Responding to a Bad Report Card (Without the Lecture)
If your child or teen has ever brought home a disappointing report card, you probably went through a range of emotions: anger, worry, fear—and perhaps even doubt about your parenting skills. And while emotions aren’t up for debate (they’re feelings, after all), how you respond to those feelings is well within your control. In fact, what you say and do in those moments after reviewing their grades can make a significant impact on your child’s confidence, motivation, self-esteem, and relationships.
Take some time to understand what a bad report card means—and doesn’t mean—for your child, their future, and your role as a parent. Then follow these tips to help everyone stay calm so you can respond with love, compassion, curiosity to better support your student in a search for solutions.
What a bad report card might mean
The most important thing to understand about poor grades is that they’re not a reflection of your child’s worth, intelligence, or sometimes even effort. They’re also not a measurement of your parenting skills or an instructor’s ability to teach. “But my kid is smart! How can you say it’s not about effort when they got a D in math?” you might ask.
The truth is, more than 80% of learning challenges are due to underperforming cognitive skills, the core brain skills that allow us to think, learn, read, and remember. They include attention, processing speed, working and long-term memory, logic & reasoning, and visual and auditory processing. If even one cognitive skill is weak, no matter how strong the other skills may be, the person will struggle. And yes, even smart kids can have a learning struggle!
Just imagine a bright child who struggles to pay attention in class only to get home and not understand what the assignment was. Or a brilliant teen whose working memory is in need of a boost to help them remember the teacher’s three-step directions before taking a test. Regardless of how strong their other brain skills are, it only takes one weak skill to impact their learning.
Responding in real-time: plan ahead
To be fair, no one expects parents to express irrepressible optimism when viewing a bad report card. But because your immediate response could be one that burns into your student’s core memories for the rest of their life, it can’t hurt to be prepared with a response that doesn’t make them feel stupid, humiliated, or shamed.
Start by fostering a discussion rather than offering a lecture.
For example, “What do you think happened with English? Do you feel like your grade reflects the work you put in this quarter?”
Next, look for opportunities to praise effort, improvement, and other attributes, such as creativity, helpfulness, compassion, and positive attitude.
“Your history teacher wrote that you’ve always ready to learn and help others. That’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you for being a caring friend to your classmates” or “You got an A in band? You’re really talented on the flute and I can tell you put a lot of effort into practicing.”
Finally, ask your child or teen how you can better help support them for the next quarter, aiming for proficiency, not perfection.
“In what ways can I offer you more support next quarter?” is a good opener, but give them time to respond before you jump into suggestions, such as studying with flashcards or reviewing their homework. Depending on your child’s age, personality, and autonomy, you may also want to set up a meeting with the teacher to discuss ways you can support your student and to solicit feedback regarding potential learning, behavioral, or emotional problems they may be witnessing.
Addressing the root cause of the bad report card
Many parents incorrectly assume that classroom accommodations or tutoring are the only options for struggling students. While both interventions can provide temporary help, they usually don’t address the root cause of a learning issue and can sometimes do more harm than good by making the child feel “dumb,” ashamed, and/or ostracized from their peers.
Tutoring, while beneficial for students who have missed classes due to an extended illness or mid-semester change of schools, is simply about redelivering information that was missed the first time. Likewise, if your child is doing well in all their classes but one, tutoring may help them by providing a review of material with additional one-on-one attention for one particular subject.
But there are two parts to smart: knowledge (the information we learn) and how you process that information (the cognitive skills we use to think, learn, and remember that information). Tutoring is about the former. If your student is struggling in multiple subjects, takes longer to complete schoolwork than their peers, has trouble focusing or remembering what they’ve just heard, they likely have one or more cognitive skills that’s preventing them from living up to their full potential.
Read More: Tutoring vs. Brain Training >>
The good news is, cognitive skills can be targeted, trained, and strengthened with one-on-one brain training.
Using the results of a one-hour Brain Skills Assessment, a custom learning plan is created for your student, who is then paired with their own personal brain trainer for the duration of their program. Using mental exercises and game-like activities that work on specific brain skills, personal brain training programs aim to help people of any age think, learn, and remember faster and easier. Best of all, graduates of personal brain training programs often report that they feel far more confident in what they can achieve.
Don’t let one bad report card affect your child’s confidence or trajectory in life. What you say in that moment—and the decisions you make afterward—can make all the difference for their future.
