Most parents fret if you see a lack of motivation from your teen in regards to school. Your reactions often range from bafflement to fury, as you cajole, tease and punish your teens into doing better. But sometimes, your teen’s poor performance may be indicative of a problem that has been hiding beneath the radar screen. There are many factors that may contribute to an apparent lack of motivation, and it’s tricky business to try and discern whether this is a temporary problem that will pass, or a more serious one requiring major intervention. Let’s examine some of the possible causes for lack of motivation:

• Difficulty accepting authority: Teens who have difficulty with authority may resist it in school, even in some ways that are quite obviously self-defeating. A school setting requires adherence to rules and routine, which works against some kids’ very temperaments.
• Learning disabilities, ADD and ADHD: It is not uncommon for learning disabilities and other issues to crop up in secondary school. As the curriculum becomes more challenging, teenagers who were previously able to cope in spite of unrecognized disabilities my find themselves much more challenged.
• Peer rejection: Teenagers who are different from the valued norm in school can be treated cruelly. Once labeled as a loser or outsider, teens may withdraw and choose not to engage or compete.
• Poor self-esteem: Teens who think negatively about themselves may choose not to compete. Whether to prove they are not capable, or because they fear that if they do try they will fail, poor self-esteem often presents as lack of motivation.
• Substance abuse: Teenagers who are involved with alcohol and drugs can see their motivation be sapped by the distractions and negative appeal of this lifestyle. It becomes a cycle that drags them downward as they spend time under the influence and with friends who share this value and priority.
• Negative influence from peers: Teenagers are influenced by peers and tend to engage in similar activities as the peers with whom they hang out. If a teens friends are disengaged from school, your teen may be at risk for similar behavior. It isn’t easy to discern which comes first, the disillusionment with school or the friends who share this feeling, but these kids often do become reliant on one another for support as they check out of the system.
• Family stress: Family problems impact kids, no matter how hard adults may try to keep them separate. Issues of abuse, alcohol problems, marital or financial problems…they can’t help but spill over, impacting kids of all ages.
• Lack of a positive vision for the future: Teenagers who do not have an optimistic vision for their future may not have enough of a reason to care about school. If they cannot see a connection between effort and results, if they don’t understand what elements influence one’s success, if they don’t see value in education, they may have little reason to try hard.
• Average potential: not everyone is going to be an intellectual star. Very bright and successful parents can have children who are not at the top of their class academically. And surely these very same kids have other attributes that can lead to a successful and happy adulthood.

What can parents do to address poor motivation? The first step needs to be an accurate diagnosis about what is behind this behavior and why. This can best be done in concert with the school, and it’s wise to begin with the school counselor. A school counselor will gather data from the various teachers and help you to piece together the various puzzle-parts. Together, and hopefully with your teenager’s participation, you can decipher the sources of the problem and develop strategies to help him get back on track.

Keep in mind, that no child wants to fail. A teenager who is doing poorly in school can’t be feeling good about himself. If the problems are getting so severe that you need to work with the school to address them, try and express an attitude that demonstrates to your teenager that you are one his side, not that you are the enemy. You don’t want this dialogue to become a contest of wills.

Possible actions to take:

• Whenever possible, try and let your teenager take the initiative and be in charge. Obviously, for younger teens and those in serious trouble, parents may need to intervene more, but keep the ultimate goal of self-sufficiency in mind.
• Make sure that your home environment supports your teen’s efforts in school. She needs a consistent and appropriate place to study. She may benefit from your help in establishing and keeping to a schedule. If she cannot manage this herself, support her efforts.
• When monitoring your teen’s progress, communicate with the school. Parents should not be the primary overseer here, but rather, manage this in conjunction with teachers, counselors, or others from the school. Many find that weekly progress reports help facilitate communication and give the student an appropriate amount of supervision.
• Many schools offer peer support groups. Kids will often accept help from their peers, and well managed programs can be a “win” for all involved.
• Get a tutor. Another teaching method, another voice, more one-on-one instruction may do wonders for bringing a child along when she is facing difficulty.
• Hold your teen accountable. Let him know if he doesn’t deliver on agreed-upon goals he’ll be attending summer school to make it up.

  Some of the reasons behind poor motivation that we’ve pointed out may be serious and will require professional assistance. If your child, or family for that matter, needs a therapist or special counselor, don’t hesitate to find one. Again, the school can recommend appropriate resources, as can your health professionals.

Remember that doing well in school is not only important in its own right, it is an indication of your child’s overall health and well-being.

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Are you having trouble getting your daughter to agree to a less-than-x-rated Halloween costume? Sounds like you are in good company. Lisa Belkin’s Motherlode post about girls and their sexy Halloween costumes certainly generated a lot of response. Parents can eloquently complain about our culture, and yet feel helpless against it.

Toughen up, parents. It is easy to find the culture overwhelming, and yes, you are swimming against the tide. But never give up. Too much is at stake. There comes a time when you must stand firm, stake your claim, pick your battles and remain vigilant. If keeping your daughter from dressing like a strip dancer feels offensive to you… then step up and put your foot down. Say no. Show some gumption and some creativity. Help her find another costume!

One respondent to the Motherlode piece said: “Ms. Belkin must have been in my home last night. I sent my 15 year old out the door clutching $50 dollars, which she protested was too little, and instructions not to come home with a costume too short, too tight, or too revealing… She’s got the legs of a 15 year old and the mind of a child saturated with “Friends” and “Seventeen Mag” (The Perfect Kiss). “Where are her parents?” [you ask] Here, struggling every day with limits and peer pressure. Locking her in a closet is not an option but it sure seems like the only way to protect these kids from a bankrupt culture.”

But your culture at home isn’t bankrupt. You can - you need to - create your own culture promoting the values you hold dear. I know, fighting an empowered teen can be exhausting, so pick your battles. If sexy clothes is where you draw the line, more power to you.

You’ll need all of it you can muster.

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“My daughter seems angry most of the time,” I read in the email from a worried mom. “I often don’t know what has her angry, and if it weren’t for that I’d think she was great. She does well in school, she’s busy and successful in her many activities….I think she lives a charmed life! So why do I feel in my gut that something is wrong?”

Gut feeling and intuitive hunches count a lot when you are trying to assess your teenager’s behavior and understand it. This mom probably really is onto something, and it’s worth revisiting the important topic of depression in teenagers.

Depression isn’t always easy to spot or even diagnose in teenagers. This may surprise you, but depression in teens can present as anger or irritability, in addition to the more usual appearance of sadness. And mixed in with the common ups and downs of adolescent behavior, parents can find it too easy to write off problematic behavior as a passing phase. This can be dangerous.

It’s not always easy to determine which is the cause and which the effect, but depression is often linked with vulnerability to drug or alcohol abuse and other destructive behaviors such as self-injury and eating disorders. If a parent feels in your gut that something might be wrong, it is vitally important that you take action to help your teen seek assistance.

Families for Depression Awareness is a non-profit that provides help and support for the family members of those dealing with depression. In one case study on their site dealing with a 17 year old, they tell about his parents’ initial denial, and about his difficulty in putting into words how he was feeling. Kids facing depressive illness may be in the impossible position of being expected to describe how they feel…a task in which they are unlikely to be able to succeed. Families for Depression Awareness offers a free mood questionnaire you or your teen can take which can help you assess if professional advice should be sought.

The challenge of diagnosing depression is increased because the symptomatic behavior that can signal depression is the same list of behaviors most teens are likely to exhibit at one time or another.
Symptoms of teenage depression include:

• depressed or irritable mood
• decreased interest or pleasure in activities
• change in appetite or weight
• sleeping more or less than usual
• fatigue or loss of energy
• feelings of guilt or worthlessness
• decreased concentration
• substance abuse
• recurrent thoughts of death or suicide

Your intuition about your teen’s overall mental health will inform your initial assessment. A parent may pick up a sense from your teen about a fundamental change or shift that doesn’t feel right, or you may see worrisome behaviors such as those in the list above that last more than two weeks….two weeks is the guideline the professionals use beyond which you begin to take action. Another assessment guide for a parent is to compare your teen’s current behavior to her past behavior and make note of the duration, intensity and frequency of the behavior. Obviously an increase in any or all of these will be cause to take some action.

Teens who appear angry, irritable and different from the child you used to know, may indeed be dealing with depressive illness. Depression can take a toll on a teen -even one who continues to bring in good grades and participate successfully in outside activities. So, listen closely and tune in to your teen. If you have reason to be concerned, gather input from others who interact with your teen on a regular basis, and don’t hesitate to call a a school psychologist, guidance counselor, physician or therapist if you have any reason to wonder.

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Here’s an interesting take on media use and your tech habits…you can take a quick quiz that evaluates your media habits and links them with your apparent membership in a particular generation. Are you a boomer? If you don’t text, don’t use Facebook, and don’t even share pictures from your phone you are likely to fall into the baby boomer category in this quiz. Generation Jones-ers are slightly more contemporary (never heard of Generation Jones? those of us born between 1954 and 1965…it is an important subset of the Baby Boomer group.) Of course, Gen X-ers are all over the web with music and video downloads, remixing, blogging and more.

We’ve talked about this issue a lot here, and I think this researcher’s assessment of boomers may be a bit more harsh than necessary. But, if you are still resisting the newer technologies, don’t. Start taking steps one at a time to get up to speed. One mom who is an educator recently told me that she has finally gotten her 17 year old son to open up a bit…and she did it by learning how to text with him on their phones. “He’s always been really quiet,” she said, “and getting him to talk has been a challenge. But now that we text back and forth, I’m amazed at the long and insightful messages he’ll send me!” My son, who is living in Colorado, is also one of those members of the male species who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time talking on the phone with his Mom, but he’ll occasionally send me a photo through his phone of something so special it needs no words. This kind of communication is a special message between us and I completely get it. Here’s his most recent message to me:

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It’s 3:30 PM; Do You Know Where Your Teenager is?

Managing and supervising the after-school schedule can be a real challenge for those parenting teenagers. Working parents of middle school students, in particular, may find themselves in an awkward situation, not being quite comfortable with having young teens home alone, and yet finding few reasonable alternatives. What are appropriate solutions for that critical time period between the end of the school day and family dinner time? What do parents need to know?

Keeping Kids safe: Let’s begin with the facts: It is between the hours of 3p.m. and 6p.m. on weekdays that the majority of episodes of high-risk behavior occur, including sexual activity, substance abuse, and criminal actions. Lack of adult supervision has been linked to lower GPAs, increased likelihood of accidents and injuries, and lower social competence. Teens who are unsupervised after school are 37% more likely to become teen parents*. Among the many reasons to provide supervision and a structured environment for your young teen, the most pressing reason is simply to keep your teenager safe.

Yet – 34% of middle school students are unsupervised in the after school hours; only 6% are in any kind of program.**

Do teens resist the structured environment, and feel they have outgrown after-school programs? What do teens need in a program? What’s at stake for parents, and for kids? What kinds of options can parents come up with that will satisfy everyone?

The challenge for parents: Many parents struggle to find the time to help their children with homework, and sometimes it’s hard to make sure all their kids’ needs are well met. Schools’ primary focus on intellectual and academic development has gained emphasis under No Child Left Behind, yet young people’s development in the social, emotional and physical areas are no less important. These areas can be addressed in quality after-school programs.

Teenagers that are fortunate enough to make the sports team often have their afternoons consumed with practice. What about the non-athletes? Or the kids who don’t make the team, the band, the play? As a practical matter, parents of teenagers may find their after-school needs changing during the course of the year, the season, or even on a weekly or daily basis. This can become a complicated matter to manage for parents.

In fact, the issue of what happens during the after-school hours is such a problem to parents, it even has a name. PASS is what experts refer to as Parental After School Stress. It’s a well-known reality in the workplace that the phones begin to ring at work once kids are out of school. And research has shown that businesses suffer a cost due to parents’ stress in providing after-school coverage for their kids.

Benefits abound in after-school programs: Quality out-of-school programs complement the efforts of schools and families. They offer activities that encourage good decision-making, problem solving, and they build self-esteem. They offer health education and positive role models in a supervised setting, all activities that support healthy outcomes for youth. Additionally, they can provide important experiential learning opportunities and homework assistance, critical support that enhances educational efforts.

Young people say they want programs that allow them to spend time with friends and mentors, to enjoy activities in the arts, and to learn about careers and sports.*

Where do parents find after-school programs for teens? Of the after school programs offered in this country, only 15% are for kids in grades 6 – 8 and 8% for those in grades 9 – 12. Other after school programs are offered by YMCAs, religious groups, Boys and Girls Clubs, Junior Achievement, private schools, parent cooperatives and family in-home programs.

Creative approaches: Parents who have difficulty finding appropriate programs for after school care may need to take things into their own hands and create their own solutions. Beth Fredericks, a parenting educator in the Boston area, refers to parents of teenagers and says “Parents have to get very creative at this stage.” Sometimes they will need to create a “patchwork arrangement” that requires both parents to find some flexibility in their work schedules. She references arrangements she made when her kids were in middle school, cooperating with another family so that their collective 4 children always had a parent in charge and available for errands, driving and homework support. In another instance she refers to 3 families in a neighborhood who have, in total 6 kids. All 6 teens get off the bus and go to one house where there is a parent in charge. Each family takes responsibility for one week at a time.

Teaching skills is required Parents need to realize that it is important to teach teens the skills they will need to be home alone, comfortably and safely. Don’t assume they know what to do. Parents need to carefully and explicitly teach kids how to handle an emergency, how to answer the door, and review all possible “what-if” scenarios to prepare teens for what they may face. Teenagers, particularly middle school aged students, may say they are comfortable being home alone, but they may be covering up for real feelings of discomfort about it. Try and come up with creative alternatives to keep your teens engaged, spending time wisely and safely.

*Making the Case: A Fact Sheet on Children and Youth in Out-of-School Time; National Institute on Out-of-School Time, 2005. http://www.niost.org/

**Findings from the America After 3 PM study conducted by the After School Alliance. http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/america_3pm.cfm

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Your teenagers would have to be severely oblivious to not feel the stress and fear resulting from the financial meltdown in the past few weeks. While we adults have few answers and little guidance on what to do, we can take some small steps toward helping our kids understand what is going on. We have been through significant market corrections in our lives, and we have the benefit of a longer view than our teenagers do. So, even if you’re feeling a bit shaky and nervous, this is a good time to provide some reassurance and perspective to your teens.

What can your teen understand and how can s/he help? This is an opportunity to open up a basic, or introductory discussion about what keeps families afloat, mortgages, long term investments, financial planning, and the like. You may discover that your teen is more worried than you think, so it will be beneficial to probe a bit so you hear what’s on his mind. The financial crisis is surely it’s being talked about at school, both in classes and with friends. Is your teen seeing his college fund shrinking? While you may not have answers or solutions right now, provide some reassurance that somehow things will work out.

Keep in mind that your teenager has far less experience than you do, and therefore a dramatically different view of the world. She hasn’t experienced the many recessions that adults have lived through; he may not understand enough about the natural ebb and flow of financial markets to have much perspective that somehow, this ship will right itself. If your teen has been favored by an abundance of material goods, a change in fortune might be difficult for him to fathom. Be gentle as you are honest and direct; try and be aware of your teen’s limited range of experience with which to provide context for today’s troubles.

Without going too deep into the details of your family’s financial situation, this can be an opportunity to bond together as a family and consider what expenditures are the most important and which ones can be delayed or put off. I’ll bet, with the right framing from you, your kids will likely rise to the occasion and willingly make sacrifices when you help them understand they have a role to play in finding short-term and long-term solutions.

When you begin to look for a silver lining, it really does being to emerge. Less materialism, a simpler life, families drawn closer as they face obstacles together, teens learning important lessons about what matters most. Am I romanticizing this? Perhaps. But I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal.

Motherlode, Lisa Belkin’s articulate and smart blog at the NYTimes, offers up some further discussion about financial discussions with your kids. An article in the Sunday NYTimes and this NYTimes video let’s you hear teen’s voices and concerns.

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Parents of teenagers might be the busiest people in the world. Between your own work and commitments, and getting your teenagers to theirs, family dinners may seem like an in-your-dreams kind of proposition. However the value in having family dinners goes way beyond the nutritional benefits and is connected to everything from teens’ higher grades to less involvement with risky behavior. Take note:

• Teens who who have two or less family dinners per week are twice as likely to smoke daily, twice as likely to have tried marijuana and get drunk monthly compared to teens who have frequent family dinners (5+ a week.)

• In families where teens have two or less family dinners per week, parents are five times more likely to say they have a fair or poor relationship with their teen, not know their teen’s friends or teachers’ names.

Having experienced the challenges of managing family dinners amidst field hockey practices, wrestling and lacrosse schedules, I won’t judge you if you are having trouble sitting down to family dinners 5 nights a week. I will however, share these suggestions:

• One reason family dinners are important is because of the ritual - it’s a time and place to reconnect and talk. If regular evening dinners are out of the question because of your teen’s sports schedule, find other times during the week to be together regularly. Some families make Sunday brunch a regular time to reconnect, some parents will stop regularly at the local Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and chat with their teens. The point is to be sure you establish rituals that do work in your family’s schedule and that kids can count on as a time to be together.

• Include kids in the planning and meal preparation… you don’t have to do all the work yourself. In fact, your kids will learn a lot if they have some responsibility around the meals too. The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner; Easy Family Meals for Every Day of the Week offers some good suggestions for planning family friendly meals with kids’ participation. Author Liz Edmunds raised 7 kids and shares her strategies, recipes, and even conversation starters in a way that makes family dinners look easy and do-able. I like her idea of assigning a theme for each night of the week, making it less daunting to decide on what to serve. For instance she has “comfort food” every Monday, Italian every Tuesday and Mexican every Thursday.

Here’s an offer for you: I’ll give away my copy of The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner to whomever sends me the best strategies for getting your teens to engage in dinner table talk. I will post the best ideas from everyone…so please share your good ideas. Email to to me: Sue@SueBlaney.com

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New parenting behaviors are required as teens are exposed to dangerous content on the internet…I guess we knew that already – right? Here’s some new data to chew on: a study that has just been released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) shows that sites that share user generated content often spread misinformation and glorify dangerous beliefs and behavior. User generated content is found on social networking sites like MySpace and video sharing sites like YouTube.

The study measured teens’ online viewing habits and their exposure to drug-related content. According to a Wall St. Journal article, parents are underestimating the influence the internet has on their teenagers in regards to drug use, and the glorification of violent behavior. Parents’ awareness of the dangers of pedophiles and pornography are well known, but parents’ knowledge of their teens’ exposure to other dangerous messages is lagging.

I found several statistics from this WSJ article to be particularly disturbing:

• The average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old.
• 80% of 15 – 17 year olds have been exposed to hard core pornography multiple times.
• A third of students say their parents would disapprove if their parents knew what they were really doing.

The confusion for parents in keeping up with the technology is understandable, and makes it imperative that you spend time investing in becoming tech savvy yourself. There are many terrific resources for you online, and an excellent crash course for parents called Digital Technology 101 can be accessed at the Anti-Drug.

I encourage you to check it out.

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