Two sons

Lifestyle Relationships
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My older son has achieved great success academically , Mashallah.

I do not want to be a showoff to share details of his achievements. They are enough to make any father proud. I feel like all my hardwork got paid off already.

Younger son has better memory and comprehension than older one but he is not serious about studies.

At university younger one could not maintain minimum required GPA so he has to come back home and go to community college and work on his GPA to go back to some university.

I never compare my kids to each other. I never yell , scream or talk loud to my kids. I give my younger one space to reclaim his life. I do tell him that he is an Ivy League material but I do not put any pressure to get good grades. I do encourage him to achieve better grade by telling him how important it is for his future to excel in college.

In elementary and middle school and in first year of high school he was a superstar not after that.

I could not find anything yet to motivate him to excel, though.

I did ask his elder brother to provide his younger brother some guidance.

The older one is very humble and level headed. When he talks to his younger brother and younger sister he is so nice about all the talk he does. He does not let them feel that he is the reason that the bar is high.

In fact there is no bar at all. I do understand that each kid is different and I cannot expect same level of achievements from all my kids.

I have been telling all my kids it is not about grades , it is about how much time , effort and energy you put in your studies. If you put the right amount of time , effort and energy in your studies and you do not get good grades I will not have any problem with that.

Anyone has any suggestions on how to motivate my younger son?
All those boys and girls who can relate to this I would appreciate their feedback.

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Re: Two sons

well, when I was graduating HS, my parents had a little talk with me. They said look Pisiform, you are not a kid anymore that we could force you or give you a time out for not doing homework. If you want to be successful and do something worth while in life, buy a nice house, provide for your family etc. you gotta study. There is no way around that, no shortcuts. If you wanna party all night, do drugs etc. like so and so is doing you can, but don't be surprised if you end up on streets, go to jail or have trouble making ends meet. No one will respect you and you will die without accomplishing something worthwhile in life. We won't be around for long to help you so you need to get your shi_t together. You don't want to be miserable for the rest of your life and think back only if I could have studied or done better in school.

(My parents basically painted a really gloomy picture of my future if I don't do anything which scared the hell out of me lol. I don't know if it will work on your son but you can give it a try).

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Stop being biased towards the eldest one.

Its obvious from your post even.

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.

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You are old Mirch para, I thought u had young kids.

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You actually come off overpowering. And by putting non-direct pressure on him… I agree with post](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=post) 2 on majority of the points.

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Re: Two sons

Yes I have a son who will complete his masters at 22 years of age next year. He will beat me by 2 year. I completed my masters at 24 years of age. But then I completed two bachelor's degrees before my masters.

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Does he enjoy what he is studying? Does he even want to be at university? Is there any other passion of his that he wants to pursue but couldnt because he felt pressured (im not saying you pressured him) to do so? Have an honest discussion with him about where he sees himself in the next x number of years. It could be he wants to do something that is not academically inclined but feels you may condemn him for it

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Re: Two sons

The shohday and lafangay or so called womanizers can become Joru ke ghulam after marriage.

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Re: Two sons

Even high school dropouts can become millionaires living in good lifestyle.

Please read about some of the very successful entrepreneurs. Not everyone was highly educated.

Just met one person this evening at his house who earned a very simple bachelor degree, who owns a very expensive house, (the price of which I cannot disclose) but it is higher than the total income of many highly paid University Graduates in their ENTIRE lifetime.

**So as a generic advice to those parents who are obsessed with academic achievements and not just to OP:

**Stop comparing your children.

Even though you might be the parent, the child still has his or her mind.

Let the child/kid grow his or her mind and let him or her be free.

Give guidance but never force your opinion unless the child is acting obviously wrong and against ethical standards.

Set education goals but learn from his or her mistakes rather than teach him/her based on your achievements or failures (hangups).

Use positive reinforcement. Not negative reinforcement. Very important.

Stop making a race between your own children. That is like watching a boxing match and favoring one boxer.

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Re: Two sons

its 1 in 1000 kids or something. Not every HS dropout goes on to become a millionaire or have a good income. This mind set needs to be changed. Thats one of the reason why so many young kids doesn't understand the importance of education. They use those entrepreneur as example to justify their need to start a business etc. w/o having a business sense

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Re: Two sons

Do you pay for their education and living expenses? If you do then start weaning both your sons off. Too much indulgence makes a person complacent.

And I'm also doing my masters and I'm not motivated at all. I hate my thesis topic and all the jobs I want to apply for have nothing to do with my degree. If his degree doesn't interest him then there is nothing you can do to motivate him. I think he would have been better off taking a gap year to do odd jobs before settling in to get an education.

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Re: Two sons

Mirch Bhai Sahib, one way to motivate a teenager/ young person is to show them the professions that they may not want, like anything involving manual labor, if you can actually get them involved in the activity as a summer project, let them experience the physical hard work then they appreciate the value of higher studies, on the other hand who knows may be they can discover that they want to work with their hands and really enjoy doing that..........then you have the makings of a craftsman!

that can be a win win situation!

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Re: Two sons

Peace brother Mirch

MashaAllah to you and your kids. I hope and pray they live up to and exceed your expectations. You are 100% correct that achievement is not important - that hard work and effort is more important. And it is also true that as Muslims we should seek knowledge earnestly. However, what may be different is our perception of knowledge.

These days we think that knowledge = academic success. This is but one of the angles of approach for the knowledge we need in life. For example, the knowledge for being a builder cannot be learnt in a classroom. No matter how much we learn about bricklaying from books, we will never be able to appreciate the consistency of the mortar and the feel for laying a brick down with our own hands until we actually do it. Pottery is the same, we may make many mistakes before we can be competent in making pots or mugs. These are also forms of knowledge that modern life has made us ignore. In fact wherever there is some intelligence to be gained that is where knowledge can be gained too.

Please see this link about multiple intelligences

Theory of multiple intelligences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People are like combination locks - we need to find the correct sequence that will unlock us to best fit the criteria of “success”. As you rightly stated your sons are different - it does not mean therefore that one son has less potential … Yes, it could indeed mean that, but not necessarily, not until all the avenues of knowledge have been explored.

Many people choose to study after they have worked for a while, in the area that they have been working. Also, younger children feel less responsibility and choose to undertake different paths for their lives and may be more risky than their elder siblings. I think the best motivation for your younger son is to set him up a cottage business from which he can learn - real business nous - and appreciate the finer dealings with people. Give him some responsibility, where he will have to bear the management of the business, ensure he has stock, wake early and travel distances to sell his product. Avoid bad businesses and/or pyramid schemes, but find a good solid base that he can try.

A clothes line in a market, books or something to that effect. Ensure that he understands the motive behind this move. Be clear with him that the intent is for him to gain knowledge of the experience of working in a business environment, it is not a resignation of him becoming a common marketeer. Many people do that for a living - that is fine, but this should be viewed more like an experiment - a hands-on form of training and learning which differs from the school, desk and book environment.

Then when he picks up a book it will be for a context that he is already familiar with and will be able to contribute more.

My du’as go to you and family and ask the same for mine in return.

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Answer this question - (to yourself)

Why does your 2nd son slack off?
What does he really want to do in life?
How can you help him get there?

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Haha your younger one reminds me of my self.

Well one thing I learned over the years is how to fail. The best lesson ever.

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Re: Two sons

He likes to socialize. He would rather be spending fun time with friends than doing anything meaningful.
He never told me what he wants to do in life, I told him that I do not have anything about any legal profession, skills and trade. He sees that I treat everybody with respect even the homeless people who stand by the side of the road begging for money I do not make any negative or positive comments about them.

I gave him a choice to go find a job and live an indpendent life. I offered him to support him in this quest.
He opted to go for college but he has not done good in college either.
Since he likes to make friends, hang around with them, be a leader I guess he can go into politics.:hmmm:

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Re: Two sons

I am very interested to read your story.
Please do share here or in a pm if you like.

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Two sons

I think if this is a convo about your youngest son, then your older one should have hardly been mentioned. I don't think it's intentional but you probably compare him to his brother more than you realize, as you have extensively done in your post. That kind of lack of understanding in front of kids really break spirits. How much have you tries sitting down and talking to him about what he wants to do and why he failed in his perspective. I agree with Psyah on most points.

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I don't think you're comparing them...you're just worried about making sure you give a good solid foundation to your youngest son so he can be independent and self sufficient.

And yes, this sounds like me - completely. I was more interested in the school social clubs than academics for a long time.

The only thing that worked with me was some tough love from my parents. They said you can live here if you go to school, otherwise you need to go and find yourself a place to live and start living your life.

Paying rent, bills and being left with almost zilch put things into perspective. :)