Thought the same thing…
Agree youtube is a pretty bad source of content for screen time, but the kids often ask. Usually I’ll just put on a rerun of Nightmare before Christmas or similar…
Or recently got my 6 year old into Luigis Mansion which has been fun… she struggled a lot but really felt the success when she finally overcame obstacles
My kid just negotiated with my wife for 0.5 hours of unscreened screentime if she finishes her homework in a reasonable time. Cue garbage tv in 10…9…8…
Honestly a lot of grownup tv is similarly stupid. We’ve been watching the Great British Baking Show lately, and there’s not really a lot of value or sense to watching random people bake pies.
After 10 episodes the one thing my kid has learned is the phrase “chuffing heck”.
Actual same.
Oh I forgot about that game… buying now. Not that we could possibly need more games.
I played that one with my son. It’s fun!
My daughter kept struggling with the very beginning where you have to run away from King Boo and he laughs at you if he catches you and have to start again. She was getting so frustrated but on about the 10th try she did it and she experienced a bit of what it’s like to pass an actuarial exam
One good feature of kids playing video games is teaching them the value of persistence.
My gf and I were sitting on the front porch when we heard “BYE!!!”: our neighbours’s grandson was going out with his parents and he waved buh bye to us!!! 
My neighbours granddaughter does something similar. I’ll say bye at the door, she hides. As I’m halfway down the driveway she runs to the door and yells Bye!
Yes! Mine likes this too!!!
And videos of this lady with an annoying screechy voice building stuff from Legos.
And videos of other people playing video games.
None of that is as bad as the “let’s see if we can drive our parents insane” videos that she’s more recently taken a shine too.
My bright, categorically gifted 7th grader is failing all of his core classes so far, and doesn’t seem to care at all.
And no, it’s not because he isn’t challenged enough, it’s because he is unmotivated and aims to be as lazy as he can be, but he has seriously miscalculated the height of that bar this year.
Will you let him fail and repeat 7th grade?
Nah, we aren’t at that point yet, we have options for pulling him out of his accelerated math and English classes and putting him in the standard classes, we would try that first. Then we would get him tutors, and lots of oversight of the effort he is putting in. If nothing worked, we would probably let him get held back though if that’s what the school required, yes.
That being said, the school doesn’t hold kids back. They have remediation steps to be taken, like summer school, or just turning a blind eye and passing kids anyway.
On one hand, middle school is a better time to screw this up than high school. On the other hand, it’s nerve wracking trying to figure out the right path that will lead them to the place of caring and future success. I was well-established as a socially awkward nerd who thought my school record would follow me at that age, but for him, there could also be the social influence of him not wanting to stand out academically, especially if his friends are lower achievers. Welcome to testosterone poisoning.
Probably be less concerned about this than you are. Early schooling, eh, it evens out. If he’s bored or targetted, it’ll likely self correct later when he gets into schooling he actually likes and has an interest in.
My youngest failed HS science and did poorly in some other HS courses. Had to take it in summer school just to get into university. And he got rejected from UWaterloo (which gets him a good ribbing once in a while). Got a backup offer not even science from another school. Now he’s got a science masters, was the teachers pet in university (I didn’t even know they had those, but he’s definitely one), and one of his profs is pestering him to come back and finish his PhD.
We were a bit upset early on, but once he found what he liked, off he went. Your kid’s bright, once he figures it out you won’t be able to hold him back from the big grades.
It’s like a month into the school year, right? Perhaps your son and the teachers are both finding their footing?
What math class are we talking about by the way? Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry?
It’s not called pre-algebra, but that’s what it is.
One of the problems is that math has been mostly online for our kids up until this point. Each kid has an individualized path on a program and they haven’t done much on worksheets or whatever. This is the first class with worksheets where kids are expected to show their work. He hates showing his work and wants to do everything in his head, which isn’t great for anyone but especially not for someone with ADHD.
For English, his entire program is online this year and the school has decided to not allow any chromebooks to come home this year, so we have zero ability to see anything he is working on or get him help/tutoring. We meet with that teacher Monday, because this program does not align with his 504 accommodations if there is never opportunity for additional time - he got a 0 on an assignment because it wasn’t complete and he wasn’t allowed to turn it in that way or turn it in at a later date.
Does he prefer online work?
Pre-algebra is the class I skipped as a kid. I was not good at it either. And maybe this is bias, but I wonder if it’s necessary or just filler. Unlike Algebra, where it really is fundamental, and also less boring. That’s to say, if it were Algebra I’d be more tempted to hold him back, and maybe also just accept that he’s not meant for honors. And pre-algenra the opposite, better to push through and get to the meat.
My wife tells me she got so lazy she dropped out of honors classes once, and was simply horrified by non-advanced classes. She got herself back into honors, but wouldn’t say there was much lesson or point to it. She still basically fails at making herself do work.