difficult child 2's grades. Am I being too hard on him?

[Californiablonde]

Okay so last week I posted about difficult child 2 getting straight A's. I was absolutely thrilled. Last year he was a C/D/F student so this was a huge deal to me. I just checked his grades again yesterday. One of the A's went down to a B-. The B is in reading, which is difficult child's strong point. He absolutely loves to read. Each night for reading homework he has to read a certain amount of pages and write a paragraph summary about it. I never have any trouble getting him to fill out his reading logs. Each morning I have to sign them to verify he did his reading and I know he's doing it. I have no idea why his grade dropped. When I asked him about it, he gave me the dreaded answer, "I don't know." I am going to email his teacher and ask her what happened. In the meantime, am I being too hard on him? In a rare moment, difficult child 1 actuall stuck up for him and said I was being ridiculous for questioning a B-. She says it's still a good grade and I should be happy Christian isn't getting any D's or F's like he used to. I still think he could really pull of an A if he wanted to. Is this a sign of him slacking? Or am I jumping the gun?

 

[InsaneCdn]

Back off. This isn't a trend. Its an incident.

 

[Californiablonde]

I'm just worried the rest of his grades will follow suit. difficult child 1 is right. A B still is a good grade. I'm okay with him getting a B as long as it stays that way. I guess I'm jumping the gun a bit. He just struggled so much in the last two years that I would hate for him to backslide and have those same issues again. His self esteem was at an all time low last year and I want him to continue to be proud of himself this year.

 

[TeDo]

I agree with Insane. Just because he's capable of A work doesn't mean the work isn't going to get harder and he might struggle to maintain an A. Depending on the reason the teacher gives you, it might be very justified. He's still doing MUCH better than last year. Celebrate the fact he's not failing, give him the benefit of the doubt, and SUPPORT him if things are getting tougher for him. The worst thing you can do is harp on him for a B when he's used to you harping on him for Cs, Ds, and Fs. You really don't want him feeling like he can never please you. That would not be fair to him.

Take it easy mom. I've been in your shoes and live with the guilt of the added pressure I used to put on my kids.

 

[JJJ]

I would back off until you speak with the teacher. Last year I was livid at Eeyore for 3 missing assignments pulling his grade down to an F. He pleaded that he had turned them in and he didn't know why he got all zeros, so we held off on the punishment and I am so glad that I did. The teacher had created the assignments but while she was entering the grades, she got interrupted and why she saved her progress, all of the grades she hasn't gotten to we're defaulted to zeros. If you know difficult child is doing the work, it could just be a computer or data entry glitch (like the time Piglet's 91% got entered as 19%)

 

[TeDo]

Or when a new student is added at the END of their gradebook but in the computer (entered by the office), it is alphabetical. If a teacher isn't paying attention, they forget to match the names to the grades. Had this happen more than once to difficult child 2 who is a straight A student. It about crushed him to get an F on a test.

There are all kinds of possibilities. Check out ALL of them.

 

[Andy]

Always find out what happened before getting toomupset or disciplining. Diva once went from a A to an F and the teacher told me she didn't hand in a huge project that covered two quarters. I asked her about it and she said she handed it in within a month of it being assigned and even received extra credit for completing it so quickly. I called the teacher back and after telling him what my daughter said, he is like, "Oh, yeah! I do remember that now!"

it is important to save all school work that is graded and returned to show it had been done and the grade received.

if your son doesn't know what happened, this needs to be a learning experience. It could be something as easy as him not realizing something was actually supposed to be turned in when he thought it was suggested extra practice.

So, find out why the grade went down, talk to him about how he thinks fixing it would be, and give his plan time to work. If he thinks more time on homework will help, help guide him to how that would best be found. If he can come up with his own plan, he will more likely succeed at following it. If you doubt it will work, give him a few days or a week to try it out and then talk to him a out why it is or isn't working. He is old enough to take on the responsibility of his homework. You can give ideas but if he can problem solve himself it will do much more good in the long run than being punished or disciplined or having you come down on him.