By Bethzy Murillo
Parents should be more comprehensive when it comes to their kids' report cards because they shouldn’t be judging their children based on their grades but also on the work they put in.
There are many different ways to handle a bad report card. For example, if you are a consistent straight-A student your parents tend to believe that your grades will never drop, but this is not always the case. Sometimes students are taking hard classes and their grades will never be perfect.
For instance, I tend to be a straight-A student but when it comes to AP classes it gets more difficult. When I received a B in one of my AP classes, I thought it wasn’t that big of a deal but my parents thought otherwise.
They didn’t take into consideration that it was an AP class and not a regular class which makes much more of a difference. Someone receiving a B in an AP class isn’t bad because it is considered an A in a regular class.
Seeing how they reacted to my grades made me feel even more down and made me feel like I was unsuccessful.
This doesn’t happen only to me however, other people feel the same way.
We try our best to put a lot of effort into our classes and exams. We even challenge ourselves to take harder classes with the mentality that we are going to struggle more than in a regular class, but it will be worth it in the end. But when your parents start to judge you on your grades, now it makes it seem like you’ve failed and did something wrong even though you took the challenge.
Parents tend to be judgmental right away instead of listening to why you got a bad grade. If it is a constant situation happening then it should be addressed right away, but if it is something that happens occasionally, then parents should try to listen to their child’s explanation instead of underestimating them and stressing them out by saying that they are not putting in a lot of effort to the class. But in reality, they are.
Some may believe that this is too “soft” and their child will keep getting bad grades if the problem isn’t addressed. However, if it is a constant problem then the parents should be addressing this problem to their children. However, you shouldn’t be too harsh with your child either because then you can end up overwhelming them.
I strongly believe that if parents were to actually take the time to ask us the question, Why did your grades drop? Are you struggling with a class/subject? Then they would be able to understand us more. Some parents don’t even know what an AP or an honors class is. If they would let us explain ourselves, then maybe they could understand why our grades have lowered.
Some of us put a lot of effort into these difficult classes, we don’t want to be overwhelmed by both the grades we get and the comments we receive from our parents as well.