What to do when your child gets bad grades

Virtual learning is a bit new and your child is just trying to adjust to the new norm; online learning and a few days at school as a result of Covid guidelines. As a parent, you are expecting straight A’s from your child’s school results considering the effort you have put into helping your child with a torn of assignments, classes and all materials needed at school.

Emotional intelligence is an important skill for every parent as there will be some time in your child’s life where failures might occur; be it at school, work or any life achievement. Truly, your child might have put in a lot of effort into getting good grades and making you proud, it just happened that their grades got lower this time.

Listed below are actions to take when your child gets bad grades:
1. Have a sit-down with your child: This is where understanding and emotional intelligence comes in. Already, your child feels bad about his results, you shouldn’t make it worse. You should understand that everyone makes mistakes and things like this are bound to happen. First thing is to talk to your child about their challenges and why their grades were lower than usual. Find out the subjects that had low grades and how they can improve on them. Low grades might have been as a result of a new teacher, stress from home, unavailability of study time, lack of sleep or understanding of the topics being taught.

2. Separate your child from their grades: bad grades are not the end of the world. Your child can do better next term. Instead of punishing, flogging or giving your child the silent treatment, look for ways to make the next term better. Considering the challenges your child stated, you can get your child a lesson teacher for the holidays to prevent them from being idle, talk about the subjects they find difficult, talk to your child’s teacher, schedule a reading time and time for play. Don’t forget to celebrate the subjects your child excelled in and acknowledge improvements. Most times, kids will be better at some subjects or craft more than others. Ensure you give your utmost support because not all kids excel with education but keep in mind that school is important to their development.

3. Make Studying Fun: let’s be realistic, studying isn’t fun: It gets boring when you have to bury yourself in multiple textbooks for several hours a day. You can make study time enjoyable by making snacks available and giving awards for the fastest or best to create anticipation and excitement.

4. Set Goals for The Next Session: Goals will include the number of reading hours in a day, screen time, grades for each subject and how to achieve these grades. Set achievable goals that won’t be overwhelming e.g your child can scale up from E to C and from C to A.

In as much as you want your child to be the best student in his/her class, have it at the back of your mind that success is a step by step process and it doesn’t come easy. Start by cutting off all distractions of your child, take away their phones during study time, get a small space or study in your home where they have no access to the television and always supervise reading, assignment and school projects. Good luck with having a genius soon!