12 yr old hates school

My 12 yr old son has been having problems with school since 1st grade .It has come to a point that his mother & I are at a loss .He constantly disrupts class ,won't do his work and more recently as his younger brother is now in his split 5th/6th grade class will constantly pester him so he can't do his work either .He has even gone so far as beating on his brother for making high honor roll .

His mother and I have been apart since his infancy but have banned together to get him on track . We have tried grounding him , talking to him about the effects of not getting a education ,taking away his privlages and even spanking him .He simply doesn't care .We are both at wits end . There is even the possibility of sending him to military school as a last resort .Any help or insight would be deeply appriciated .

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Jim,

Attitude toward school can be a complicated variable to assess. Some children, otherwise quite normal in all respects, never develop an affinity for school and such an attitude, while troubling to parents, tends to be pretty enduring. Other children display a negative, unmotivated attitude toward school, and while the children are normal in terms of their psychological/emotional life, their attitude develops due to chronic struggles and lack of success due to learning impediments, such as learning disabilities. Other children's learning potential and capacity is intact, but they display emotional disorders that have an impact on their school functioning, both in relation to attitude/motivation and in relation to performance.

The key is to ascertain the nature of the attitude toward school, and whether or not it is accompanied by impediments such as some of those I listed above.

Your son's behavior indicayes that he is not functioning in a normal way and simply happens to be a rather uninterested, unmotivated student. It would definitely make sense to have him evaluated, both in relation to learning issues and emotional functioning. Some testing will be required, perhaps both psychological testing and testing for learning disability.