Kids - School Grades

[Clark]

Honestly I wouldn't let them do that. There is a line I think we don't need to cross homework wise. Get your stuff done as best you can, get to bed at a decent time, and be ready to do it again.

well on that front, I'd ask what they were doing from 4pm-2am that lead to them working on homework at 2am.

My belief is the kid's "job" is to be a student. So if them working, or their extracurriculars are causing an issue with their learning then those need to be reduced or eliminated.

 

[erikbj]

Every parent and child situation is going to be different.

I have told my daughter I expect A's - she is smart and school is not the difficult if she puts the effort in. If she wants to screw around with her friends or be online - better come home with perfect grades. If the grades fall - then technology and activities go away.

I am finding the balance between extra circular activities time commitment is also challenging (which is important too). And when she gets to the age - I want her to get a job. When I turned 15 and got a school permit - my parents made me pay for my own car. It was a great life lesson of learning what a dollar and it sucks to work low paying jobs. I thought they were mean at the time, as most of my friends were just handed a car. It was probably the number one life lesson they did for me.

Again - every situation is going to be different. My kid has every resource at her fingertips, so I set the bar high.

Good luck.

 

[Cyrocks]

well on that front, I'd ask what they were doing from 4pm-2am that lead to them working on homework at 2am.

My belief is the kid's "job" is to be a student. So if them working, or their extracurriculars are causing an issue with their learning then those need to be reduced or eliminated.

I don't have any kids, so take this for what it's worth.

The most important thing, I think, for a seventh or eighth grader is learning HOW to study. Your example sort of fits into what I believe.

I was a terrible student. I wasn't dumb. Just lazy. Even if I wasn't out for sports, choir, theater, I wouldn't have cracked a book open until absolutely necessary.

 

[jsb]

I think you can tell if they are trying. If they’re trying, then that’s enough. If they are coasting too. B, then it’s not.

Also it seems like your kids might have had a tough few months. So take that it account.

 

[Clark]

Honestly I don't care about the grade, I want them to form habits around schoolwork. Nothing crazy, I don't think kids should be doing 3-4 hours of schoolwork a night.

I didn't need to do homework in high school, I could skate by. College was extremely difficult for me.

I didn't either.

It's been a while since I was in school, so it's certainly possible things have changed but if they truly have 3-4 hours of work to do at night, I'd be curious to know what exactly they're doing during school hours.

I don't have any kids, so take this for what it's worth.

The most important thing, I think, for a seventh or eighth grader is learning HOW to study. Your example sort of fits into what I believe.

I was a terrible student. I wasn't dumb. Just lazy. Even if I wasn't out for sports, choir, theater, I wouldn't have cracked a book open until absolutely necessary.

I agree wholeheartedly, in fact I think the problem is actually worse if you're a good student. It's hard to say to your student who got an A that they didn't study well enough without sounding like an insane parent, but that could very well be the case and when they get to college those bad study habits will bite them in the ass (speaking from personal experience)

 

[Cyrealist]

That's part of our struggle. He was off the charts on the standardized testing and always a perfectionist, but this year has taken a more passive attitude and I think it's evident. I mean a B isn't bad, but he's capable of much better.

Sometimes the change can be a concern since it might indicate something else changing in the kid's life. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about the grades too much. Sometimes it is only a measure of how willing they are to jump through the teachers' hoops. We just let our kids know they were expected to show up and behave themselves. The first three got mostly A's all the way through. The youngest goofed off until he was a sophomore in high school and then he decided it was important. It makes a difference who they're hanging around with also.

 

[mramseyISU]

I've got two very different kids.
My oldest is a junior this year and he's mister play a sport all 4 seasons (football, swim, soccer & baseball) and do club swim simultaneously with football and works weekends lifeguarding at the city sportsplex. Somehow he has a 3.2 cumulative through all of that.

My youngest is a Freshman and deals with ADHD/anxiety and he can't do more than one thing at a time. He's been flagged as Twice Exceptional through the schools which I would describe as gifted but.... he goes to whatever the equivalent to a gifted class is but he also has an extra study hall to try and keep up on work. If he misses a day of school it takes us weeks to get him caught up. Middle school was a struggle but so far so good with high school. He missed a couple days last week with strep so we spent all weekend working through his assignments. I think we got everything done but he has a habit of forgetting what he's supposed to be doing or getting distracted during the day and having to go through every single thing he did that day to make sure he stays caught up. It's exhausting for everyone involved.

Long story short, good enough really depends on the kid in my opinion.

 

[Cyrealist]

Except for years when our boys were in school and one other family with smart boys, the vast majority of kids graduating in the top 10% in our district are girls. Why is this?

There have been a lot of studies that public schools are designed for the way girls learn. Boys get bored and want to be challenged more. In our high school, the National Honor Society was almost all girls.

 

[CYdTracked]

I'm going to have a tough time toeing this line when our kids get to this point. I was just an average student while my wife was an all A's student throughout all levels of school so we have different perspectives on this. I just made the minimum requirements to get into ISU which was ranking in the top 50% of your HS class and if you didn't meet that there was a SAT minimum and I just barely made both. Wasn't a dean's list student in college either, can't remember what my final GPA was but it was under 3.0 but I didn't really care about grades as much as I did about setting myself up with internships and doing well in my core major classes where the knowledge and experience was more relevant to the field I was going into. I had even broken down my GPA into gen eds classes and major classes because those were much higher than the gen eds were which I didn't feel were relevant to whether I was qualified for a job where I was not going to put that subject matter to practical use.

I've worked with people that were 4.0 students that have no damn clue what they are doing and others that didn't even go to college that are some of the smartest people I know. Grades and GPA is a good way to set a bar for admissions and in some cases to apply for jobs right out of college as there has to be some weed out criteria but other than that they become irrelevant pretty quickly once you enter the work force. I got weeded out on some job applications right out of college because of some HR BS criteria that had to be at least a 3.2 or something yet had recruiters for those jobs tell me I had way more experience than most of their candidates due to my internships that they preferred but unfortunately couldn't get me past their HR requirement. In the end it all worked out, eventually found a job that didn't put such a high emphasis on GPA and valued my experience and skills over being able to take a memorization test.

I guess the stance I take on it is getting good grades are probably going to open up more doors for you to get scholarships and into college and in some cases qualify you to apply for certain jobs. But if you don't combine that with some real skills and experience in the field you want to go into then all it means is you are good at memorization and taking tests. The classes I did best in were ones where the grade was not heavily based on exams and more on projects and papers where you have to put your skills and problem solving tactics to practical use.

 

[carvers4math]

I didn't either.

It's been a while since I was in school, so it's certainly possible things have changed but if they truly have 3-4 hours of work to do at night, I'd be curious to know what exactly they're doing during school hours.


I agree wholeheartedly, in fact I think the problem is actually worse if you're a good student. It's hard to say to your student who got an A that they didn't study well enough without sounding like an insane parent, but that could very well be the case and when they get to college those bad study habits will bite them in the ass (speaking from personal experience)

Thanks for dissing my kids.

Maybe taking two years of AP Calculus and Physics. Maybe winning the conference tennis championship. Maybe making All-State band. Maybe tutoring kids in math at school that the guidance counselor sends his way.

 

[Pope]

I subscribe to coach Campbell's philosophy. Focus on the process (i.e., their work ethic), not the results (i.e., their GPA). In other words, if your kids are working hard in school, that's all you can and should ask for.

 

[Urbandale2013]

I’d say it is really more about effort and whether they are actually learning anything vs actual grades.

I got all As until about junior year and then saw fewer returns on those As and frankly coasted the last two years for the most part.

There are points in time I wish I would have spent more time on stuff but I also know I wouldn’t have seen any real tangible benefit to that effort. It’s really a specific scenario type of deal.

 

[Cyclones8824]

I’m in 10th grade, any thing below a b- and I get my phone taken away. I don’t get it back till my grade improves. I don’t really struggle with grades so thankfully I don’t have to worry about this much

 

[3TrueFans]

I subscribe to coach Campbell's philosophy. Focus on the process (i.e., their work ethic), not the results (i.e., their GPA). In other words, if your kids are working hard in school, that's all you can and should ask for.

If they're putting in the effort and getting C's or D's you should definitely figure out why, there may be extra accommodations or additional instruction they could benefit from.

 

[3TrueFans]

I’m in 10th grade, any thing below a b- and I get my phone taken away. I don’t get it back till my grade improves. I don’t really struggle with grades so thankfully I don’t have to worry about this much

Are you in class right now!? Put down the phone and pay attention!

 

[Clonefan32]

My oldest in 8th grade. We have Powerschool which allows to see her grades at all times. There have been times where she'd be getting a D or and F. When we'd ask her about it there'd always be a reason and within a few days she'd have it straightened out to an A. She'd always wind up with As by the end of the year, but sometimes it would take a bit of a winding path getting there.

I'm conflicted on it. On one hand, when I was in school your parents saw your grades twice-- semester and final. So I'd imagine there were times I had to get extra credit, retakes, etc. to get my grades where they needed to be. On the other hand, it drives the "Type A" in me crazy that she's able goes about it that way.

 

[CyGuy5]

I’m in 10th grade, any thing below a b- and I get my phone taken away. I don’t get it back till my grade improves. I don’t really struggle with grades so thankfully I don’t have to worry about this much

I can’t tell if this a joke but if it isn’t you may be the youngest person on this board. Ironically, I joined CF on a school computer in 7th grade study hall

 

[Clonehomer]

I’d say through high school my focus is to make sure they are challenged. I don’t care as much about the grades as long as it doesn’t affect their ability to get into colleges. But I really want them to struggle at times at this stage so they know how to go out and seek help. Whether that’s from us or the teacher. If they go through high school without ever knowing that feeling of not understanding things immediately, college is going to be hard.

 

[Lexclone]

If they're not putting in the effort that's a no no. From my experience with my oldest son, most teachers will give kids every chance to succeed as long as they are obviously putting in the effort.

I cannot remember where I read it, but a child development psychologist suggested praising effort and hard work over grades. Grades that will get you into college will very likely follow. The ability to work hard will last a lifetime.

The psychologist said emphasizing grades over hard work will lead kids to play it safe and often assure an A for praise rather than stretching themselves for greater learning.

All kids are different, but that’s what we have done with our kids. We live in an insanely competitive school district. I have found that peer pressure to get good grades is far greater than anything I could apply; therefore, stressing the value of hard work and challenging themselves gave some balance.

I have also found that when they stressed about an exam, I could remind them that they put in the hard work and would be fine which usually calmed the waters a little bit.

 

[Cyclones8824]

Are you in class right now!? Put down the phone and pay attention!

Off day