Most kids don't really want to go to school either, most kids don't want to live at home. By your standard, it'd be morally wrong to send our children to school, it'd also be morally wrong to send rapists to prison.
Okay, maybe I made too general of a comment with that. Obviously sending people who are offenders of laws agreed upon by society to jail is righteous, but only because they did something that's morally wrong. I actually have a funny view at school, too: if you don't want to go, don't. For young kids they're legally required to, which means not doing so would be the wrong thing to do. This isn't a might -> right thing, it's just that we've agreed that kids should be in school until at least highschool, and at that point they can make the decision for themselves. If they want to drop-out, while that would be an awful thing for a parent to experience I don't believe it is their choice for whether or not they attend.
While I can agree that those are extreme examples, it still applies. I'm %99 certain that Trogtor's parents have tried to instill an incentive to do well in school, but he's chosen the fun games over his boring education. At the end of the day, the adults know better for us. As much as I hate the education system, I know it's necessary.
I love education, so I can't relate. I don't particularly like the system, but there's no simple way to do it. However, my point still sticks. Forcing people to do something will be an excellent short-term solution (the most effective around), but it is actually detrimental in the long run. Kids who are deprived of things they want as children use them in excess as adults, often developing fixations on them that are damaging to their life. While there will be situations where a short-term fix is absolutely required (like if your kid is trying to kill you, take away the knife) I don't believe it's a good strategy to employ in general parenting (i.e. your child struggling with school).
Sure, maybe Trogtor's parents could approach it with a more rewarding approach. Maybe $50 for every A on his report card would give him incentive to get better grades if he can't see that the A itself is worth it. The only problem with that is that Trogtor might not actually think the $50 is worth busting his ass over for 9 weeks and then just play video games all highschool and get F's because it's really easy and fun. Besides, there's other variables that come into play here, such as the economic well being of his parents. They may not be able to afford $350 every report card that gets straight A's.
I wasn't really referring to money as the incentive, even though it seemed so with the brown townogy. I'm all about teaching kids stuff that will come back to them and help them in the future, and "if I do this I'll get $50 from dad" doesn't really stick along for very long. What Harm said earlier is entirely correct. You have to instill the right values in the child as a small child, then release restriction as they age. My views on parenting said thus-far are for older kids that can think for themselves. As young children, kids require restriction to guide them through life. Without it, it would be like trying to guide a blind person through a maze. Once they can see for themselves though, giving them directional hints is the best way for them to beat the maze though.
It all boils down to maturity. If Trogtor can't help himself, then why waste time throwing him the rope? He might not want to climb it. Maybe he wants to die in the rising lava. Wouldn't you rather just grab him and pull him up, rather than wait for him to get severely burned before he starts climbing the rope?
That's the issue. The temptation to use the quick-fix is overwhelming for most people. You'd rather just do it yourself, make something happen, than set up a situation where it'll happen on its own, naturally. If the kid is aware that the lava will burn him and still won't come up, letting him get burned will teach him. Maybe he'll have a stuffty semester in school. That'll suck, and it'll be a blemish on his record when applying to colleges. When he realizes that he can't get into the college of his dreams because he slacked off and made a bad decision, it'll make him a better person. Sure, if you'd forced him to do the schoolwork that whole time he would have gotten into the college he really wanted to. But then what if he starts to fail in that college because he doesn't have his parents to support him? Maybe he'll even get kicked out. At some point he's going to have to experience the pain of failure to learn that he needs to put effort into such things. Maybe it won't even happen in college. Maybe he'll get fired from the job he got, experience the pain of unemployment, and realize that he needs to really work on these things.
