Question
I read Ending the Homework Hassle when my daughter was in 7th grade and applied it. Her grades came up but when we withdrew the consequences they dropped immediately. This has been a pattern ever since (she is now 17 and a junior) and she has developed no internal drive whatsoever. She has missed out on most of what is fun in high school because she has gone long periods without being able to participate in sports, extracurricular and social activities or using a cell phone (we have always let her go to church related activities). She does not have a drivers license. The first interim of her sophomore year she was failing every class (she was in classes too advanced for her, but was in a school where the regular classes had lots of discipline problems so her teachers did not recommend moving her) and spent an entire semester in her room on weekends. She is extremely strong-willed and we have had some severe discliplinary incidents, defiance and rebellion in the past year, to which we have applied Teen-Proofing strategies.
My question is how far do we go with this? She is probably about average intelligence. Should we just accept her lack of motivation and tell her any class that she fails she will repeat in summer school, and beyond that we will not pay for college unless she goes a year on her own and makes good grades? At the rate she is going she will never actually be able to have any privileges during high school.
