the same kindness we showed to them as toddlers. It seems all so opposite of what the world tells us.

[daybreaking]

My son is 12.5 and been a needing a lot more sleep! ... teenagers are going through baby/toddler faze again! That their bodies are changing just as much as when they were little bitty and that we need to be very conscious of their true need for more sleep. That to us is looks like laziness, but they truly are like caterpillars turning into butterflies. They need more guidance, more support, lots and lots of hugs! (this really stuck with me) and gentleness from us, the same kindness we showed to them as toddlers. It seems all so opposite of what the world tells us.

As a mother of a 15 1/2 year old, I heartily agree!!

[mrsrandolph]

So let me ask you guys this. We start our day EARLY with family worship before Dad goes to work. Then my teenaged son goes back to bed for an hour and then has to be up for his part of school with me. He CHOOSES to stay up TOO LATE at night. "Bedtime" and when he actually goes to sleep are very different.

Am I wrong to feel like he needs to take some responsibility for getting enough sleep?

Thanks!

[kidsforHim]

I'm listening in too! I have 3 boys, 13, 16, & 18. This has been our battle too! I recently came across an article from deeprootsathome.com "Starving Brains & Poor Attention Span? 30 Quick Tips to Help Moms" There are a few other articles about boys but I haven't read them yet.
I have found the 'gentleness' approach more effective for my oldest. I say that because the lack of motivation ect. was especially noticeable in him. I had the tendency to really be hard on him but it was driving him away from me & THAT was NOT what I was wanting of course! I have often thought my boys need real life things to DO with their hands, like a previous poster mentioned, but find it hard to find WHAT. We have no garage or basement & have small living space. I would love to get an A HA moment, something doable for us & of interest to them.
I will be checking back often to see what others have to say..

[daybreaking]

I'm by no means an expert, but can simply share what I have learned from my experience and through lots of reading. To begin with, I had an epiphany one day, when I realized how few years I have left with my son. It made me want to hold onto every moment I have with him and to make our remaining years pleasant for him. I don't want his memories to be ones of a frustrated, "on his case" Mom. I want him to feel we are walking along side of him, helping him to be successful. At the same time, it is very apparent that teenage boys need firm boundaries in place, to help them become the men we desire they will be. It would be easy to let our son sleep in and stay up until all hours, but that would be serving him no useful purpose and it would throw off our whole day. What we have done is to have a set time he needs to be in bed to read for a half hour, to help him wind down, followed by a set bedtime, where lights must be off. (We physically go in and say "goodnight" to him, so there is not an issue with him staying up past his bedtime.) He may or may not fall asleep once the lights are off, but as long as he is resting quietly, that is sufficient. Secondly, we have a set wake up time, which for him is 6:30. Although he has an alarm, we like to wake him up in the morning. We have logical consequences in place, should he choose to roll over and go back to sleep, and we strongly desire to implement them calmly, just as a policeman would give a ticket. (ex. "You chose not to get up on time, so you'll need to use your free time to do ______.") Along with this, we have discussions with him on the importance of developing his character, of being diligent, etc. We try to put in front of him the husband and father we hope he will become and we try to view any activities through that lens. For that reason, we do not do video games in our house and our children's screentime is primarily limited to purposeful, rather than entertainment-based, activities. We also do not allow any screentime in their bedrooms, other than reading from an e-reader. On that vein, I will say that, in my experience, too much screentime (especially mind-numbing screentime ) is extremely dangerous for teenage boys and is very detrimental to their being diligent with their schoolwork, so anything you can do to keep that away will benefit you. I will also say I didn't realize at first how much boys that age need hard manual labor, whether it's shoveling snow, raking leaves, running with the dog, etc., but I've seen firsthand the difference it has made! HTH!!