<p>DD is finishing up her junior year with a C/C- in math. All other grades are better, but not stellar. We have gone through several tutors over the years but through a combination of carelessness pn tests and homework and just not “getting it,” she continues to do poorly. I feel like I have been haranguing her all year about her grades. She is not a terribly hard worker and is much more focused on her art (she will probably go to art school, hopefully RISD). My husband says we should take away privileges in order to MAKE her work harder to get at least a B in math. I say that ship has sailed and the academic motivation has to come from within herself. The result of all this talk about her grades is that my husband and I are anxious and my daughter is regularly in tears. I sense that we need to step back and let her face the consequences, but my husband cannot abide by that and feels that she is throwing away her one big chance to get into the school of her dreams. </p>
<p>One of my kids had a similar feeling about math. Her problem was she didn’t have a good foundation. I was taking her to tutoring at a center, but that didn’t help much and was expensive. We met with the teacher and the guidance office, and agreed to tutoring twice a week with one of the Math club members. She also learned to argue with the teacher over a point here or there. The teacher often marked things wrong that weren’t wrong! And I mean often. She’d accuse DD of changing the answer when she handed back quizzes, or of not doing homework. Daughter saw that a point here or two points there did make the difference between a B and a C.</p>
<p>It was a long road.</p>
<p>Sometimes, it is just about readiness of the brain development. My D1 had a little bit problem on Math at her early age. I was frustrated for about a year. Then she started to catch up and exceed her grade level by mid-elementary school. At the end, she is around 2 years ahead of her peers. For my D2, she has been much behind D1 in Math skill development. She was around 2 years behind D1 in Math skill development throughout elementary and middle school. What is noteworthy is the age of the kid. D1 is among the oldest in the class while D2 is near the youngest. That would make big difference particularly in the early age. The frustration in Math during the early age may have a negative impact on their interest in Math.</p>
<p>I wish that were true, billcsho, but she was a much better math student when she was younger. This falling behind in math has only happened in high school.</p>
<p>@lauriejgs: It sounds like I have been where you are. My son has struggled with math since he was in elementary school. He had private tutors in math from the 6th grade up until 11th. Yes, that’s a lot of money, and I kept thinking it would all click with him and start making sense. But after Geometry, we decided to let him go it on his own. I cannot tell you that there was any appreciable difference in his grades. Let’s put it this way, the “clicking” never happened. 
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<p>My short answer to your question is no, I don’t believe you can MAKE a child raise their grades. But possibly you don’t need to do that. (Especially if your child is going to art school, where portfolios generally take priority over grades and scores.) </p>
<p>Yes, RISD wants academics as well as talent, but just make sure that is the best school for your child’s talents as opposed to just the best known art school. I confess, I thought RISD was the Holy Grail, but then my son (who is an animator) went on a tour and thought their animation program was not as advanced, and the lab not as nice, as other schools he ended up applying to. In the end, he didn’t even bother applying to RISD. (I’m only telling you that so that you don’t get caught up in the prestige game in the art school arena. A good program and a good student fit are important in the art world, too!) </p>
<p>Anyway, my son is leaving for art school in August…and has never really gotten the hang of math. </p>
<p>Best of luck to you and your child! :-)</p>
<p>Happykid had a terrible time in HS math. She was a straight-A Theatre Tech/Design student. </p>
<p>Has your daughter been formally evaluated for learning disabilities? Often those don’t reveal themselves until secondary school when the work (especially in math) gets significantly more challenging. If you have to pay for a formal evaluation with an educational psychologist, well then do it. Maybe the pressure has just created a huge anxiety in her, or maybe she’s got an executive function or mild dyslexia-type issue going on that makes it hard for her to keep track of all the steps in math, or maybe both, or maybe something completely different. So get her evaluated for LDs that could affect other aspects of her life as well as math, and then drop the panic about math. Ultimately, she will master the math she needs for her probable design career on her own time and in her own way. For admission to RISD and similar places, her portfolio matters so much more than her math grades.</p>
<p>You can’t MAKE her raise her grades. But you can research and see what the schools she wants to attend require for admittance. Actually, most art schools don’t require that you get A’s or B’s in math. They want to see good/great portfolios. If her dream art school wants great grades in math maybe she’ll step up her game.
Question: Does she work hard on her art? Maybe you don’t realize the time she puts into it. Maybe her hard work is just focused on art rather than math (not a bad thing for someone aspiring to art school).</p>
<p>Love the kid on the couch. Her time would probably be much more productively spent on working on her portfolio then some marginal increase in her math grade. I agree she (and you) should be figuring out which schools will like her the way she is.</p>
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<p>This. She’s a rising senior now, and I think you’re right - that ship has sailed. Put it this way - do you really want another year of anxiety for you and your H (plus tears from your D)? This will be her senior year of HS - it will be anxious and tearful enough.</p>
<p>I just have to ask the OP - when your H made the comment about “throwing away her one big chance to get into the school of her dreams,” did he really mean “throwing away her one big chance to get into the school of MY dreams”? I know that there was a time when my own wants and desires for my D got mixed up (in my mind) with her wants and desires.</p>
<p>Also, what level of math is she taking? </p>
<p>Just wanted to add – my son (the animator) only took the SATs once, in May of his junior year. He got very meh scores, and of course, everyone said, “He HAS to take it in the fall!” Well, we decided he should spend his summer working on his portfolio in an art class at a nearby university rather than sitting in an SAT prep program. He applied to 4 competitive art schools in the fall, and got into all 4 – 2 offered merit scholarships – so if art school is really something you will consider, think about having your child spend more time on the portfolio. </p>
<p>" I sense that we need to step back and let her face the consequences, but my husband cannot abide by that and feels that she is throwing away her one big chance to get into the school of her dreams. "</p>
<p>School of her dreams, or his? Also – life is never, ever, about One Big Chance. There are many chances, many roads, many ways to reach success/happiness. Don’t get too focused on one way. If you are all regularly in tears and stressed, what you are doing isn’t the right choice. If she is a C student with great art skills, let her be that person. That person will get into the right school for their actual abilities. If you were to strip her of all she has in order to squeeze out a B student, what did that gain you? And at what cost? And if this inauthentic version of your daughter is admitted to a school, she’ll have to keep being that inauthentic version to stay there. Love her who and where she is, as your instincts are clearly telling you to do. </p>
<p>This is too late for the OP’s daughter, but might help another reader.</p>
<p>My son tested into advanced math (two grade levels up) in elementary school. He never skipped a beat, charged straight through the curriculum, never got a grade below 95% through high school and college math.</p>
<p>Four years later my daughter also tested into the same program, but skipping those two foundation years in elementary school was a big mistake. She never was comfortable. She earned some A’s, but mostly B’s and some C’s. She saw a tutor, but finally, in seventh grade, we gave up. She finished the seventh grade math class, then repeated it in eighth grade, which put her one year above grade level instead of two years above grade level. She is now a rising senior, with solid A’s in math. She will take Calc AB-AP as a senior. </p>
<p>Taking her out of the advanced math track was the best thing we ever did for her. She was so unsure of herself, and so dreading her math homework and so overly focused on the math she was struggling with in seventh grade that it affected all of her other grades as well. That changed almost overnight when we told her that she could relax a bit, and that she would be repeating that math class in eighth grade.</p>
<p>(Repeating the class was a decision we made along with her math teacher, a wonderful man who had been teaching advanced middle school math for thirty years. As we were meeting with him to decide what to do with our struggling, but not failing daughter, he said, “She is not the worst student in this class, her grades are average, but she looks like a deer caught in the headlights most of the time. She is not comfortsble with this math taught at this pace yet.” Our thoughts about math were that it is one of very few subjects where you have to have a solid understanding of each level before you move on. That extra year made all the difference in the world.)</p>
<p>You can’t punish a rising senior. That ship has sailed. Time to step back and let her make her own choices. Sometimes failure is more educational than any class. All successful people eventually learn how to fail - and how to recover. </p>
<p>Your relationship is more important than a “B” in math. I’m not saying parents shouldn’t ride their kids when they are being stupid but there does come a time when we need to let go of certain things. She’s a senior now and getting better grades first semester senior year isn’t going to erase the rest of her transcript. Hounding her the last year she really has to be with you… well, those consequences could be high. It’s difficult to accept sometimes but not all kids are built for school. If she’s struggling now, college is going to be a rough go.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’ve been hounding my youngest all year to pull up his math grade. In his case, it’s only math and it’s not entirely his fault (he was in an experimental program for advanced students 6th and 7th… he aced it but we suspected it wasn’t giving him a good foundation.) We moved him to a traditional advanced class for 8th and he’s floundered all year even with a drop down to the regular curriculum (and that was supposed to be a repeat of what he’d already done 7th grade.) We’ve had to take a step back because the harder we push, the harder push back we get from DS… it’s always been this way. He just locks in… like the story of the sun and wind competing to get a man to remove his coat… the harder the wind blew, the tighter that man held onto his coat… a little warmth and sunshine and my son starts to be more manageable. Math is handled drastically different in the specialty high school he’s moving into and more inline with his working style so I have high hopes that things will improve.</p>
<p>My little brother was an extreme case and I’d advise not to do what my parents did. They took away the art in hopes to encourage the schooling. Little brother slipped into depression, gave up art permanently and still failed out of high school. Their relationship has never fully recovered. You can’t take away what your D loves as punishment. You can require time on school work but be careful touching the one thing that may be the only thing that actually makes sense in her world right now. </p>
<p>OP here. I want to thank you all for such insightful responses. @haveaharp, RISD might be her dream school. Then again, it might not. She is going to the Pratt pre-college program this summer, and we think that will really help her figure out what she wants to study and which school would be the best fit. We know RISD doesn’t require high math grades but we know they do look at grades, perhaps more than some other art schools. @happymomof1, I have wondered for a couple of years whether we should have her evaluated. Is there any point, at this late stage of high school??? </p>
<p>OP, it took a very observant math teacher when my son was a junior in high school to tell us that something wasn’t quite right. What she observed in the classroom was not what she was seeing on tests. My S was always a reasonably good math student until he got to high school. That’s where lots of kids “hit the wall.” Anyway, after a conversation with this math teacher, we decided to have my S tested by an outside educational psychologist. Lo and behold, he did have an LD and executive function issues that his close-minded parents had never considered as we pushed him to “work harder.” We got him tutoring with another member of the math department and he also worked with his teacher. The school also granted him extra time on math exams. He was able to raise his grade from that C/C+ range into the B range. He is now a senior in college, graduating in a couple of weeks from a very highly ranked university with a nationally known theatre program. They accepted him as a theatre major despite his less than stellar math & science grades and less than stellar SAT score. </p>
<p>I agree that your DH has to stop and think about whether it’s HIS dream school he’s worried about or hers.</p>
<p>Just because she was good at math earlier does not mean that she is capable of doing higher math now. Their is a big difference between addition/subtraction/etc and the spacial concepts of geometry and beyond. My daughter is a math teacher, and she has big struggles with geometry - she can teach it, but has to be very slow and intentional when translating proofs onto smart boards, and such. While in school herself, she had issues in algebra because she could not grasp sloping diagrams. But she loves math, and how math is involved in every aspect of life, and she worked hard to overcome a spacial difficulty. After two years of teaching in a native village in AK, her students had a 60% increase in the statewide testing scores for math, in part because she understands math struggles and encourages the students.</p>
<p>Without that love, your daughter just may not be capable of deciphering and solving math problems. Has she been tested for spacial or other learning disabilities? There is no point in threatening or punishing her for something that she is not capable of changing.</p>
<p>I think there’s always a point to testing. If nothing else I think gaining an understanding of what your weaknesses are can help to figure out the best workarounds. My youngest son always seemed to be just a bit behind the program in elementary school and never could get through speed tests in math. Low and behold he turned out to be very good at mathematical reasoning, but lousy at memorizing and very middling at a couple of other things. It was a big help to him just to know that. He ended up getting a recommendation from his pre-calc teacher (who gave him some sort of B) saying that he had one of the best mathematical minds in his class, but because he was slow and had to figure out so many problems from first principles, he inevitably did not get stellar grades on tests. (Nothing like having to figure out the Pythagorean Theorem from scratch because you can’t remember how it goes!) </p>
<p>Some colleges have math requirements and she may not want to attend one, or she might get excused from the requirement if she has a documented disability.</p>
<p>Take a look into the grad requirements for RISD. All art-related majors and they still have to take liberal arts classes and do well enough in those. Also check the NPC, if you need fin aid, as they are not strong in that. </p>
<p>D1 “owned” math up through 8th, Alg 1, lost it by fall of 9th, Alg 2. Her SAT M was shameful, even with tutoring. There’s no LD, it’s more that her interests in the humanities just drove out the other math-sci skills. </p>
<p>If you are willing to encourage her art, there are many schools, including publics, where the art programs are strong, the rest of the academic challenges are do-able. It’s worth a broad look.</p>