Given the media focus on the the rigorous high school curriculum, homework and extracurricular demands on overachieving teenagers, it may be surprising to some that one of the more common problems in parenting teenagers is dealing with those that consistently underachieve in school. Often this is not due to drug use, depression or another serious medical issue, but simply general slacking, laziness, lack of family connection and sloppy and irresponsible habits.

Many of these kids may have been decent students when they were younger, but changed significantly for the worse when they hit the teenage years. The best advice for parents of these teenagers is that they need to exercise patience and good communication skills. Fighting and yelling are not effective tactics, so parents must force themselves out of this bad pattern of behavior.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011 at 3:46 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.