Only on CC are people worried about two B plusses. This site can be so unrealistic.
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It can change. Unlike her brother (who once asked me how he could have gotten 105 out of 100 on a test or assignment), ShawD said in more or less the same week when asked about a test, âI got a 92. That is pretty good. My friend got a 93.â
In her case, she was very influenced by the people around her. Our town has good elementary schools and a highly ranked high school, but the school administrators themselves would say that the middle school was not good. So we sent her to a private school for grades 6-8 that was very hard to get into. Given a relative lack of confidence (which came from following a brilliant and competitive brother, undiagnosed ADHD, and a serious medical problem with her vision), she surprised both her parents and her teachers with her strong performance. But, we worried that if we sent her to the public HS, she would fall in with a group of girls that would talk about clothes and boys and she would be happy with that. Instead, she was admitted to an excellent private HS in our town and her friends were ambitious. While they talked about clothes and boys, if they didnât work they would be asked to leave (âLittle Muffyâ would find a better fit elsewhere). Essentially, under the influence of her friends, she learned to work hard and her GPA increased every year (from B+s to A-s to all As). She still lacked confidence, but she developed drive. Skipping a few details, she was admitted to a joint BSN/MSN program. She did extremely well each year and her confidence grew. She wanted to win the prizes for best student and graduated with a 3.95 GPA and her schoolâs equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa.
In her case, there were a few contributors including getting diagnosed with ADHD and taking Ritalin, which helped her focus), but we believe the main contribution to her improvement in performance and drive was social â we put her with a group of kids who had high standards for herself and she absorbed it.
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I didnât see thisâŠAnd some unsolicited advice. I beg you to not make your pride in your child dependent on their career outcomes and professional success (as defined by you). That really sets everyone up for disappointment and can quickly poison relationships.
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So to be perfectly honest, I went through a lot of schooling (HS, college, grad school, and law school), and the only level at which I really consistently put in the effort I needed to get the reasonable best grades possible was law school. By then I had a lot of focus and knew getting those grades would help make possible what I really wanted to do coming out of law school. Before thatâeh, I would sort of take a little while to figure out the system, and then eventually get really good grades. And that was always enough to get me to the next step I wanted.
In contrast, my S24 has consistently gotten very good grades, going back to when grading started getting fairly serious in the upper school at his private K-8. I think for him, the desire to compete successfully is very strong (he is also into competitive sports, games, and so on), and he sees grades as a competition which he can win.
What is my point with all this? Well, some might look at my S24 and say he has more âinner driveâ at this age than I did, but is that really true? I definitely had my own ambitions, and I succeeded. I just did it my way, and did not particularly care too much about how it might look to others as long as it worked for me. And when I needed to do it a certain way, I did. But that doesnât mean my S24 is wrong to do it his way, like he really enjoys the competition and was still able to balance getting consistently good grades with all sorts of other things he enjoys, including time with friends and so forth. So that is fine too.
And these are just two of a gazillion different stories about how different people can have different personal feelings about grades and still end up self-motivated and successful people.
OK, so I acknowledge it is kinda easy for me in the sense I see my S24 get even better grades than I did, so of course I am not worried. On the other hand, I would like to believe if I saw him really sacrificing a healthy and enjoyable high school experience out of anxiety over grades, I would have tried to intervene. And I hope should the fates deal him a kid like me, he will not insist on that kid getting grades like he did, but instead will be accepting of this concept of different self-motivated and ultimately successful people having different personal relationships to grades.
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An abundance of good advice here, from parents who all sound like theyâve learned valuable lessons!
Your description of your daughterâs âlow driveâ rings some bells with many of us it seems. My personal observation of kids like this - my younger daughter fits this description well - is that they sometimes donât capitalize on low-hanging fruit/easy Aâs or other opportunities because it feels inauthentic to them and authenticity may be a very deep driving factor. We call our younger daughter an old soul because she just instinctively grasps the artifice and hypocrisy of the human experience much more viscerally than most teenagers.
Over time weâve come to recognize this as her superpower. Itâs the reason why she is focused on finding a college that suits her needs, and not one that suits outside expectations.
Iâd venture to guess that your daughter has a similar superpower lurking underneath some of these actions or inactions that may be hard for you to decipher. Helping her get to know herself and embrace herself as a unique individual and not just a college applicant could be helpful for you both.
Wishing you well in the process! It can be very stressful as a parent but it sounds like most of us have found that more trust in our kids and less emphasis on the âresumeâ work best in the long run.
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I want to agree with everyone here who is suggesting you take a step back and let your child live her life. Feeling pressure and judgment from parents can produce super high achievers, and it can produce people who rebel against every mainstream measure of success. But in general I do not think it produces people who are happy, and I believe that is what most parents want for their kids.
I am unfortunately a perfectionist, and despite my good intentions have communicated perfectionism and self-judgment to my child who came into the world bright, optimistic and confident. When she was 5, she was rehearsing for something and I was commenting/providing feedback and she literally said to me âYou are making me unconfident!â She is high-achieving by any measure, but struggles now with anxiety and depression. I begged her to take time off, not because of her grades, which are perfect but because she is going through the motions, not finding happiness in anything. I am so mad at myself. I always encouraged her to do what she wanted to do, but at every turn I let my own high standards for myself bleed into her life and colour her standards for herself, and I have definitely impacted her mental health. If I could do it again, I would get myself help, and focus on gratitude and happiness in my own successes so that she could focus on gratitude and happiness in hers.
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My best friend got a D in math one year, because she was bored out of her mind. She just didnât care. She went on to get a bachelorâs degree in math and a PhD in history.
Please be kind to your child. Sheâs doing awesome, and you should tell her that FREQUENTLY. You will set her up for anxiety and other serious issues if you criticize her or imply sheâs not trying. Ask me how I knowâŠ
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Your post reminds me of my high school boyfriend, a lovely solid C student. In Ontario in those days only our senior grades counted for university admission. My boyfriend, who had never worked hard a day in his life, pulled off really high senior grades, went to McGill and is very successful.
Some kids are actually doing the calculus in their heads and figuring that they will work when it matters.
It doesnât sound like that is necessarily the case in the OPâs situation, I would guess instead that either their daughter is perfectly happy with a B+ or is reacting to her parents pressure.
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I know this isnât your thread but I feel compelled to quickly tell you I think your daughter is very likely to be fine in the long run, and it is very unlikely it is all your fault! Indeed, I kinda feel like your perfectionism (which is not a bad trait in moderation, but as you know can sometimes be counterproductive) is being turned to your own parenting in this case.
But the truth is so, so many kids go through periods of anxiety and depression, even if their parents try to follow all the best advice. Indeed, I think very few of us would not have a similar story about how our happy, carefree toddlers somehow turned into anxious, self-critical teenagers. It is just hard being a kid sometimes, and a lot of the critical voices they hear are not parents but peers and other authority figures, and indeed usually the older they get the more it is those other voices that really land with them.
That is not to dismiss the importance of doing your best to be a supportive parent, but it would take a lot to convince me this had ever been entirely in your control. And on the positive side, most kids with the right support will get through these periods, but learning how to handle such thoughts and feelings more constructively usually takes a long process. And that is because it is a big part of learning how to be a happy adult, which can take a lot of time even when it eventually turns out very well. And I am sure it is not at all too late for you to support your daughter through that process.
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Also do not want to hijack this thread, but thank you so much for your reflections! 
I have to take my own advice and step back. Itâs easy as parents to get caught up in the current struggles and forget that itâs a process.
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OP I believe that your perceptions and expectations are off (not intending to offend). Your daughter is telling you what she likesâŠand showing you her driveâŠby participating in varsity and club volleyball. In your other post you indicated that she has not been involved in HS clubs because volleyball takes a lot of time, and it does- you are 100% right. Varsity sports took up 20 hours a week in my kidâs school, and they did not do club sports in addition to varsity- like your daughter. What you appear to be missing is that volleyball IS a HS club/activityâŠbut it might not (?) be the one that you want.
You also reported that she is âlost,â which I donât seeâŠbut I donât know her.
What concerns me is the description of her STEAM summer program, which you say is of âmedium selectivity level.â I donât understand what difference it makes that this program is of âmediumâ selectivity. What matters is that she enjoys herself, makes a few friends, nourishes her interests etc.
Your daughter sounds like a great kid, at least to me. That needs to be celebrated, imo.
Oh- and she also volunteers in a soup kitchen. Again I askâŠwhat is the problem?
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Working for awards and recognition is not inner drive. There have been many studies about internal and external motivation and in the long run those with internal motivation do better while external motivation decreases inner drive. Internal motivation doesnât always result in high grades as grades are given by someone else and may not reflect in any way what the student actually learned.
S23 went to a Montessori school through 4th-8th grade and did not receive grades or any other external rewards. Friends with kids in public school always noticed and talked about how internally motivated he was. And he was. He loved learning. He loved learning his way, in his time and for the love of learning. And if he had been in public school⊠his grades would have been average at best and he would have found no joy in his work. (In fact, we pulled him out because he was doing his own work rather than what was being assigned). This kid just couldnât/wouldnât follow a rubric. But, in the long run, his love of learning was intact, he knew more about himself as a learner than kids that worked for grades and he learned the skills that he really needed to do well in high school.
The best way to help your daughter is to help her find joy in what she is doing and back off on the grades.
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Not going to read all the posts. There is nothing wrong with a few B+ or regular Bs etc. Maybe sheâs also burnt out. Getting all As shouldnât be the goal. A love for learning and exploration should be.
Talk to her about what her interests are and what she likes to learn. Not what grade she got on this quiz or test. I worry about the kids that get All As. Lots of pressure trying to be prefect and keeping up with the Jones. Lots of kids have mental health issues in high school and larger oneâs in college that get unmasked trying to achieve perfection.
As long as sheâs a happy child and does all the things a high school student should do and has respect for others. Not sure what the problem is. Have her do some Ecs that excite her.
Note : sheâs not you or your husband. Let her be herself. It took us awhile to figure this out with our kids. She will amaze you with her ability.
Good luck.
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The other thing also is maybe she prioritized what was important for her to study first. Put more time into the harder classes. She got all As in the other classes Maybe thatâs how she did it. . As she goes into Junior year itâs not easy. Things will get more challenging for her and anyone. Just support her when she needs it. I would personally make sure your daughter know how proud you are of her and how much you love her. This advice will be more important to her then worrying about 2 B+ grades.
Well, you definitely struck a cord here and I think itâs a good discussion. Section 35 page 245 in the parenting rule book goes over all of this. 
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Will this be the 15th or 16th edition? 
But to OP: remember the old saying: You work hard so your kids donât have to? I guess they are taking it a bit more literally.
On a serious note, would you have rather your daughter give 100% and end up with two B+ or knowing she had more in the tank, but chose to diversify her time and efforts?
You may be a perfectionist and feel getting an A should be easy, but I get how some people just want to âpass.â And to be honest, there is nothing wrong with just âpass.â
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So much of this is inborn. When my daughter was 5 and in kindergarten the teacher gave them their first big project. It was a week before Valentines Day and she wanted them to learn how to break a project into manageable pieces. The idea was that they would do a valentine for each classmate. Cut it out, color it, write their name on it. Wrote the other kids name. Address the envelope etcâŠ. They could do all the cutting one day and the coloring the next. Or they could do 5 whole ones per day. My daughter sat down to do it and it was clear she wanted to complete each whole valentine. After an hour she had done 5 and I was like ok, tomorrow you will do 5 more. And my kid looked at me as though I was absolutely insane. âI have 12 more to do!â And she proceeded to sit there for the next several hours and complete them. Not unhappy, not put upon. Just determined to do the job. You canât make a child that way. They just are. She had the same attitude when she got all of her wedding thank you notes done in less than 3 weeks after the wedding.
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It appears OPâs kid got B+ because those classes were easy and maybe not as interesting. To me, itâs not about 2 B+s, itâs about attitude and putting in the effort even when itâs not most interesting or glamours. In life, we donât always get to pick and choose what we want to do, and we do not have the luxury of not doing something because we donât feel like it.
Both of my kids are over 30 now. They had to take classes they were not interested in, and had to do a lot of housework they didnât want to do. I told them if we got to choose there would be a lot of stuff that did not get done.
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Your daughter obviously put in the effort on the harder classes. She will be fine.
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I mean, she got B+s. Itâs not like she failed. She put in adequate effort to get an above average grade, just not an excellent grade or the highest grade possible. Perhaps because she wasnât that into it and thatâs OK. Sometimes good enough really is good enough. And she did good enough. In fact, she did above average, if we take a B+ to indicate that. I donât see an attitude problem brewing here whatsoever. She did enough work to get a very solid grade. She did not do enough work to get the highest possible grade. But so what?
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Let her be. Seriously. Your kid is fine and normal. I would be applauding her for not having the perfectionism genes that so often add to anxiety and unhealthy lack of balance in life.
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