There are ways to help a child improve their bad grades, verbally condemning and comparing them with other kids will never work. Let me say I have on many occasions found myself yelling at my son for bringing a report card laden with grades way below my expectation. At times I even end up punishing. It is more like a reflex action for most parents, a natural first instinct. However, by doing this, we are doing the child a major disservice.
Whatever the report turns out to be, be it a single bad grade or entirely laden with red pen, one important thing to do is to demonstrate to your child that you still care and set the right mood and tone to encourage them to be better. Sometimes their own hurt or shame is enough to set them on the right path. Other times, parental intervention may be needed to make sure it is not the beginning of a pattern.
Some reasons why kids have bad grades are as follows.
- Test/exam anxiety
- Distraction or lack of focus
- Ineffective study habit
- Lack of confidence
- Communication issues
- Learning difficulties amongst others
So, when a bad report sheet comes, how should you react to it? Here is a right and wrong way to approach it.
Four Things to Say
- Tell me about your challenges with studying and passing your exam, let us figure out a solution.
- You fail an exam or have poor grades does not mean you are a failure; you have an opportunity to try again so let us focus on that.
- Let me know how you are feeling, I am here to listen for as long as you need me.
- I appreciate your efforts and I believe you can do better
These words will help your child see how committed you are about figuring out the problem he/she might be experiencing and boost his/her confidence. This keeps the child motivated to do better.
Four Things Not to Say
- I am disappointed to see how bad you have performed in your exams.
- Do your siblings have two heads? Why can’t you be like them and top your class?
- You play too much, and you are unserious that is why you have poor grades.
- We pay a lot of money to keep you in school
These words are not encouraging, they break the soul of your kids and leave them unmotivated and dejected. Some kids would grow up feeling less of themselves by having low self-esteem, which in turn affects all other areas of growth and development.
When we look at a child’s report card, it is easy to quickly spot the bad grades, they are usually the first thing we see because they are written in red. However, rather than dwelling too much on this, take time to look through the teacher’s comments and identify areas where your child is making some progress, then praise the good performances and offer motivation to help them do better in areas that need improvement.
The best results come from the simplest steps. Do not overcomplicate things by verbally abusing your child because of poor grades instead address the issue properly and set a realistic goal for them for the next academic session. Let them understand you are there for them and this is a problem to solve together.
Solution starts from first helping your child see the bad grades as a major problem they must solve. Teach them problem solving, let them write out what they would do to have better results in the areas they least perform and help them stay committed to it.
jide_nimdee
