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Hearing "studying is pointless" from a 15-year-old can feel like an alarm bell, especially with board exams or JEE and NEET plans ahead. Treat it as a signal, and stay curious instead of arguing.
Why does my teenager say studying is pointless?
The same sentence can carry different messages. Listen for which one you are hearing:
"I can't see why this matters to me." The subject feels cut off from anything they care about or plan to do.
"I'm scared I can't do it." Calling a subject pointless feels safer than admitting you are lost in a chapter everyone else seems to get.
"I'm exhausted." Long days of school, coaching and homework with little sleep drain everything.
"I want some say in this." Teenagers want control over their own time. Self-determination theory, which we explain in our piece on what Deci and Ryan found about motivation, treats this need for autonomy as a core part of motivation.
"Something else is wrong." A friendship falling apart, bullying or low mood can come out as "nothing matters".
You can help most directly with the first two, and research links them.
Does making school feel relevant actually help?
In a classroom experiment published in Science in 2009, Chris Hulleman and Judith Harackiewicz asked first-year high-school science students to write either about what they had just learned or about how it connected to their own lives. According to the journal's summary, personal relevance predicted interest in further science courses and careers better than good grades did, and the low-cost exercise seemed to have its largest effect on students who began the class with the least confidence in their abilities.
So a teen who says "pointless" because they feel behind may gain the most from seeing how a topic fits their life. Parents can help here too. In a field experiment, Harackiewicz and colleagues mailed parents two brochures and gave them a website explaining why maths and science courses are useful. Students whose parents received these materials took, on average, nearly one semester more of science and maths in their last two years of high school than students in the control group.
What should I say when my teen says school is useless?
Try this script at a calm moment, not at 11 pm the night before a test.
Reflect, don't rebut. "Sounds like you're really fed up. What's making it feel pointless right now?"
Narrow it down. "Is it every subject or one in particular? Is it the subject, the way it's taught, or the marks?"
Check for "I can't". "Is there a chapter where you feel lost?" If yes, the next step is help with that chapter, not a pep talk.
Ask about their plans. "What would you like to be doing after school? What do you enjoy when nobody is making you do it?"
Make one link together. "Let's find one thing from this week's syllabus that connects to that."
Agree on one small step. One topic, one evening, and a check-in a week later.
How do I connect school subjects to my teen's interests?
Use a three-part bridge: the interest, the school topic inside it, and one small task for this week. Here is a worked example for a 16-year-old who loves cricket and wants to work in sport.
Interest: fast bowling. Topic: speed, distance and time (physics), plus averages (maths). Task: estimate a delivery's speed from the pitch length and the time the ball takes in a slow-motion clip, then compare it with the broadcast figure.
Interest: a career in sport. Topic: muscles and breathing (biology) for physiotherapy or sports science, and statistics for match analysis. Task: look up what a sports physiotherapist or performance analyst studied, and which Class 11 subjects that path needs.
The same pattern works for music (waves and frequency), gaming (coordinates and probability) or cooking (the chemistry of heat and acids). Our guide to showing your teenager that maths is used in real life has more everyday examples. If your teen has no plan at all, start with these low-cost ways to explore careers.
Often the bridge exposes a gap ("I never understood forces"). Fermi's AI tutor works out what a student already knows and builds a plan for the session, so your teen starts from where they are rather than from the chapter they missed.
When is it more than a motivation dip?
Look beyond school if the feeling spreads: your teen stops enjoying things they used to love, sleeps or eats very differently, pulls away from friends, or talks about feeling hopeless. Then speak to a doctor or counsellor rather than pushing harder on study plans. In India, the government's Tele MANAS helpline offers free, 24/7 mental health support on 14416 or 1800-89-14416, in 20 Indian languages, according to this Press Information Bureau note on mental healthcare. If you think your child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services.
Start tonight with one question, "What's making it feel pointless?", and listen to the whole answer before you reply.
