Ask HN: As a parent how do you respond to kids school results? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As a parent how do you respond to kids school results?

9 pointsandrewstuart19 comments

Your kids school results come in and you talk to them.

What do you say?

What if the results are less than you think they’re capable of or hoped for?

What do you say about a B if they mostly get A’s?

What do you say about C’s or lower?

I always get in trouble for what I say and now maybe I think the safest path is to always see the positive though I fall back to raising it if I think they could have done better then I’m told all I do is focus on the negative and ignore all the great results.

What do you say to your kids school results?

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Are you kids turning up to school regularly and engaged in learning, and also learning to form healthy social connections in school and any extra-curricular activities? If the answer is yes, why worry about their grades? They’ll do fine in adulthood If the answer is no, worrying about grades isn’t going to fix the problem and potentially would even make it worse.

As a parent, I honestly do not understand other parents that get caught up on their kids grades. When you do that, what are you teaching them about their self-worth? What if they did their best and their best wasn’t good enough for your arbitrary standards… there’s honestly more to life. A lot more. Education is important, but so is their intrinsic happiness, and the things that bring them joy, and a sense of wellbeing. Not everyone is meant to be academic, and nor would we want everyone to be. There is plenty of opportunity in the world for people to excel in many different areas of life. If you teach your kids that all they should focus on in life is a grade on a piece of paper, you’re going to teach them a narrow view of what matters in life.

Do you think your child’s grades are a reflection of you as a parent? Or is there something you’re trying to prove to the world through your kids?

Your children are not an extension of you.

I wish my own parents were even half as farsighted as that, lol. What a refreshing take to hear! It's funny/interesting how different that attitude can be between families, depending on culture and individual beliefs.

For me, growing up in East Asia meant your entire self-worth was grades and academia and you're subhuman scum if you ever get an A-. If you get a B, you've disappointed the ancestors, and a C would've angered the heavens and cursed your family name for a hundred generations. Childhood wasn't meant to be a happy time, but a fierce competition that determines whether you have a shot in life, and by extension, whether you've lived up to your family's honor. Then once you're a teenager, it's time for a decade of college prep. Who has time for joy?

I much prefer the American model. Seems to produce happier, if not more productive, individuals.

I feel like every culture and subculture mostly does their own thing when it comes to raising kids, and I wish there were more comparative studies and borrowed best practices. Would be fascinating, if nothing else.

Cultural values play a big part in it, as well as just parenting in line with what they learned from their own parents was the correct way to parent.

I personally value people living authentically and having high levels of subjective wellbeing. Hence my opinion on the matter. However, my opinion is just that. Not everyone will agree that grades are not that important.

This, I can't agree more!

When I was attending school, I remember it to be more of a survival camp and adjustment to structures than anything else. I hated it with passion and yet I was expected to bring good grades. As a result I developed need for isolation and other psychological issues and it took me more than decade to realize and partially self-cure.

That's why I'm striving to give my kids happy childhood and schooling that they can enjoy. They learn to obtain knowledge and experiences, and not to game the system. I am not building safety cocoon around them, we do have crisis's and we go through them together, not ignoring them and pretending nothing happens. I know, that when they reach the age they will take initiative and assume responsibilities.

Serious question - did you grow up financially well off?

The only reason I made anything of myself relative to my parents and my environment is by working hard at school, and doing well.

I personally grew up in poverty. I did abysmally at school partly due to missing so much school. It wasn’t until I was an adult and eventually went to university that I got anywhere with school, I went on to get 4 degree’s, and currently working towards my 5th and 6th concurrently. My grades matter to me now because I’ve specifically chosen a career change into a competitive entry doctoral program, so I have to have a certain GPA to qualify, but most people are not trying to do that, nor do most people need to.

I just feel like not everyone is academic, nor do they need to be to be successful. Success looks like different things to different people, and grades in high school really don’t make that much difference to life outcomes overall in my personal opinion.

There's a counterpoint to consider: my son refused to do the work necessary to get above a B+ or A-. Every now and then he'd screw up and get a solid A. His reasoning? The extra bit of work needed to get the A was effort he could put elsewhere, and it doesn't change your college prospects much anyway.

Now, he lettered in sports, had multiple hobbies and all that good stuff. He now has a Ph.D. and works for the Department of Energy. He is a master of time management.

The big thing is to understand your kids' goals, discuss how realistic their goals are, and how what they're doing is in alignment with their achieving those goals. You can have those discussions as early as middle school. The other thing to realize is your kid will be much better off if you start discussing work/life balance now. Straight A's aren't everything.

Your son was me! Obviously he figured it out, for me, I hit a wall where I didn’t know how to study in college, so i struggled a bit and then figured it out. Looking back, I probably have some form of ADHD.

With my son, I focus on identifying opportunities to correct “bad” or suboptimal stuff. He’s usually getting marked down from being sloppy or rushing through stuff. He has 90s in core subjects, but ended up with an 80 in Health due to some shenanigans because of that phenomenon. It’s a good teaching opportunity.

My son figured it out in college. He quickly realized a BS degree wasn't going to allow him to do what he wanted to do and he knew he had to get into grad school. Then he realized grad school is a whole different ballgame from college and so his high school shenanigans weren't going to cut it.

Here's the key - he set the goal for himself. All I did was as I'd been doing, if that's your goal then I'll help you figure out what you need to do to achieve it. He ended up going to a grad school that was ranked in his field and got a stipend to boot. I can't take much credit for any of it because he largely figured it out himself and executed on it.

Similar here. I was mostly As with some Bs. I didn't see the point in trying to be a straight A student and despised what I saw as busy work. If I can understand and apply the concepts, that should be enough. I also tended to come up with creative answers or reasoning that the teachers hadn't thought of, which usually meant a lower grade.

I mostly ignored them. When the schools tried to send home worksheets I counseled my kids, "Do a few problems until you're sure you know what they're trying to teach. Then stop." I resented the school infringing on our family time.

The grades were not exactly annoying so much as useless. The teacher was supposed to know the kid and know where their strengths and weaknesses were, address them. Producing a letter grade from a pile of paper was only what, 2 bits? of information about my kid.

Student-teacher conferences could be good. If they remembered my kid at all, and knew anything about how they were doing in their class. If they opened their grade book during the conference, I would close it and get their attention back, say "Tell me about my child's behavior in your class."

Honestly, letter grades are no better than a scarlet letter to hang around the kid's neck.

It’s important for kids to learn to do as they’re told, and that their worth is determined by how well they learn the things that those in charge deem important. And your worth as a parent is determined by how well you instill this into your kids. Corporal punishment is effective I find.

Seriously though, school grades are not that important. Are they enjoying learning? Are they learning and doing things that interest them? The only time they should worry about grades is if they need them as a prerequisite for uni or tech courses they decide they want to do. Them, not you. By that age they should be independent enough to work that out for themselves.

Before approaching the discussion with my kids, I remember that I was around a C- average student in high school and now have a diverse skillset and make more that practically everyone who worked for my school district.

Granted, I am older and had a great public education that is quite different than what I'm observing today.

Mostly joking, but since it's 2024, has anyone tried child rearing with AI yet?

"ChatGPT, Joey got a C in his social studies class. This is the paper he wrote and these were the teacher's comments. Mommy's usually bad cop and I'm usually the good one. What should I do?"

We focus on discussing their work effort and minimise focus on the grade.

That said we do have a 'B' rule where our 2 kids get an ice-cream for B's.

Our daughter is straight A student so we like to take the pressure off on getting a B.

Our son is dyslexic and tends to get C's so he gets an ice-cream for his B/A grades.

Hard work and doing your best is a habit. I think you should (within reason) encourage your kids to develop this early on.

Performance management meets gentle parenting. Ask questions, understand motivation, be curious about what they feel their performance is vs your expectations. Where can you provide more support? What does that support look like? What does a plan look like to help them achieve?

Grades are somewhat important to calibrate, but there are many paths to success (I am a high school drop out with no formal credentials). Are they learning? Are they compounding through what they're learning? Do they understand what expectations are, how to meet them, and how to ask for help if they're falling short? To me, this is success. I want my children to be the best they can be, but also try to avoid projecting myself (and all that comes with that) on to them. I love them regardless of how they perform (and I let them know that verbosely). Broadly speaking, I am cultivating development and critical thinking models of little humans, acting as their frontal lobe until theirs takes over.

(my kids are <10, taught by a co-parent with robust resourcing provided, ymmv, i hope this n=1 is helpful; caring is half the battle, and it sounds like you care)

Did you have fun?

Where do you want to go eat?

Edit: The most, most important thing is to understand who your child is. That won't be who you are or wish you were, nor is it entirely likely to be who you want them to be.

As you both understand, because the person they become is a journey, maximize that person! If you get that done and keep their life choices and agency intact, you will have done very good by them.

The most important thing is to discuss appropriate expectations and then set them.

When your child meets those expectations make damn sure it matters.

When your child does not meet expectations reasonably and appropriately set, find out why first and foremost.

Make sure you are helping them where they need it most and you are not getting in the way when they need that in their lives.

From there, wash, rinse and repeat!

Ideally, this is a life long conversation they come to value as you become mentor, friend, helper as they grow to take on the reigns of their lives.

I did it this way and am pretty happy with the outcomes. I wish some things had gone differently, but I can also say I went to the mat helping to prevent it.

My own experiences growing up were why I run it this way, and I get to do it twice due to raising my granddaughter! She is great and I am actually quite happy she is with us. A bit sad we won't have the time we want, but we believe we will get the time we need.

My learning was out of sync with a lot of my primary education. Some things were a real struggle too. The whole thing was colored by poorly set expectations I quickly came to ignore and obviously not meet.

Looking back, the ones I met were because I wanted to. The reasons were interest, could see value or how I might use the material, or threat of negative consequences.

"Worth it" came up a lot.

Memorize all the multiplication tables through 12x12 or fix that old TV I have been poking at? My school actually sent me to the TV shop across the street! Amazingly, I learned a ton. It was something I really needed and benefitted huge from.

The multiplication tables worked out. Really needed them a year or so later and it got done.

Write the essay, or finish that sprite multiplexer? No brainer, write assembly code, do magic? Home computers were amazing and some essay on some tepid topic was torture when I could see something about how to make that computer do something.

Learn to fix my car, or take the bus to school for a while again. No brainer! Fix the car, do some work, get cash for parts!

One parent understood me. The other was painful. I had an uncle and other adults familiar to our family there to help mentor me, tease out the good stuff and make sure I was making good use of all that.

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