How can you interest a 15 year-old in school?

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My 15-year-old nephew has Asperger's. He is very bright, but socially withdrawn. He associates mostly with a group of very much less intelligent boys who play video games and hang out in cafes. All his teachers say he is extremely bright and capable of very much more than he is achieving - not just in any one special subject, but across the board from science to art.

I suspect that he has found himself a comfortable, safe niche of socially non-threatening no-hopers (sorry to be a heartless snob) where he does not feel excluded or challenged. I suspect that the brighter kids do exclude him, or that he perceives they do.

How would you go about interesting him in school achievement for the last two years leading up to university entrance examinations?

Encourage him to do well in school, because he will have so many job prospects later in life, many more than if he didn't fulfil his potential.

Incorperate spcecial intrests, never chatistise weak areas and never tell him to give up on his dreams because he has weak areas in areas related to them. I wanted to be a vet but everyone told me to forget it becuase my math skills were poor.

i think it's important that he truly understands and believes in the value of education. maybe try talking through with him what he wants to be when he grows up and his aspirations then explain to him how good grades and an university education can help him achieve his goals.

My experience with what people term "gifted kids" is that they are just as discriminatory and elitist as the popular kids, so it could be that your nephew is getting excluded from the smart kids.

I don't think that will mean much to him. As a kid I had absolutely no way of fathoming job prospects : I still don't, and I'm 36. I'm successful in life, thank goodness, but I still see myself as just making a living off my obsession.

If your nephew feels the need to fit in somewhere, and believe me, many of us do, then there's not much you can do to tempt him away from his current crowd. You can try to create new chances for him to meet better companions, but focus on his interests, not the people. Socializing is something we do based on interests, as opposed to "normal" people who seem to indulge in interests because the company is good.

You could also just let him be, socially. I used to hang out with a bad crowd too when I was a kid, drinkers and weed smokers. It was safe and easy, and they didn't judge me, and I liked that : we were all losers. I always knew I was smarter than them, and they didn't hold that against me either, because I didn't rub it in their faces.

Encourage him to set his own boundaries, and not to get pressured into doing something stupid. He's smart - he understands right vs wrong, as well as the concept of consequence. What you should definitely do is give him chances to indulge his interests, because that's where his success lies. Encourage him to be creative in his thinking, and to accept himself. Let him build, draw, collect or whatever tickles his fancy, and then, show him you trust him. Best of luck to you!

Hi Stuart,

I have a 15 year old daughter who loves everything about school............except academic study

If you find an answer, I'd love to hear it.

To the OP, thanks for asking this question, I have a very similar situation and have been wracking my brain and stressed about this for several years, so I appreciate the opportunity to read these comments.

Shukri, I found your comments to be particularly insightful, thanks very much for sharing

Be honest, tell him about the ways in which other people similar to him (aspies) have grown disenchanted with school, dropped out, and realized years later that they frittered away an amazing opportunity.

If school is easy, don't view it as a chore, view it as an easy (if drawn out) way to get into higher education to pursue his own interests.


I could have easily aced a 4.0, ridiculous SAT scores, all that... but I didn't consider, or get told, that I could have snoozed my way into a full college scholarship if I had just stuck around, and wound up leaving to get a G.E.D. since I didn't realize I was too smart to see how dumb I was.

Tell him you'll buy him something when he gets high grades. If his special interest is Apple (that's one of mine ), for example, say you'll get him an iPad if he achieves high grades. My mum does this for me (I'm also a 15 year old Aspie), and it works I can tell you

Make an effort to explain the sensory issues, social interpretation limitations, and whatnot as well.

Had I realized a lot of those things I wouldn't have done much of what I did in school, and with any luck I'd be scrawling equations on a chalkboard in a physics lecture at MIT rather than in my notebook.

Bribery is a really good motivator for teens and kids- I agree here. And if they see that they can do well it wont necessarily take a lot of ongoing bribery. They do mature at some point LOL. For something as expensive as an Ipad, I would insist on consistent acceptable performance, like a semester long achievement. That way you have time to save up for the item and you get him to establish good study habits. And make sure help is available to him if he actually does have some problems in any academic areas.

I bribe my 10-year old too, BTW. She doesn't like school work at all- started hating it in 3rd grade. (edit) AND she is now above grade level in most subjects, on level in the others.

It's probably also an idea to maybe find out if there's any particular reason why your nephew isn't interested in schoolwork because there are LOADS of potential reasons why aspies lose interest...

When I was doing my GCSEs I found each different subject difficult for different reasons so it might be worth asking to find out what exactly the problem is...

English Language - I tended not to do particularly well despite making an effort because I find creative writing very difficult, I think most aspies do.

English Literature - I never read any of the books because I don't enjoy reading fiction, I don't understand relationships and emotional issues very well, don't know how to talk about them, and just used to listen to what everyone else said and regurgitate it in the exams.

Maths - I didn't understand the way the teacher explained the concepts because they'd explain how to do things without explaining the deeper meaning behind it and consequently I felt that I didn't understand the work and couldn't get my head around the idea of just doing it by rote because that's just dumb to me. Like, why do something if you don't understand why you're doing it?

Science - I was really good at but disillusioned with because I got one of the highest marks in my SATS when I was 14 and then was expected to spend the next 2 years re-learning the same work for GCSEs... So I did nothing for the next 2 years!

History - I enjoyed because I liked the teacher although I wasn't amazing at it.

French / German - Absolutely hated both. Hated speaking in class in front of other people. I actually did quite well at languages though due to good verbal memory I guess rather than due to being good at speaking it!

Computer Studies - I really struggled with, despite being awesome with computers because the course was biased towards writing documentation and I didn't understand that other people didn't know as much about computers as I did...

Sports - Caused me SUCH anxiety and humiliation that I would fake illness on any day that I was supposed to have PE.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses but it might be worth finding out why exactly your nephew is rebelling. I think I just started to rebel because I was so sick of the constant humiliation of being so awful in ALL sports and people picking on me because of it. It was ridiculous and even my teachers used to write on my report that it was the 'effort' grade that was important in my case because my lack of ability was so conspicuous.

The other thing to bear in mind too is that aspies can get a long way academically by rote learning and regurgitation. I did very little work when I was doing my GCSEs and still did better than most people in my year just by regurgitating massive chunks of things that other people had said in the exams.

Probably the best thing to do is not to expect miracles, set VERY SMALL goals that can be achieved quite quickly and just make sure that your nephew goes to the exams and has some kind of strategy for managing exam-anxiety.

There's no point trying to stop your nephew from hanging out with the people he hangs out with because it's likely, if he's an aspie, that he doesn't have the social skills to be able to get on well with people of his own intelligence. That's just life unfortunately, but he probably feels happier fitting in with some people than not fitting in at all and at least he is learning some social skills even if the situation isn't ideal it's better than being stuck at home not learning social skills at all.

Also, placing high expectations on aspies is kinda futile because it just causes even more anxiety...

Marsian said:

This was the same issue for me. I actually failed a couple of grading periods in PE in middle school because the coach thought I was not trying. He would get upset with me because I couldn't so one single thing right. He thought I was getting it all wrong on purpose and that I had a bad attitude. Everyone would make fun of me and insult me. Sometimes I wouldn't bring my gym clothes because I felt so humiliated in this class. I excelled in almost all of my other classes, though. I remember all the suffering in PE and I feel the pain of it still.

I am very grateful for so many comments, and so soon, but I will go with this first one because it is where I fall over - what do I do to encourage him?

I never had this problem myself because school was my interest (maybe not how my parents or teachers wanted or expected, because they tore their hair out in frustration an complained that I did well just to spite them...) and I had social problems, but not academic problems. I believe in something like "absolute freedom demands absolute obedience", or perhaps "(appear to) do what they want and you can get away with anything". But I see that he is so like me at that age, and so different to his age-group - no rebellion, no teenage hormone thing, lots of social frustration, and there is so much universe inside his head that the outside hurts too much to bother with.

I rarely see this nephew (overseas) and am staying with his family for a fortnight, and would like to say something that helps this kid get the most out of his schooling, which is a time that I don't think anyone can easily recover if they mess it up. My own eldest child (who is not ASD) really regrets some of her rebellion and inattention now that past academic achievement is limiting opportunities during her degree.

I still think that if you try to discourage him from seeing his friends that will only make him rebel even more.

Encouragement would need to be subtle.

I have to say bribery doesn't work very well for me even though other people have said it does work.

You could try talking to his teachers and explaining the situation to them and asking them to encourage him.

And also try encouraging him to do well in subjects related to his interests...

And yeah Pumibel... Aspies should have IEPs for sports... I am still scarred from it to this day. It's really soul destroying coming last in every race and never getting picked in every game. I used to have to play netball on my own cus I was soooooo bad at it so then that meant I never even got the chance to learn! Also I think it's worse being bad at sports than being bad academically because kids are told not to call other kids dumb or ret*ds or whatever but teachers never seem to stop them from bullying kids who are otherwise quite intelligent but horrendous at sports. God I hated it!