Parenting Your Teenager: What to Do with a Bad Report
Card
Phil Collins once sang "I can feel
it comin' in the air tonight............" While I don't think he was
singing about report cards coming home, he sure could have been.
Report cards, those powerful little
pieces of paper.
Report cards can strike fear and dread
into the hearts of both students and parents. So much of the power
struggle around school revolves around all those letters and numbers that show
up on report cards.
If you are looking forward to a good
report card coming home, or if a good report card has already made it home to
you, congratulations, that is something to celebrate.
If you are dreading another bad report
card, or a bad report card has already made it home, hang in there, because
there are many things we can do.
A bad report card is not the end of the
world. In fact, there are some steps to take to improve things by next report
card time.
One of my favorite solutions for bad
report cards
List the grades from the most recent
grading period on the left hand side of a piece of paper. Now, across from each
grade, on the right hand side of the paper, list the grade goal for the next
grading period.
Here is the important part: make it only
one grade higher than in the last grading period. This makes pulling grades up
look manageable to a teenager. You can tell them, however, that it is perfectly
acceptable to improve by more than one grade if they choose to do so.
Here's an example of this system:
D to C
C to B
C to B
B to A
F to D
D to C
D to C
C to B
C to B
B to A
F to D
D to C
D to C
Now it may not seem like much to go from
an F to a D, or even a D to a C, but check this out:
The difference in the Grade Point
Average (GPA) between the first and second grading period using this system is
the difference between a score of 1.42 and a score of 2.43.
Make a one letter grade improvement in
each class in each of the next grading periods, and within two grading periods
you've got some very nice grades on your hands.
Progress not perfection
I know it is our tendency as parents to
want, expect, or even demand our kids to do more than one letter grade better.
And yea, OK, they are certainly capable of it. What you want to remember is two
of the important goals we have with this system:
1) Make improvement look manageable to
the student. This one is important because many times studens will dig
themselves a huge hole, and then convicne themselves there is no way to get
out.
2) We are shooting for progress here,
not perfection.
A bad report card is no fun - for
students or parents. Using the one letter grade higher system can give you and
your student hope and direction in manageable pieces.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring
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