My older sons are 16 and 14 and, oh man, do I feel you on this one. They have no concept of the day after tomorrow, much less 10 years down the line. My oldest son is brilliant. So smart with a memory that retains everything except what he has for homework and what his chores are for the day. We tried EVERYTHING!! We grounded, we did parent teacher tag-teaming, we took away all his privileges. One year it was like he was on lock-down.
I finally just sat him down and talked to him. Sounds simple, right? But you have to remember I am an adult and, therefore, know nothing. So I came armed. I had his transcript, a college application,a college course catalog, a scholarship application, and a notebook.
I asked him what he was interested in doing when he was an adult. What his dream was. I showed him the collge catalog to show him how much college ed. he would need and roughly how much it cost. I showed him the college ap. and all the things they wanted to know including his gpa and school involvement. Then I showed him the scholarship ap. They wanted even more info. Like was he involved in school sports, academic clubs, community service and enrichment. I told him how many kids on average apply for that particular scholarship and how many scholarships were awarded each year. It is staggering. They award scholarships to who they think is the best investment for their money. Who is consistent, dedicated, self disciplined and so on.
I gave him the notebook and told him, "You are of infinite worth to us. You have incredible potential and I have no doubt that one day you could effect a change in the world. My question is, what are you worth to YOU. What are you willing to do? What are you willing to commit to do and sacrifice to make this happen, because there are a million kids out there right now who want to do the same thing and they are willing to get that chance at any cost." Then I made him write it down. How he was going to succeed. What he was going to commit to doing. It was like a contract with himself.
I let him know that at a certain point if he chooses to fail we will be unable to save his skin and that he needed to get serious right now.