Q: I guess that it is my turn to talk about our son. He is 16 years old, has just started Grade 11 and is doing very poorly in school this year.
We know that he is capable, but he does not appear to be interested in his school work, and the results are telling. He is either failing or nearly failing a number of his classes.
We are not sure what to do.
My son says that he has a learning disability and he wants the school to put him into special classes to help him.
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My husband thinks that we have spoiled our son and that he is just lazy. My husband wants us to buy into “tough love” for him.
My mom, who is something of a child-care expert, having successfully raised seven of us, thinks that we just have to be patient. She thinks that he will come around when he is ready to do so.
I am different than all of them. I think that our son is wallowing in a negative aura and will not likely succeed until he jacks up his self-esteem.
All of us want to go different routes and of course that is not helpful to our son.
I am interested in knowing which of the above suggestions you think has merit?
A: I think that it is great that all of you are supporting your son and encouraging his success. If all of you ever get your acts together to form some kind of a cohesive unit of support you will likely see miracles as your boy successfully challenges his school performance.
At the moment, all of you, including your son, are spinning your wheels and the whole thing is going nowhere. You might do well to have your son assessed by an educational psychologist and use the findings and recommendations from her report to help all of you come together in the common pursuit of your boy’s educational commitments.
Most schools have psychologists on their staff. You could ask one of your son’s classroom teachers to help you make a referral for the school psychologist to see him. That might take a little time. If you would like to get some guidance a little more quickly, you could pay to have your son assessed by a psychologist working in private practice. Both the school psychologist and the private practitioner are equally competent.
When referring your son for a psychological assessment, I hope that you will encourage whichever psychologist you choose to explore the extent to which your boy may be caught in personal depression.
Depression in adolescence is on the increase. Results from surveys completed in 2014 in the United States showed that 37 percent more adolescents were reporting major depressive episodes than were those reporting in surveys held 10 years earlier.
There is an unfortunate correlation between the increase in adolescent depression and the explosive use of social media and cellphones. The cellphone is an innocent victim but cyber-bullying is real and can lead to both trauma and depression for many children.
Displacing interpersonal contact with text messages is also real. It is encouraging social isolation and that too can lead to depression. A number of kids sleep with their cellphones on during the night but they don’t sleep. Their cellphones are disturbing them throughout the night and that can lead to a lack of sleep, which can also cause personal depression.
Let’s not forget the addictive nature foraging its way through the whole gamut of the electronic world. It is hard to successfully achieve anything, either in school or in the community, when you are boycotting everything except an electronic keyboard. The obsession with electronics drives a huge hole into whatever is remaining of self-esteem and makes nothing but room for the incursion of personal depression.
I hope that you will refer your son for a psychological work up. And I hope that you will do what you can to deplete the magnetism the electronic world is using to engulf your son.
