Preparing yourself for child’s report card, consequences

WHETHER or not you own up to it, we all have an innate desire for our offspring to become the next Bill Gates or Richard Branson.

When they reach a pivotal milestone we react as if no other baby or toddler has ever done anything quite like it and perceive our child to be the cleverest, most beautiful child ever created.

There are three words that can pop our delusional bubble in a matter of seconds: “The report card”.

What do we do if the results are everything we feared they would be?

Pre-report card red flags:

The school has warned you of the possibility of failure. High absenteeism during the year Poor behaviour (defiance, avoidance) in class. Poor eating habits. Poor sleeping habits. Anxiety, depression, lethargy, headaches, stomach aches and upsets. Term reports have had codes below 4. Incomplete work during lessons in class. Your child often uses the “no homework” excuse. These warning signals do not appear overnight so if you know your child, you will be well prepared for a devastating report.

Interpreting the report

Familiarise yourself with the codes – 7’s being exceptional and 1’s being outright fail.

There should be some commonality between areas. For example, a child who battles with reading and comprehension will probably grapple in areas like literacy and social sciences, or if a child battles in numeracy he or she may struggle in natural science and technology.

Read the general comments.These are extremely important as marks themselves do not give a clear indication of what the overall issue was. For example, your child may not have learning barriers but may have an emotional issue, which has impacted highly on hislevel of work.

Now that you fully understand the report, you are ready to chat to your child. Remember your reactionwill impact your child’s scholastic achievements next year too, so choose your words and actions carefully.

The reaction

If your child has done badly and you punish them, they will not feel motivated to try harder next time. Your child does not want to feel stupid or inferior to his or her friends, so your dreaded reaction will only reinforce the pain, the embarrassment and the hopelessness.

If you ignore the academic results your child will not feel relieved, just uncared for. There needs to be balance:

Look where your child did well or improved and praise him or her for that.

Look at the bad grades and ask what your child found difficult. Then formulate an action plan to rectify this for next year.

Explain to your child that everyone has strengths and theirs may be different.

Discover what your child’s strengths are and work at cultivating them..

Preparing to repeat

Every parent’s worst nightmare is having their child repeat the year. It gives rise to feelings of shame, guilt, stupidity and inadequacy. You need to put your feelings aside.

Ultimately we want our children to be happy. If we condemn them we will only be making things worse.

We should explain that pros of repeating the year. Explain that instead of struggling through the next grade and possibly getting average results after working so hard, they have the opportunity to achieve better than anyone else in their class as they are familiar with the content, the approach and the teachers. Their confidence will improve and they will have time to invest in the things they truly love.

Prepare their friends too. This initial preparation will avoid any embarrassments and uncomfortable questions in the new year.

Encourage new friendships in the school holidays with children joining your child’s grade next year. This will make going to school easier and happier.

As with every situation, we need to focus on the positives, grow from the negatives and keep moving forward.