Improve Your Child´s Grades!

If you´re among the millions of parents dismayed by the grades on your child´s report card, there is hope. Remember that as a parent, you are not only your child´s chief advocate, but also the person who holds the greatest influence over your child´s potential for success. Following the tips outlined below will help guide you as you assist your young student to make a difference.

Never Scold, Shame, Demean, or Belittle

This is absolutely the worst thing that you could do to an academically struggling child at any age. Although it may have been how your own parents would have reacted decades ago, you should realize that they might not have known any other way of reacting. Today, you are the adult. Your child is looking to you for help, guidance, and support. Further wounding a child´s self-esteem was not the answer then, and in today´s harsher world, alienated children can become tomorrow´s statistics. If you instill fear in your child over something like this, how can you expect him or her to trust or confide in you when they face bigger problems later? Keep the lines of communication open. It´s fine to admit to your child that you are disappointed, but make sure that he or she understands how much you care. Let them know you believe in them, and if you personally know your child to be bright and to have a quick mind, tell them so! Don´t permit your children to believe that they are stupid. Once they believe this, they will stop trying.

Find the Source of the Problem Together

Ask your child about what happens in class. Can they clearly see the board? Can they hear well during lessons? Are they sitting around or near those who are a disruptive influence? Does the teacher welcome questions, or have little tolerance for those who don´t "get it" right away? What is the teacher´s instruction style? Your child´s learning style may conflict with it. It´s also possible that a teacher from a previous year may not have laid a firm foundation of basic knowledge in a subject prior to your child being given more advanced material. Alternatively, basic knowledge is rarely reviewed at higher levels, even though studies have shown that 100% of all students benefit from frequent review of earlier concepts.

Meeting With the Teacher(s)

After speaking with your child, let your child know that you will meet with his or her teachers to learn how best to help. For your child´s comfort, and to allow the adults to speak freely, your child should not be present. Let the teacher know that you have already spoken to your child about the situation. If your child has admitted a problem exists regarding the questions from the above section, share this with the teacher. Remember, your goal is to help your child improve, not to be confrontational or belligerent. Convey your desire to work as a team.

Often, the combination of parent-child-teacher is an unbeatable one. Ask the teacher what his or her impressions are of your child in the classroom setting. There are always at least two sides to every story. A child who is confident and full of intelligent insight at home may become shy, silent, and withdrawn in school when surrounded by peers. You won´t know if you never ask! The goal of this meeting is to develop a workable strategy. Decide together what parental involvement should be added, what the teacher will do, and what role the child will play.

For example, let´s say that your child has said that he or she often feels "lost" during class lessons, and since the other students seem able to comprehend the teacher´s examples, your child feels reluctant to raise a hand to ask for clarification. This is a very common problem, but your child most likely won´t know this. At the parent-teacher conference, tell the teacher what your child told you. The teacher may tell you that it´s true that your child rarely asks questions, but without them, an instructor won´t know until exam time how little was understood. By then, a lower grade would have already been recorded.

The next step is to design a three-part strategy: the parent will encourage the child to ask questions in class, or at least talk to the teacher after class, or after school, if necessary. After all, if your child has a question, it´s possible that someone else is also confused and doesn´t want to admit it, either. Your child´s questions could also help others in the class. The parent may review material covered in class each evening with the child and assist with homework. The teacher will use more examples to explain concepts, and try to solicit more questions from students. He or she may also announce availability following class for anyone needing extra help. Your child, in turn, will focus on learning to speak up and ask for assistance with academics whenever needed, both at school and at home. If the problems persist, then it may be time to….

Hire a Tutor

There´s no better investment than the one you make in your child´s future. Sometimes a parent´s or a teacher´s best efforts are ineffective. This often means that your child´s learning style and the current teaching style don´t mesh well. A fresh perspective and a different method or environment may be all that´s needed. A good tutor will be able to identify and instruct visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners alike, as well as determine where the educational gaps are. A poor reader may have low phonics proficiency, for example. Improving phonetic skill can make all the difference. Poor addition skills will mean problems with multiplication later. Poor multiplication skills will cause long division to be torture. Weak basic math skills in general can render algebraic equations and other more complex mathematical concepts incomprehensible. Fill in the gaps, get your child up to speed, and then continue to work together to maintain progress.

Encourage Outside Application

Students often lose interest in a subject, believing that they will never need to apply the knowledge in the world outside of the classroom when they become adults. Rarely is this ever true. Let your child know that artists, dancers, musicians, and fashion designers all need to have the skills that enable them to read complex contract agreements and manage their finances. Your accountant or attorney should not be the only one who can easily read and understand important documents. Math and Science may be a breeze for your future chemist, pharmacist, or neurosurgeon, but he or she will also need to be able to comprehend industry literature and emerging research detailing new advances in their field. Your aspiring best-selling novelist may be excited about Classic Literature and English class, but could care less about World History, Social Studies, Math, or Science. Tell him or her that the more that they know of these subjects, the more life they can "breathe" into the characters and the settings of the literary worlds they will create on paper.

Demonstrate real-world application in daily life. Ask your reluctant math student if the sale prices in the grocery store or the mall are really great deals and show them how to tell. Have your future actor or filmmaker (who hates reading unless it´s a script) to read several film reviews and then decide which movie to see next week based on what different critics have written. Your all-star athlete may hate geography and math, but be unable to resist the challenge of mapping out the course of the next Tour de France, or calculating how many miles per day the leaders are accumulating. Based on this information, they may enjoy estimating when their favorite participant will finish. Remind your future chef that without certain math skills a recipe for four cannot be expanded to feed four hundred and still turn out well.

Set Goals

Last, but not least, encourage your child to set goals for challenging subjects. Start with smaller goals and allow them to lead to larger victories. You might decide with your child to improve by a certain number of percentage points with each quiz or test, and at least a letter grade by the end of the academic year. Ask your child what grade should be the year-end goal and what reward they would choose after attaining it. The goal should be realistic, though challenging, and the reward must be something that means a great deal to your child.

It´s important that your children feel that they are working to gain something desired, not struggling to avoid losing something that they currently have. Rewards should not be about preventing the loss of a privilege. Save that for behavioral issues.

No one has a greater ability to excite a child academically than a loving, interested, and involved parent. There will be few situations in life when you will ever have this much power. Don´t waste this golden opportunity to make a lasting difference in your child´s life.