Brilliant Aspie son won't do simple homework

[The Lorax]

My son is absolutely brilliant. His social skills are better than most other aspies. He is teachable and has real life friends.
He is 15, scored top 1% on the PSAT. 2 years ahead in school.

He did very well until 9th grade then fell apart because depression hit.
We don't show any disappointment or anger with him. We fully support him with love.

We now have him in private school after the 9th grade debacle, individual therapy, group therapy. It is killing us financially.

In school he refuses to do homework, and in half his classes e refuses to do the classwork. Even the simplest thing.
Example. He is excelling in Spanish just on his memory passing the test with 92% but hasn't done any work killing his grade.
All the teachers are bending over backwards for him.

He has a simple crossword puzzle to do for Spanish. I tried everything and finally I said I will do it for you, Just read the question so I know you know the words and I will fill in the answer. If you don't know the words we will use Google translate to get the answers. It is about practice and memory. It is required for college. Work smart not hard I tell him. I can do it in 5 minutes.

.......NO! I don't want to do it.
me - Why? I am doing it for you?
him - Stop asking me (hands over the ears) shutdown mode.

Frankly the work in these advanced classes is easy compared to what I had to do and I wasnt in advanced classes. No brainer with today's technology available.

My wife and I are almost at the point of giving up. Just letting him do the classes he wants so he gets the social practice and telling him to take the GED whenever. But he doesn't want that. He wants to take the full load and graduate then go to college. But this logic isn't getting through... He has to do the work to pass. Confronting him with the reality of the situation leads to a shutdown and pressed eventually a screaming meltdown.

We are at wits end. I am so incredibly angry at this illogical situation but I don't show it to him or my wife. Please advise as we are out of ideas.

 

[Thinx]

I guess being brilliant isn't the whole picture that gets good results, and it sounds like your son may need longer to work out what he wants and how to get it. Maybe just reassure him you know he's bright, and he should probably have a go at doing his homework if he can. But in the end it is up to him.

I do agree his reactions sound unusual and as if he has something like a need to refuse what he's asked to do. But I don't think it's unusual for people to underachieve, some can't focus, have low confidence, are depressed, are immature, are overwhelmed, are distracted by social relating etc, he seems to be in that position.

 

[Rodafina]

I tried everything and finally I said I will do it for you,

NO! I don't want to do it.
me - Why? I am doing it for you?
him - Stop asking me (hands over the ears) shutdown mode.

I’m not trying to cast blame here, but I’m pretty sure this approach could be part of the problem. I completely understand the desire to simply do something for someone else when at wit’s end, but taking away this autonomy can be truly crushing to any type of motivation that your son has.

If this has been a pattern throughout his life where failure or inaction has been met with someone else stepping in to do it for him, it would make sense that he does not do certain things although he has the ability to do them.

The perspective I am sharing here is not an academic one, but a personal one, having been raised in a family where their intentions to protect me from stress led to a lot of people doing things for me. This left me constantly feeling helpless and paralyzed and totally unmotivated to participate in what other people wanted me to do, despite my supposed “intelligence.”

The puzzle here seems to be intrinsic motivation. A tricky puzzle, and I don’t have the answer, but I didn’t want to leave my post without a tiny bit of optimism.

 

[Aspychata]

Perhaps you csn suggest he may need to redo a year over because he can't seem to progress any further. Maybe summer intensive courses. Because the school work still needs to happen. Can you get him into some type of martial arts, electric guitar, sports type Jr league? Something to get him outside of himself. Sign the family up for volunteer work? Perhaps therapy? My daughter did seek counseling and ended up on antidepressants for about a year in last year of high school. She now holds a job and attends a university full-time. She finishes next year. So you may fall down the rabbit hole, but it's how you chose to deal with a situation will help him deal with later situations in his life. She actually called and scheduled her appointment with a psychiatrist. Yes, l always felt she was bordering on depression. But her father is bipolar, and often bipolar can be misdiagnosed as depression, it's difficult, but you just want the teenager to get help. Sometimes antidepressants do help for short-term until serotonin levels are recalibrated. I also was on antidepressants for severe depression for about a year. It really help me in a very depressing time in my life.

 

[KingDiamond]

Bribe your son to motivate him, but you have to come through on your end.

 

[Misery]

You mentioned depression, and, well...

If the depression is at the core of it, not much is going to work in the way you're hoping. It doesnt matter what the subject is or any of the details, or what kind of approach is being used, or what rules there may or may not be, or how much the teachers or you are helping... if depression is killing the ability to care about it, well, that's it. It aint gonna work. Depression overwhelms like that.

So... I guess that'd be my advice: if he's still depressed, put all focus into trying to help him cure it, because until that's gone, it's likely to control him.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[Shevek]

Nobody bothered making me try in school, so I flunked out with a general knowledge score over college grad level. I just didn't see the point in most of the lessons, and nobody had tried to relate them to the things I was interested in. After a few years, I went to the library, and was next seen in school as a guest lecturer for graduating engineers.
Relax.

 

[Fino]

I also refused to do work in high-school and attended only 2-3 times a week, but my parents didn't care. My GPA was 1.6, and I graduated by finishing high-school from home. College was better suited to me, and my GPA was 3.7.

If he's depressed and therapy isn't helping, has anyone discussed medication?

 

[The Lorax]

He was in Martial Arts, did EXCELLENT, then quit because he got out of breath and refused to take an inhaler.
He was taking piano lessons and did EXCELLENT, then quit because he didn't want to do it.
He tells me he has zero motivation for anything.
The one thing he does do is the pre-calculus on his own without help and he gets A's.

All he needs is to know the words for Spanish and practice. Thus why I offered to show him how to do it easy and do this one for him as he only reads it to me. One of the allowances is him to record himself knowing the knowledge so he doesn't have to write. He hates writing.

 

[The Lorax]

Bribes rarely work. No bribe has ever worked for school.

As to Shevek's point. If he said "mom, dad can I just take the GED. High school is BOOOORING"

BOOM DONE!! But he wants to go the standard route yet this post.
He is also lonely thus school is the only way for him to make friends, which he has.

GED + high SAT gets him in. He isn't going to be another Elon Musk... he isn't that level of smart. Go local, get your 4 year, then masters if you want. He is looking into math or comp-sci. He wants to go to college.

I know a friend who never finished high school but scored so high on the SAT Berkley said "come on in".

 

[The Lorax]

Yea he doesn't do online school. COVID was a disaster for him.

 

[Rodafina]

Confronting him with the reality of the situation leads to a shutdown and pressed eventually a screaming meltdown

Anything confronting would also lead me to shutdown and potentially meltdown. Could you take a much less confrontational approach? There’s always the chance that what each one of us sees as reality is slightly different. Forcing your reality upon him does not make it true for him.

I’m not saying your reality is wrong or that you shouldn’t teach him, I’m just saying that by 15, kids can be at the point where just because someone says something it doesn’t make it true. Teenagers are programmed to start to question things at this age and begin to seek independence in their living and they’re thinking.

We are at wits end. I am so incredibly angry at this illogical situation but I don't show it to him or my wife.

I say this as gently as possible. Are you sure about this? “Incredible anger“ can be easier to pick up on than one might think. If you are this frustrated with him, there is a chance that he feels it at some level.

He tells me he has zero motivation for anything

Exactly. Just like Misery was saying.

Can you work with him to determine something that motivates him that he can work toward – even if it is something tiny and not related to academia or general progress. Like perhaps do something that motivates him where there is a good chance of success together just for fun?

 

[Outdated]

Sorry if I don’t express myself very well here, your son sounds just like me 45 years ago and for me to talk about this isn’t very easy.

I was bullied from the first week I started school until the day I got out of there. Physically bullied by other students, mentally bullied by teachers demanding that I “be normal”, and being sent to see the student counsellor who was a paedophile. I couldn’t report the paedophile because then I would have to face our local police who consisted of a violent sociopath and his toady mates who beat one of my friends to death because he was black.

I was in jail.

That’s what it felt like. And my father, who was also a bully, was so determined that I was going to go to university. Yes, I truly do have genius intellect. Add another four years to my jail sentence just to keep him happy? That wasn’t ever going to happen.

You’re right, bribes don’t work. Bullying doesn’t work. I ended up only showing up at school for exams, where I always got straight As. On the few days where I was forced to attend I’d sit up the back of the class reading novels, teachers soon discovered that I was not there by my own choice and mere attendance was the extreme limit of how far I could be pushed.

I left school as soon as I was 16, then there was no legal reason that my father could force me to stay.

 

[Suzanne]

Sounds like bordom to me. He excells at everything and thus, there is no fun in it, which mostly happens with genuses.

The more you push; the more he pulls back ie meltdowns.

Have you asked him what he wants to do? Or do you assume that you know what he wants to do? When he says: no, I don't want to do that; could you perhaps ask why he doesn't?

I can imagine the pride and excitement you feel, knowing your son is extremely clever. But, he is a human being still and not perfect.

The fact he wants to jump ahead with his education, tells me, he wants to end it all and just forget, which to others, is frustrating and illogical, when there are so many people out there, who would dream to be able to do half of what he is doing, but he is an individual and deserves respect to what he wants in life; not what his parents want from him.

 

[Outdated]

Sounds like bordom to me. He excells at everything

Suzanne also made some very good points here. They weren't teaching me anything. Year 10 and I'm in maths classes with people still counting on their fingers and can't tell you the 6 times tables. English classes for the barely literate.

And repeating the same lessons year in year out because that's all the normal people are capable of.

My attending school served absolutely no other purpose than compulsory submission to constant victimisation.

 

[Misery]

Suzanne also made some very good points here. They weren't teaching me anything. Year 10 and I'm in maths classes with people still counting on their fingers and can't tell you the 6 times tables. English classes for the barely literate.

And repeating the same lessons year in year out because that's all the normal people are capable of.

My attending school served absolutely no other purpose than compulsory submission to constant victimisation.

Aye, same here, sort of.

For me the biggest example was computers and such... I grew up surrounded by increasingly bizarre and complicated tech of all sorts, and was self-taught in terms of using any of it... even as a kid in the DOS era I could fix most problems or just get the things to do whatever.

But when it came to computers in school? Braindead stuff. And yeah, I get that it kinda needs to be that way when teaching people who are truly new to using them, but still. Didnt change how bloody dull it was. And the format of the classes and such didnt help.

Contrast that to math stuff... they ruined that for me. Ruined and corrupted. Not only did their "lessons" NOT teach me math, it gave me a permanent aversion to the subject. I can add or subtract, sure, can multiply, albeit slowly and awkwardly, but if you ask me to do division you'll just get a blank stare, and anything beyond that and I'll probably just throw something at you. This whole establishment that is supposed to be about learning can end up killing a kid's interest in or enthusiasm for a subject to the point where they now actively hate that subject.

So, in situations like the one described in this topic, I always hesitate to think that the problem is entirely with the child. I've no doubt that the school itself is part of the problem. Simply because they usually are.

 

[Aspychata]

It would be great to find an internship that he could really excel in. Great you are looking to find answers here. Sometimes as parents we are on top of it, but we still can't motivate. Sometimes depression sucks motivation out of teenagers. Maybe he does need to go in for an appointment?

 

[Outdated]

@Misery , I'm sorry to hear that they spoiled maths for you, and considering your other interests I don't believe it was because you weren't capable.

I didn't learn maths in school. At my grandfather's advice my father started teaching me before I started school. I could add and subtract at age 4. My father penciled for bookies at races as a second job so by age 7 I could work with fractions and ratios including multiplication and division.

My grandfather started teaching me algebra and physics, I learnt far more from him than I ever did from the education system and he died when I was 11.

Meanwhile I've got teachers trying to tell my parents that I've got severe learning difficulties, that I'm dyslexic, that I'll never be able to learn to read and write. None of them could understand why Mum laughed so much.

 

[Outdated]

Just a little quote from an English author that I loved:

When dealing with children knowledge is the same as vegetables. As much as you can push through the front of their heads.

 

[Shevek]

He HAS to learn Spanish? How can you be so sure? You actually have no idea what life will be like in five years. Sir Ken Robinson:

My parents did make a couple of attempts to get me some professional help, but would not consider that they might have any part in the problem even with expert advice, so there was no hope for me trying to tell them what was wrong.