Failing on purpose

[Dju]

Something interesting to discuss, I think. XD

I just met a little boy who is on the fifth grade (with children around 10 years old) and he failed around 3 times on purpose (now he is 13, and is about to fail again), and his parents try to make him study but he simply refuses to. They gave him tutors, they try to make homework with him, but it's no use.
So, how would you deal with a kid like this? Would you let him fail so he would have time to mature and one day realize that he can't stay stuck in school forever? Would you try transferring him? Grounding him? I think it'd take his favorite activities away from him, like computers and video games, but a lot of people say that won't help.

I met several people who failed, and many of them had good reasons to. They couldn't keep up, and some of them are thankful they failed because now they feel as if they're on the right pace again. But I never really met such a rebellious kid before, who is definitely not afraid to break the system, but won't there be any consequences?

[Gav]

Well, I don't know the boy, especially his background, his activities (does he have an addiction, like video games? What is he doing when he's not studying?). The only thing I can think of would be a counsellor.

There are some people that fail on purpose, usually for good reasons. I can't really think of people that really -like- failing, it just ends up hurting them... with any luck the kid will realize sooner or later he's inconveniencing everybody, including his parents and himself.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

Well, as this kid becomes older and continues to fail the course, he would feel out of place eventually, both physically and mentally, putting him in isolation as he has no one his age to talk to during class (I don't know about after class). That and the hormones raging inside him due to puberty. Not only that, it's not going to look good on the outlook of his life if he doesn't continue with his education as most jobs (at least here in Canada, I don't know about Mexico or where ever you're living, Dju) require a high school diploma or higher.

If that person is continuing to fail school, I don't think transferring him would do him any good as he would continue doing the same thing before transferring. As for grounding, it doesn't work with all people, but that's because most people tend to due the grounding all at once. I think if you build it up slowly, it will work, but that's just my opinion.

[Sq]

How do you know the people failing are incapable of keeping up? Maybe they just hate the school system or something. At the end of the day, I don't think you can force anyone to do anything. Taking away privileges will just make the kid even more bitter, imo. Either one day they'll wake up and want to change, or they'll find their own way to learn and live.

I guess where I come from, I've always gotten the impression that the incentive to at least do passably in school is there because no kid wants to be held back and watch all their friends move up in a grade.

[Breakingchains]

As Lupehunter says, he's going to start feeling the effects pretty soon. It's going to get tiresome and embarrassing being stuck in classes with the "little kids", and soon he'll realize just how much work he has to do to get back on track.

But that's gonna be a painful realization, and it's going to make the entirety of his school years even harder than they normally are. Ideally, the parents would be able to address the issue ASAP instead of just letting him crash and burn because of his petty behavior. As for how, the question in my mind is this: where's the rebellion coming from? Why is this kid willing to put himself in this awkward situation over and over again? Is he playing power games? Trying to get attention because he feels neglected? Isn't used to boundaries or expectations and is trying to spite them? Etc.. It seems to me that for the parents, the best game plan would depend on the root of the issue.

[Jacob]

I'm with everyone else on needing more information to understand what's gone wrong with the upbringing of this child. As I seem to recall from my years, you tend to give up on something if you feel it has no purpose, or if the only purpose for one to go through schooling was because it's The Law. That's certainly enough for me to not bother (in my youth at least). Whatever the reason, it needs to be addressed now because he's getting older. It's likely he'll be viewed as a danger to the younger students, and would be forced into higher studies or tossed out of school completely.