Reality Check Counseling

If you take responsibility for his academic success or failure, he won't learn to succeed on his own. You aren't doing him any favors. Life is full of consequences. At some point, you have to be willing to let him experience them, or he will just continue to behave as if rules don't apply to him. Besides, you've now gotten yourself entangled in a control struggle. You can't possibly win, either. He is younger and has more energy. He will always outlast you.

Here is a strategy I have used, successfully. Stop arguing with him. Tonight, during a family dinner or some other family interaction, apologize for nagging him so much about his homework. Tell him that you've come to realize that he has the right to fail, if he wants to. Then start talking about all the advantages of failing. He'll get to make new friends, because all his old friends will be moving to the next grade. He'll get better grades, next year, because he'll already understand the assignments...he'll look like a genius! Besides all that, it will work out good for you, in the end. After all, it means you'll get to have him home for an extra year. When all the other kids his age are going off to college, he'll only be a senior. yay! More time to be a mom!

If he buys it...and you need to be seriously supportive of his right to fail...he'll turn things around. Even if he doesn't, the world won't come to an end. Just be sure and advocate HARD for him to be held back, if he doesn't pass. Lots of schools worry too much about the social aspects of failing children and not passing them on to the next grade. If they aren't ready, it makes no sense to send them forward. Where else in life does that happen?