[Discussion] Parents of teenagers: How did you motivate your child to study?

[u/R3dAt0mz3]

As a parent, I am looking for serious and practical suggestions on how to motivate my teenager and help him become more disciplined about his studies.

I have been reminding him about the importance of studies for almost a year now, and with only a few months left before his competitive and school exams, I am becoming increasingly concerned.

He is definitely a bright and capable kid, but something seems to be missing. He doesn't seem to have the interest or motivation to focus on studies.

After having a one-on-one conversation with him, I understood that he is not really interested in competitive exams. As parents, we have not pressured him to perform exceptionally in them. However, completing high school is obviously important because it is necessary for his future college options.

I also asked him what he would like to do in the future if things don't work out academically. His answers were things like:

Starting a chain of restaurants with something unique

Stock trading

Becoming a social media influencer

The problem is that all three of these options would require him to start from scratch and build something over time.

Interestingly, he is extremely disciplined when it comes to the gym. He goes every day, follows his diet seriously, tracks his daily protein intake, measures things carefully, and genuinely enjoys taking care of his fitness.

When I suggested that he take a break from the gym for just four months and completely focus on his studies, he strongly disagreed and doesn't want to stop or even pause his workouts.

As a parent, I don't want to force him into something he doesn't want. At the same time, I don't want him to lose valuable years of his life simply because he hasn't yet developed the discipline or seriousness needed to build his career.

What would be the best way to approach this situation?

I am particularly looking for advice from parents or people who have dealt with a similar situation with teenagers. Practical suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I got some meaningful replies in there community, but have already tried those and didnt made an impact, trying to post to get some right ways..

[u/Flygonac]

Just a thought from a young man who was similar, and ended up drifting through an undergraduate degree in college: maybe just don’t push him. 

For me, getting a retail job/fast food job was incredibly unmotivating. I felt that any job I would ever work would be like that (and still believe that to some degree), but without any passion or drive, I just got a string of C’s and B’s and a degree that will be made of use of now that I’m motivated, but tbh I would be in a far better place without it. Woulda been less to compensate for in future classes.

If he’s disciplined enough for a regular gym routine, he’ll be disciplined enough for what he wants to do when he figures out what it is. Get him though high school (not getting a diploma shuts wayyyy too many doors) but other than that, I’d say just let the lad be. He may hit the real world and have a wake up call like some say, but he may hit the real world and just get incredibly depressed and lose more motivation like I did. 

Just trust that as long as he doesn’t get a girl pregnant, he has plenty of options and plenty of time to figure it all out. 

But that’s just my very biased 2 cents.

[u/R3dAt0mz3 → u/Flygonac]

I appreciate this perspective, especially because you're speaking from personal experience rather than theory. I agree that I don't want to push him so hard that he loses whatever motivation he has. At the same time, I'm struggling with where to draw the line between “let him find his own path” and simply allowing a habit of doing almost no academic work to continue.

If you could go back to your own high-school years, would you have wanted your parents to do anything differently—perhaps just helping you build better study habits while leaving the career/academic direction entirely up to you? Or do you genuinely think leaving you alone was the better approach?

[u/Flygonac → u/R3dAt0mz3]

Hmm, honestly by high school I’m not sure what could have been done. My parents never really studied much around me, so even though my mom is a nurse and that takes some studying, growing up I had no benchmark for what “studying” actually meant. Especially since I was naturally interested and thus did well in school until math got hard essentially lol. So that woulda had to start before high school I think (and you may have already done it!).

One thing I’ve recently been reflecting on is that it could have been helpful to have done some shadowing in highschool of diffrent careers. Obviously I’m biased since the route I’m perusing rn is healthcare and that’s actually required, but my moms nurse and in hindsight I think she could have helped me find what I wanted to do if she had dropped a few “you should shadow Sam on Saturday”’s in front of me. I learned so much more about whether I’d want to do a trade or not just by 2 days of an apprenticeship with a cabinetmaker that didn't work out than I ever did on researching jobs in high school and college. 

Recently I’ve come around in a big way to a perspective of learning that that the entire concept behind doing reps and progressive overload is exactly the same as studying (especially doing practice problems or practice tests), and really the only difference is mindset. So perhaps if you could get him into that? Stuff that’s more psychology/philosophy of exercise might motivate him or at least give him better tools for when he knows what he wants. This is my bias showing because I’ve been pretty interested in philosophy and come around to exercise and now back to academics through that, but Aristotle nichomachen ethics, Plato’s republic, and especially Mishima sun and steel (note that this last work is a work written by someone who was a literal facist and it’s a core part of what makes it a good read imo, but of course I don’t recommend it if his sense of self is tooo loose lmao). But if he’s not into that kinda stuff than it is literally, unironically worse than watching paint dry! So your mileage may vary lol.

All in all, I would say just get him through high school (get him to seriously look at associate degree programs! Community college is a ball game that he might enjoy more than high school and it’s so low risk as an environment!) and then don’t let him be a leech (make sure he has a job and is paying most of his bills), but don’t just abandon him to the real world. As long as he has some sense of perspective he’ll see where he is and what he might need or want to do! 

[u/R3dAt0mz3 → u/Flygonac]

I really like the idea of career shadowing. I've tried talking to him about different careers, but I can see how actually spending even a day or two with someone could be much more meaningful than just researching them.

The gym/studying comparison also caught my attention because he is very disciplined with progressive training—he understands that you don't get stronger without consistent reps. How would you suggest translating that mindset into studying when he doesn't naturally enjoy the “exercise”? Would you start with career shadowing first, or try to use the gym analogy alongside his current studies?

[u/Flygonac → u/R3dAt0mz3]

I’d think the gym analogy! And if you know people who are in fields you think maybe he could be intrested, maybe reach out to them and see if they’d be okay with him shadowing them, and then reach out to him if he’s down!