This Is Going To Cost Us A Fortune

Brandon has been, well, less than excited about school. He played through first and second grade and tolerated third grade. He has decided that school is a waste of time, and no matter how much we discuss this issue with him, he will not change his mind.

So through the summer, we've been attempting to help him gear up for fourth grade by giving him some (very little) extra work each day, you know, to keep him up to speed in math and writing.

It's been horrible. He dreads it. We dread making him do it. Last night was the breaking point. For two hours, Brandon sat at the table, doing his two work sheets. He should have been done in twenty minutes, tops. We were all at the end of our ropes. Brandon is insistent that life is meaningless and school is pointless, because who needs to learn to write if you have a computer?

We've tried everything to motivate him. Rewards? Done that. Threats? Oh, yeah. Maybe he has a learning disability? Tests were negative. Attention deficit disorder? Nope. Bad eyesight? Vision is 20/15. Gifted? Probably, but he didn't score high enough for the program, probably due to lack of motivation.

So tonight, out of the blue, I tried this: I divided the worksheet up into sections. I told Brandon that if he finished the first math section correctly in 5 minutes time, I'd give him a dollar. I really thought he wouldn't do it or it would take him much longer than 5 minutes.

Three minutes later, he was done. "That was easy," he said. So I challenged him to the next math section, again for a dollar. No problem. He was done in plenty of time.

The third section was reading comprehension, which he has struggled with. The paragraph was only three sentences long and there were four multiple choice questions to answer, and I thought it would take him a long time to do that section. I gave him 5 minutes. He did it in 2 minutes. So, the boy can read and comprehend after all.

So we know he can do his work, he's just not motivated to do it. Unfortunately, he's motivated by money. I don't know how much this is going to cost me. We may have to take out a loan just to get him through fourth grade.