Are there consequences in your house for bad grades?

Parent Cafe
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<p>“Do your best” is a subjective statement and there isn’t anything wrong with promoting that philosophy. Assuming as a parent you understand what it means and conveys that to your child. Doing your best can be different today that it will be tomorrow. Maybe today they are a bit more tired or not as focused as they will be tomorrow. Maybe today they had a disagreement with their girlfriend/boyfriend. Doing your best just means to do the best you can at the time. It’s a philosophy. Of course, if you think that it is something that you can measure on a graph and show that they didn’t do their best today compared to another day, they a student’s best will never be good enough for you.</p>

<p>There’s a lot of balance that the child has to go through in school. Especially if they are playing a varsity sport. In most schools, if you don’t go to practice you don’t get to play. That is understandable and fair. We had one parent who pulled their child off of the varsity football team last year on the last game of the season prior to playoffs because of their grade. That is understandable, yet there is something to be said about teaching a child responsibility. In a “Team” environment; which every one of us eventually has to deal with in the “Real” world, it is just as important that a person becomes dependable and lives up to their responsibilities to others. Not that this student/athlete was the most valuable player on the team, but there is still a responsibility he made to the team. </p>

<p>Parents have to know and find that balance. Sometimes it’s difficult if you were raised by parents who put emphasis only on academics. I believe academics are the most important, but so is balance with the rest of life. I believe in competition. I believe in grading. I don’t believe in a school that doesn’t grade. That doesn’t prepare a person for the real world. Just like not allowing kids to “Keep Score” in games at school because some feel it hurts the self esteem of the player(s) who didn’t win. Oh well, that’s life. You don’t always win. If you don’t teach a child to be a “Good Sport”, which means handling losing and rejection, they will be a wreck when they grow up. They need to learn how to try harder and find “Self Satisfaction” in trying to do better. That applies to sports, grades, and general life skills. </p>

<p>Most colleges, jobs, etc… have some sort of grading system. This is the only known way to compare 2 or more individuals applying for the same position. Whether it’s admission into a school, applying for a job, going out for a position on a sports team, etc… That is real life. Those are the rules. To not prepare students to know how to play by these rules and how to use them to excel, grow, and advance in their capabilities, is giving them a handicap. Eventually, everyone is “Graded”, which is comparing to someone else. This is a very important life skill to teach our children. Again however, teaching them how to “Do their Best” doesn’t mean perfection. It also doesn’t mean aiming for some finite arbitrary standard. It means providing all the effort that you can at that particular time for that particular objective.</p>

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<p>I believe in natural consequences. If my kids don’t do well in school, it hurts no one but them. If they need punishment from me to accomplish something, then the motivation is in the wrong place. The same way I feel they shouldn’t be rewarded for good grades. I don’t punish them for not playing well, nor do I reward them for hitting a home run. JMHO</p>

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<p>Missypie,
It sounds to me like your children are doing well and it is misguided to demand better grades of them. Your daughter’s problem is obviously one of adjusting to high school & time management; she has done things on her own initiative like attending a math tutorial to make up for her own teacher’s ineptitude. </p>

<p>I think that over time she will get better at juggling it all, and will figure out on her own what is most important for her and what needs to give. My d attended an arts high school and many of the dancers opted for a less academically-focused track; many of the best college dance programs are at state universities that are not all that hard to get into, so in some situations the EC can be more valuable in terms of college admissions than the GPA.</p>

<p>I think you can help your daughter most by being supportive and talking with her about ways that she can arrange her schedule more efficiently. I’m sure she would appreciate your ideas & suggestions if presented in a positive, helpful way – rather than a parent coming down with rules & limitations. I always had a “rule” that my d. needed to have at least one day a week that was not scheduled for dance classes or activities – but that was to reserve time for fun & socializing, not homework. I just wanted to make sure that my active d. had some down time in her life. Obviously, my d. understood & agreed with that “rule”. </p>

<p>She figured out on her own how to fit in the studying – in her case she maintained some really odd hours. She would come home exhausted in the evening, go to bed fairly early, and then get up at about 3 am to do her homework. It worked for her.</p>

<p>Your son obviously has huge challenges to deal with that he has overcome (you’ve mentioned both Asperger’s and ADD). To punish him for not getting A’s would be to completely ignore the reality of how difficult things are for him to start with. Many parents of kids with those challenges would be delighted to see straight B’s… they are worried about D’s & F’s.</p>

<p>Bottom line: the B’s are fine and many parents would be delighted to have 2 kids getting straight B’s. If you want to see better grades, then the approach is to provide positive support & encouragement, helping to address whatever problems or barriers your kids are facing… not punishment.</p>

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<p>I agree with above posts that Bs are fine, considering the rigor of the courses. It seems that you might be more concerned than you need to be. If the children themselves are not satisfied with the grades, then work with them to improve them. Ask them!</p>

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<p>We don’t reward for good grades, either. My kid has classmates who get hundreds of dollars in rewards for good grades! One classmate was given one hundred for NOT getting a D. (and his mother brags that his IQ is 121…go figure!) Its times like that that I have to button my lip!</p>

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<p>With my particular child (number 2), she aced the specialized high school test and scored over 190 on the PSAT six weeks into freshman year, so I simply can not accept any reason for her not doing her homework. If she does not do well on a test but studied for it AND did the homework leading up to it, that’s just fine. What drives me insane about this particular child is that she doesn’t want to do the day-to-day homework in the classes that she likes and naturally does well in. She has the annoying idea that an A+ on the 2500 word term project makes up for 10 missing homework assignments throughout the course of the semester. It doesn’t. It also annoys me that she will get better grades in math and science, classes that she loathes, because she HAS to work harder than in the classes she loves because she thinks she doesn’t have to do the homework or make an effort. I personally find this skewed work ethic (and bit of arrogance) annoying, but she also has to sign a contract with each teacher on day 1 agreeing to do her homework and recogizing the grade markdown if it’s not done. I try to teach her to be a person of her word, and she usually is, but she was still surprised with her final report card last year when she took a huge hit for not doing homework. Sorry for the rant hijack. Now back to the thread . . .</p>

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<p>i do have consequences at home if i get bad grades, but weird enough, for some reason my parents consider it is more important to have a good conduct and attitude that good grades. i have greater consequences for disipline warnings. does this happen to anyone else?</p>

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<p>Michelle, I bet that MOST parents on this board would react more negatively to a bad conduct mark on their child’s report card than a bad grade. I know we would. </p>

<p>Thanks for all of your comments! It certainly helps me put everything in perspective, although my husband is still furious about their grades. Poor guy. When he was growing up, the “dire consequences” he and his siblings received for poor report cards would definitely be considered child abuse today. He knows he shouldn’t do what was done to him, but he can’t get his head around the idea of no punishment at all. </p>

<p>Interesting comment about the odd study schedule (the daughter getting up at 3 am to study). I’ve been mentally going over my daughter’s Mondays and Tuesdays (I know, I can’t get my mind off of it), and it seems like she has about two hours between when she gets home from school and when she has to get ready for dance. She usually snacks and veges out. I may ask her if she can use that time better, but she may just need the down time. We’ll have to talk about it.</p>

<p>As for my son…the Nintendo DS is going to be banned during the week because he does get obsessed with the games. He’s such a fast reader that if I could get him into the habit of reading some of the AP study guides when he swears that his homework is al done, I think it would do some good. I’ll have to work on my husband about allowing a bit of “Guitar Hero.” Toward the end of the evening, he has so much pent up ADD energy that a few songs on Guitar Hero really help him wind down.</p>

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<p>MoT,
Just getting back to this thread…DS2 is in a competitive entry full IB diploma program, and is required to get through at least Calc AB for the lower level IB math exam. He wants to take Stats – says it will be useful no matter what he winds up doing. (It’s not a required class for IB, so we’ll see how he feels senior year. He may add another history class by then instead.) </p>

<p>He has made the decision to go for the full IB diploma (he could decide not to and collect IB certificates for the other five subject areas), but he has chosen this route. At that point it became our job to help him find a way to that goal. He’s good in math – nails things conceptually, but gets flustered in the details. Part of the math thing for him is that his older brother is a serious, serious math person.</p>

<p>DS2’s middle school math teachers were nice people, but the watering down of Alg I in order to claim “we have XX% of middle schoolers completing Alg I” has its price. My son paid the piper in Alg II when he had to re-learn (or learn) a lot of what he should have allready had under his belt.</p>

<p>He’d be in pre-calc this year even if he were attending our local HS. At my HS, that was as far as math instruction went.</p>

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<p>3bm103: I agree in principle. That is a philosophy I try to practice but it is really hard for a parent to hide the joy when a kid gets that A+ (or scores that goal on the soccer field after a season of barely making contact with the ball)! But certainly no $$ or other ‘tangible’ consequences for grades in our household.</p>

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<p>3bm103, I too agree with you. We didn’t (and don’t) punish for poor grades, but as vicariousparent said–we do praise and celebrate the good acts or grades (but not with money or gifts). One son has a friend that is still getting paid for A’s in college!</p>

<p>Michelle, when my kids were elementary age and still received that “deportment” grade–I did enact some consequences for that. I don’t know why exactly–maybe because letting grades slide does hurt only them, but behavior affects the whole class?</p>

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<p>I haven’t read every post, but in my family, we were renforced just for being ourselves. That’s what I tried to do with our son. My parents said, “I’m sure you’re doing your best” no matter what we did–5 kids. We’ve all done well.</p>

<p>I have spent more time making sure my son knows how not to hurt people’s feelings than how to get top grades–he got the grades too, because he wanted to.</p>

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<p>vicariousparent: I didn’t say we didn’t praise them or let them know how pleased we were. Nor did we hesitate to express disappointment if they didn’t do their best. I just said we didn’t reward or punish for something that they should do for themselves. They should get good grades, hit a homerun, figure out a solution or find a job because they want the success. </p>

<p>Self esteem comes from within, not by being paid for a grade. And if they don’t care if they score that goal, no reward from me is going to make them want it deep down.</p>

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<p>I’m just a freshman in college (who is putting off doing work and lurking around the parent’s forum), so I thought I’d just give my two cents.
I moved to the states from Iran when I was 6 years old, and my brother was 9 at the time. My parents always emphasized the power and benefits that one could get not from schooling necessarily, but from being knowledgable. I always felt pressure from my parents to do well in school because they had such high hopes for me, they didn’t expect me to do well, they wanted me to do well so that I could benefit from it. They would always tell me how if they grew up in this country, life wouldn’t have been so difficult because they would have been more educated. That had always been my motivation to do well in school - to live up to my own potential and make my parents proud - I was never worried about disappointing them because I knew that as long as I put in the effort, they wouldn’t be angry. I went through a lot of personal problems right in the middle of high school, and it killed me to do so badly in school because I was disappointing myself, which is why I picked myself back up - I learned to be responsible for myself. I’d like to think I ended up okay, I attend NYU and I have the same work ethic as I did since I was in elementary school- many kids who were punished for bad grades tend to go a little crazy in college because there is no punishment, and they don’t know what it’s like to be personally responsible for the consequences.<br>
So, I don’t think it’s about putting pressure on kids to do well by telling them that they can’t do [insert enjoyable activity here] or by telling them that they’re disappointing you, I think it’s about letting them know how much they could benefit themselves by doing well in school.</p>

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<p>I realize that we are discussing a student with a learning disability and also a student without a disability. The OP indicated that some of the lower grades could just be that it is harder in high school than in junior high.</p>

<p>High school is not only harder but also requires different skills. Instead of memorizing facts to spit out on a test, the student is required to memorize facts from a lot more material, and then be able to analyze, compare/contrast, or otherwise show a relationship or cause/effect from this facts in an essay format. </p>

<p>Other kids are just overwhelmed with reading textbooks that use words they don’t understand. They may have a great 8th-grade reading comprehension/vocabulary, but many high school textbooks are written 10th-grade or higher. Kids who don’t understand the first sentence usually give up really fast and think they can’t get it–ever.</p>

<p>My point–make sure your children have the study skills needed for high school. Ask them how they study for a test. How are the tests created? Does the teacher narrow down what will be on the exam? Do they see a difference in the tests in high school as opposed to middle school tests of the same discipline? Do they feel overwhelmed?</p>

<p>If your child has a problem with vocabulary at the upper levels, teach them to use a dictionary while they read the textbook. If a word shows up a few times in a week’s worth of reading, have them create a flashcard so that they can learn the new word. Chances are the new word will probably be on the SAT and will probably be all over textbooks of similar subject in college.</p>

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<p>As has been pointed out, first quarter freshman year (whether in high school or college) is often about adjustment and facing different challenges. How and what you learn in high school is not the same as in middle school; how and what you learn in college is not the same as in high school. It sounds like d is beginning to find ways to adjust, and is taking that responsibility on herself. Punish her now because this particular quarter wasn’t as successful as you would like, and you risk stifling that responsibility - “I’m trying to do better, but why bother? I’ll just get into trouble about something I can’t change anymore anyway. Easier not to try different approaches until I find one that works.”</p>

<p>Michelle, as far as the conduct grade - yes, I always considered it (d got effort and conduct comments through high school, along with her letter grade), and reacted differently to it. Why? Because her grade was often out of her control - bad day, studied the wrong stuff, didn’t get the subject, whatever. But her effort and her conduct are, and always were, within her own direct control, and for that she could be held wholly responsible.</p>

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<p>shootehJoon </p>

<p>You have very wise parents. To instill a sourse of a student’s personal desire to learn/excel is key, as is the reality that ultimately it is the student’s responcibility if he wants to be well-educated and thrive in the process. </p>

<p>I happen to think that self-enrichment and love of learning can be instilled in a child, but that it has to come from what occurs beginning in early infancy, be supported and reinforced by the parents’ example (reading, discussing, thinking, reflecting, analyzing) and actions (e.g., participation in student’ s school and the parent taking professional betterment or personal enrichment courses) and appreciated by the parent when it occurs (praise, non-monetary privileges etc).</p>

<p>While I occassionaly hear of or see a student in HS “get off track” and then pull themselves out of a grade spin, generally by HS this level of personal motivation is either there or it isn’t.</p>

<p>However, I have seen students blossom in college when the parents are (usually) less in the picture. But, I also have several friends whose constant badgering of their HS student to “do better” and fairly extreme “consequences” when the student doesn’t measure up to mom and/or dad’s expectation ended up back-firing in college. </p>

<p>One scenario is the student who gets accepted to a college selectively composed of personally, highly self-motivated students. The student that has just been working to the level necessary to get the parents off her back gets “left in the dust” by other students. The second scenario is the one you discussed where the student “goes wild” when the opportunity to not have the parental watch-dogging happens to her.</p>

<p>It sounds to me that you are doing just fine. Congrats to you and your parents.</p>

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<p>Zoosermom, I can relate most to your situation with out S2, although he is not nearly as bright as your D. S2 seems to be reasonably bright (which I’m basing on his PSAT scores that were higher than S1 who got into UVA), but does almost no homework that we can see and has the grades to prove it.</p>

<p>Our school has finally gotten a system that posts his grades on the Internet for parents to see. Up until this point, we never could see anything but the report cards. S2 would claim tests and papers weren’t allowed to be brought home and he could never remember his actual grades when asked. Anyway, we see A+ interspersed with Fs in some classes for missing assignments. We also see some low test scores. When asked, he either says the teacher is “impossible” or his grade was better than the average, so therefore a D or whatever should actually be considered OK. He always claims to be doing his best but is never willing to actually “do” very much. </p>

<p>He gets home from football about 6:00, showers, eats, watches maybe an hour of TV, then does about an hour of homework and goes up to bed at 9:00. On week-ends, he leaves the house for the majority of the day, only sticking around to do specificly required chores such as laundry or lawn mowing. His curfew was midnight, but recently got moved back to 11:00 for an infraction. He gets home on time and does IM and watch TV late at night on week-ends. We don’t have any video games. When it isn’t football season, the hour of homework shrinks to about 15 minutes, so I think the sports are good for him.</p>

<p>Now that the grades and assignments are where we can see them, I guess we could monitor what is due and check to make sure it has been done, but frankly as a junior in high school I don’t think that is our job. When we talk about the grades hurting his chances for college, he indicates that he wants to go to the University of West Virginia and he has the grades for that (3.5 GPA weighted and 3.0 unweighted). </p>

<p>We have been known to use the occassional bribe. For example, he has wanted to do an overnight with his brother at UVA. I did not allow that last year (since this child cannot be trusted in an unsupervised college atmosphere), but did tell him he could do it this year if he came home with a 3.5 GPA unweighted on the report card. Based on grades so far, even with the F’s and D, he is at a 3.57 unweighted.</p>

<p>In short, I don’t think I have the ability to make him care nor do I think we did anything wrong as parents. S1 is a good student and S2 is lazy. I am not willing to pay for him to go to an expensive private school given his attitude. While the cost wouldn’t be a financial burden, it would be a waste of money, in my view. However, that isn’t even a point of discussion. He wants a big football school, so wouldn’t even be willing to go to a small private. </p>

<p>I don’t particularly worry about him flunking out. I think he is smart enough to do what he has to do to get by and get a piece of paper. As for his learning anything, highly unlikely.</p>

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<p>Something that shouldn’t be overlooked is; children aren’t just sponges. You can’t just tell them and they learn and comprehend. Children understand being led by example.</p>

<p>It is easier for a child to excel in their school and strive for a better college and life for themselves, if their parents have also graduated college and have successful careers. If the parent only has a high school diploma, then it’s more difficult to keep the child motivated. Not because the college degree parent is better, just because the child sees how successful their parents are and that they are at that level without a college degree. They don’t necessarily understand that 25-30 years ago, you didn’t need a college degree for many of the jobs that you might need one for today. Or that the college degree today can open many more doors. All the kids see if the parent pushing for grades, talking about college, pressuring them, etc… and yet it wasn’t needed for the parent.</p>

<p>Now, if the child sees that the parent’s life, and probably their’s is total crap because of poverty or lack of options, then that may motivate them to succeed. That is partially what motivated me. I was a straight “A” student through the 9th grade. Only 1 uncle in my entire extended Italian family ever went to college. He died before I graduated school. Poverty also motivated me. When my parents told me going into 10th grade how proud they were of my grades, but that there was no way in hell that they could get me into college, I just gave up. There wasn’t any way near as many opportunities as they have now for scholarships and getting a college degree. Back then it was either a full ride sports or full ride academic scholarship. I couldn’t get either, so I just quit. Already had enough credits by my 10th grade year to graduate. So I stuck it out for another 2 years and graduated with average scores. I swore I would never live that poor or content again. I now have multiple degrees. I would only consider marrying a college graduate. Any other girl would not have been an option.</p>

<p>But it all seems like it worked. I’ve been married now for 25 years. Our example has been a positive example for the kids. One graduated HS with a 3.75gpa and holds a 3.45gpa in her junior year of college. My son has had a 4.0gpa since the 1st grade. IB program, NHS, Sports, etc… and is being actively recruited for at least 5 colleges. With names like USC, Michigan State, Cornell, “Academies”, etc…</p>

<p>So, you can try and motivate the kids all you want; but if you don’t have the example to back it up, then you have to be a little humbling and admit that part of the motivation is to have your kids do BETTER than you did. Let the kids know that. Let them know that you might be happy with your life, but you wished that you had more options. That’s what this is all about. I don’t care if my son or daughter decides that they want to be a manager at McDonald’s for their entire life. As long as it’s because it’s what they chose and they do their best at it, then good for them. But if they take that job because they don’t have a college degree, don’t have experience, don’t have options, then that totally sucks. So I push them to do well so they have options. My wife and i lead by example; also doing the best be can. Then, when the kids have their options, they can decide on being a nuclear physicist or a Pizza Hut manager. At least the choice is one that the wanted instead of one that they had to.</p>

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<p>3bm103: I’m with you 100% on the issue. The child’s grades and other acheivements are “of the child, by the child and for the child”.</p>