The electrician had no idea the callout was for a looming VCE disaster.
The year 12 student had developed an online gambling addiction months before his exams – his parents needed to take urgent action.
![Parents confess to using bribes, threats and technology bans to force their children to study in the VCE.](/web/20170401210809im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/7/y/k/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs7wb4.png/1477263263020.jpg)
So they asked the electrician to cut power to their son's bedroom, plunging him into darkness, and forcing him to study in the light of the living room.
While this might sound extreme, many parents are resorting to tactics like this to force their kids to study during the VCE.
But according to the experts, the more you push a child to study, the more likely they are to resist.
As students prepare to sit their major VCE exams next week, Fairfax Media spoke to families who confessed to using bribes, threats and technology bans to get their children to study.
Bribes
![snowboarding, Hokkaido, Japan. Photograph by Getty Images. SHD TRAVEL MAY 13 ASIA SPECIAL REPORT ADVENTURE. DO NOT ARCHIVE.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170401210809im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/1/m/x/g/o/z/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x0.png/1430434973917.png)
Pizzas delivered to the library after school, the promise of a new car and Uber credit are some of the incentives that parents use to push their children to study during the VCE.
In an effort to turn around their son's poor study habits one Melbourne family put a very generous offer on the table – an $18,000 overseas holiday that could be redeemed at the end of year 12. If the boy achieved an ATAR of at least 85 his parents said they would pay for him to attend a snowboarding school in Switzerland.
"That was his goal and I have never seen a kid work so hard in their life," the father said.
He said that his son gave up late night Xbox sessions, deleted messaging apps from his computer and buried his head in textbooks. It paid off. He received an ATAR of 95, and his parents had to take out a personal loan to fund the overseas trip. "It's the best thing we have ever done."
Money also works wonders, according to many families. "My mum bet my brother $1000 that he wouldn't pass. That was 1982. he passed," one former student said.
Technology freezes
![Workplace, Man working on the laptop http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-31248060-workplace-man-working-on-the-laptop.php?st=1087f67](http://web.archive.org./web/20170401210809im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/1/h/5/v/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x0.png/1476329431688.png)
One family deliberately signed up to a broadband plan with the slowest speeds. This took the fun out of time-wasting online activities, making studying the more attractive option for their child. Who wants to wait five minutes for Facebook to load? Many parents also fessed up to turning off the Wi-Fi, confiscating their child's phone and enforcing technology-free days on the weekend.
"We use technology as a carrot and a stick," one mother said. "There's no phones in bedrooms, and if he gets all his work done he can watch videos."
Forcing children to study in the living room, with their laptop in full view of their parents, is another popular tactic. And back in the days when cable television held sway, parents hid the important cord that connected their child to 56 channels.
Threats
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It's a plot that plays out over and over again in Enid Blyton books – the naughty child misbehaves and is sent to boarding school. This is still a threat Melbourne parents use when their child is more interested in partying, computer games and social media than school.
"There is supervised study at boarding school," one father said. "It's popular and works. We have some very highly regarded boarding schools and parents have no hesitation sending them there."
Bans on weekend social activities are also common. But the scars can last a lifetime. One former student reminisced about how his mother threatened to ban him from attending his Dungeons and Dragons club in 1984. "I swore at her for and called her a hypocrite as at the start of the year she promised never to force me to study."
Punishments are not effective, according to Christina Rigoli from Melbourne Child Psychology and School Psychology Services. But incentives, or "positive reinforcement", can be useful.
She said parents needed to help students find motivation rather than pushing them to be motivated. "A lot of people feel all this pressure by their parents but there is no direction," Ms Rigoli said.
Students often lack motivation because they have no clear goals, which may include being accepted into a certain degree, achieving a certain mark in a subject or simply finishing school.
"Unless you have that drive to perform well, you are not going to perform," Ms Rigoli said. "If a student knows what they want to do after school then what is motivating them to achieve. It needs to have value to them."