Whose Grades?

With the school year back in full swing, parents are starting to see their children’s grades, especially for their middle and high school students. With teachers sending home grades weekly, it’s tempting to become over-involved in your children’s academic success or failure.

In this week’s video blog, I encourage parents to remember whose grades those are—the child’s, not the parent’s. Grades are just a letter, and yes, high school grades carry a little more weight, but to overly focus on grades is a recipe for disaster. There are more ways to measure how a child’s doing in school apart from grades, such as

• Looking at the small or incremental improvements on papers and homework
• Looking for the way the child engages with the material
• Looking at the overall body of work rather than one or two tests.

Our children shouldn’t be defined by their grades or GPA. Instead, let’s encourage a love of learning, and they will turn out just fine.

To connect with me and read more about raising kids, visit www.sarahhamaker.com.