I was a little disappointed by my daughter’s recent report card. I don’t know if I should be pushing her harder to get better grades, or if she is too young for me to worry about it. How important are these grades anyway?
As a parent, I recommend that you work to strike a balance. You don’t want to pressure your daughter so much that she becomes obsessed with grades. On the other hand, you want her to understand that these grades represent an evaluation of her performance on her school work.
In elementary school, the purpose of grades is to inform parents of their child’s progress. In elementary school, the grades should be very straight forward and based on objective data.
Remember that grades should reflect her unique abilities. If she is doing her homework, turning it in on time, taking the time to prepare for tests, and putting forth her best effort on projects and classwork, then her grades are exactly what they should be; a reflection of her effort and abilities.
However, if you feel that she has not put forth the effort that you would like to see, and this may be evidenced by her effort grades even more than the achievement grades, help her to create better habits. By using her homework time wisely (see above) and studying productively, she may better be able to master the material she is learning at school, and a side effect will be better grades. While the grades she is earning in elementary school will not affect her admission to college, the good habits you help her develop now to achieve grades that appropriately reflect her abilities will help her meet her goals later.
Again, make sure your expectations for your daughter’s grades are reasonable for her abilities. Feeling too much pressure to earn perfect grades can be unhealthy. It is impossible to reach perfection throughout life, and if you pay too much attention to high grades and reward them inappropriately, you will just be setting your daughter up for disappointment later.
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