Advice to Parents of Struggling Students
1) Focus on
effort, not the grade. The grade is the
indicator, but the effort represents a student's desire, standards, and work
ethic. Most grade issues can be resolved
with support for increased effort. It's
important that a child not feel shamed or judged or feel like their value is
just as a number. Focus on the whole
child.
2) Appropriate
rewards and consequences. Different kids
have different token economies: video
game time, access to social events, etc.
Success in school should translate to an increase in privileges, and
poor effort or organization can likewise be translated into consequences and a
loss of privilege. With this strategy
it's important to be fair and consistent, with expectations clearly state up
front as specifically as possible, as well as whatever system you want to put
in place. If it appears arbitrary,
capricious, or made up on the fly inconsistently, the process will fail. Sometimes it takes a lot of rebellion or
avoidance before they "get it," so be prepared to be the rock of
consistency.
3) Keep the
positivity up, the negativity down. A
child is not their grades. Love them,
laugh with them, have fun with them... and they will WANT to work hard to
please you. If they always feel ashamed,
embarrassed, or under scrutiny and attack, they will simply shut down, avoid,
or cover up their mistakes. It's okay to
screw up. Middle school is all about
making mistakes and learning from them.
It's okay to fail sometimes if that failure becomes a tool for
understanding and growth. Middle school
is a safe place to take the training wheels off. Better to fall on your face sometimes here
than in high school.
4) Find the right balance between being a hands-off
parent and a helicopter parent. Tweens
are a moving target, and last week they might have needed more hands-on and
this week may need to straighten up and fly right on their own. As parents and teachers we need to always do
this dance, of modulating our desire to demonstrate our commitment and caring
with our need to build up their independence, responsibility, self-advocacy,
and self-regulation. Recognize this as a
dance, recognize your own perspective, and find what works.
5) Keep the focus
on the child and not the teacher. It's
great to communicate with me and your kid's other teachers and we welcome the
dialog. However, if the teacher and the
parent are doing all of the problem solving over late assignments, needing more
time, qualifying expectations, etc., then the most important stake holder is
being left out of the loop. Generally I
will walk through a plan or strategy after listening very closely to a parent,
but then always, always recommended that the onus of movement, of action, of
communication be placed back upon the shoulders of the student. As adults, we should know how to identify and
solve problems, but we don't want to deprive a son or daughter of a chance to
develop this skill for themselves.
