Helping Your Child Get Good Grades Without Pushing Too Hard

"High achievement always takes place in a framework of high expectation." This is my favorite quote and it's from Jack Kinder. We all want our children to succeed in school and it is frustrating (for us) when they don't. I found myself pushing my kids get good grades but I also noticed that there were times when they just shut down. I needed to back off of my pushing, not my expectations, and accept and praise their accomplishments. It is a three-way balance between expecting good grades, praising their best work (no matter what the grade), and then starting all over again.

Expecting A's

This was my biggest problem. I was looking at the material my kids were doing in the lower grades (think 1^st and 2^ndgrade) and couldn't figure out why they weren't getting straight A's. This was easy stuff, at least to thirty-something year old, but this was new to them. Instead of just shaking my head I set out to review what they were being taught in class (just in case their minds wandered and they didn't catch every word the teacher said).

Realistic Expectations

Now that I realized my kids are NOT perfect I needed to set realistic goals for them and for me. Don't get me wrong, I still expect A's and B's but I just don't harp on the grades to them unless it's a really low grade. I will review tests and papers they bring home with high fives for good work, and yes, good work includes getting some answers wrong.

Correct What You Can

When my kids bring home tests and classwork, I will praise good work but I also make them correct what they got wrong. Most of the time what they get wrong is because of a stupid mistake (I tried to come up with a better name for it but stupid is the most appropriate). Our teachers will take off for not putting your name on a paper or forgetting to label an answer in a math problem. In my opinion, these are stupid mistakes that can easily be avoided.

To correct these mistakes, I began making my children self-correct their homework. This taught them not only how to do it but also why they should do it in school. This drastically cut down the number of stupid mistakes they made on their tests and classwork which caused their grades to go up significantly.

Signs You are Pushing Your Child Too Hard

There came a time when my oldest child would cry when he would get even one problem wrong. That's when I realized my expectations to him were not clear. I didn't expect perfection but that was the way he took it. That's when I knew I needed to back off and re-explain my expectations and how to accomplish them.

My youngest son was the opposite; he would just shut down and claim he 'couldn't do it'. We put a ban on the phrase "I can't" in our house. Then we helped him learn the material.

Praise Their Accomplishments

I have learned that harping on the grades is not the only approach. Grades are a measure of what kids are learning but they are not the final evaluation. I praise both A's and B's as long as I know they have worked at getting them. I normally lay off the pressure for about a week after report cards come out. I let them relax a little (and bask in their glory) before I begin to push them again.

I know my kids are doing their best when they do their homework without too much griping, ask me to help them study for a test, or even ask what a word means in a book they are reading. This initiative, on their part, is the best evaluation on how they are learning and their understanding of what is expected of them.

More school related material by this writer:

How to Get Your Kids to Do Summer Schoolwork

Create Your Own Dinosaur Dig

Kindergarten Reading Skills