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What Do You Do If Your Kid’s Failing Classes?
You have to ask if it’s the road or the driver.
Here’s the fundamental issue: most responses to bad grades have one path in mind; namely, the one the student has strayed from. A failing grade is supposed to be like a guardrail or warning sign, a ‘No Exit’ or ‘Wrong Way’. The kid’s in school, heading in one direction with a bunch of others going the same way. Grades are like the stream of signals one might get on a journey, telling you where you are, how fast or slow you’re going, how you compare to all the others on the road.
Good grades? You’re heading in the right direction. You’re driving well, the engine’s running smoothly, there’s enough fuel in the tank. You haven’t taken a wrong turn, aren’t about to get lost, are keeping up with everyone else. You may even be in front.
Bad grades? Speed up, take the next turn, get some gas.
I could go on with this simplified analogy. The point is the structure of the journey into adulthood is defined by school. Like any pilgrimage or passage, that odyssey has very specific markers and moments — think of them as grade levels — and a rigid itinerary — that’s your school subjects and individual classes.
Failing grades mean something is going wrong on your kid’s journey.
