12 year old son is lacks motivation

I am a single mom having some trouble with my 12 year old lately, (soon to be 13)  he lacks motivation and gets late for school in the morning.  I have had a conversation with his teacher about this and she tells me that he has also been missing assignments. He is good natured boy and gets on well with everyone, but as he his getting older I feel he is losing interest generally and is not having as much fun anymore. I have talked to him about this on numerous occasions and he understands that this is not good for his future, and he does well for a while and then slips back into his not caring outlook.  He came home upset recently because he got a very low score on his math test, I asked him what went wrong and he told me that he just lost concentration.  Sometimes I feel that I need to send him to a boot camp to get some fire into him.  I spoke to his math teacher and he mentioned that my son may have to go to a lower math class if this carrys on...this would be shame because my son is smart, he knows the stuff but just not motivated enough to do it.  What can can I do to help him, I know he has the potential?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

One thing you should do is have him evaluated by a mental health professional to rule out depression. You will also need to be more vigilant about monitoring his homework completion. Do not simply take his word for it - be sure you eyeball the completed work.