Motivating a teenager

I'll take his future in computer science over anyone graduating with a journalism degree who has worked internships all through college.

 

You don't pay them a certain rate merely to watch your kids. You pay them a certain rate to make sure they'll do it again -- especially if someone else calls requesting the same time.

 

Two-year computer science degree with no work experience = not very good job prospects

 

This.
His field of study is spot on. But it's also going to be competitive, with people who have some work experience ... even if it's mixing pizza sauce at Papa John's. Fact is, if I'm hiring for something that requires a two- or four-year degree, I shouldn't have to teach you the job, culture AND how to be an employee. You better come prepared for that last one.

 

Eh, when you're looking for a programmer, the nerdier and more anti-social the better. Don't know how slinging pizza dough is going to be much indication of his prowess in that field. Probably more relevant if he's playing online games and studying the code.

 

Of course, making pizza is going to show if he can build a database. No one is suggesting it will.
Finding and holding steady employment, regardless of the field, shows tangible characteristics that translate to any field.

 

Ideally a person would have both, but the education is going to trump unrelated work experience for sure.

Anyhoo, it's a tangent to this thread. You're talking about a college student and the OP was about a 15-year-old who appears to have a pretty normal academic, extracurricular and social life.

 

king, like TigerVols, I lived it too. About 12 years ago.

Our situation was like this, though. Daughter, 16, had no problem getting a part-time job. Three-sport athlete. And she got the idea sometime around the age of 14 that she was going to do the minimum work necessary to get by in high school.

And nothing was going to move her from that stance. That's the hardest thing for parents to realize. At some juncture, you cannot MAKE your stepdaughter think the way you do. They have their own mind, even if they're wrong.

Anyway, she consistently miscalculated. She was constantly on the edge of academic probation. She was one of the basketball coach's first players to be ineligible for a period due to grades, and he'd been coaching 25 years.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I developed a legitimate phobia over going to the mailbox, because I was afraid there would be one of those thin envelopes from the school district with one, two, maybe three notices that she was currently in danger of failing a class.

The maddening thing was, to an extent, she was a rather pleasant girl. And when the teachers asked why she didn't do an assignment, she would smile sweetly and say, "I'm sorry. I just didn't do it."

We tried everything -- Huntington, psychologist, loss of computer privileges. Eventually, we pulled the plug on her junior basketball season, which crushed her. And she still thought she could make things work her way -- doing the minimum necessary.

She graduated from high school, a semester late. She had to go back the fall after her planned graduation to pass enough credits. Twice, we tried to start her in the local community college. Both times, she came back midway through the first semester with a GPA somewhere around 1.0. So we finally said, OK, you have to go out, get a full-time job and your own place to live.

That all is the "bad" part. Here's the "good" part.

In most cases -- and from the sounds of yours, I think your stepdaughter is like this -- they come out the other end.

What it took here was two years working as an overnight foreman for a garden-tools manufacturer. When she saw she wanted more out of life than that, she went back to technical school. She completed a medical-billing course in two years with a 4.0. Within two years, she was handling all the billing in the Carolinas for her company and rising through the chain.

By the way, she still won't admit that her academic "plan" hadn't worked. In fact, if it's brought up, we're still met with the death stare.

king, that was a rather long-winded way of saying that you simply do what you think is right each step of the way. Some of it will take. Some of it won't. And if she's on a college track, you're definitely doing something right.