Rethinking Kids' Grades

When I stopped focusing so much on the letters and numbers on my kids' report cards, everything changed for the better.

- SALINA JIVANI

I still remember the day my fourth grader brought home her first C. She'd always been a sharp student with a voracious appetite for learning, and the grade contrasted with her usual steady stream of A's and B's. Of course my first reaction was to round up the troops, so to speak, and figure out what the problem was. My husband and I met with her in her room to discuss the rogue grade and why it was there along with mostly B's, with none of the usual A's in sight.

She told us she didn't understand what the teacher was trying to teach, and that she'd liked her other teacher - one who'd retired midyear and been gone after winter break-better. I took these statements with a grain of salt, thinking that perhaps the TV or electronics were stealing her focus from school.

Then parent-teacher conferences happened, and we met with her new teacher. She'd transitioned from teaching in another state where the requirements weren't nearly as rigorous as they were where we live, she admitted with tired eyes, so the semester had been a challenge. Her struggles, I realized, were apparent in her students' grades. My heart went out to her and to them.

From the time my daughter was a toddler, I'd invested in books, math games, phonics puzzles and an endless reservoir of resources centered around learning. Good grades meant it was working and were rewarded with bigger allowances, more sleepovers and generous Christmas gifts. With so much invested in her educational uplift, I'd come to view her grades as a reflection of my own success, and this C was screaming that I'd failed.

But that moment in the classroom was pivotal for me. I began questioning just how wise I'd been to place so much emphasis on those letters peeking out from report cards over all these years. What did they reflect that we, as parents, never even considered?

THE PARENT TRAP