Parenting Without A License

Making The Grade

Posted by Kimberly on October 15th, 2007 — Posted in Diva Girl

It was just a simple interim report–a series of checkmarks on a sliding scale from 1-5–but it opened my eyes to the ways I parent sometimes, the lazy shortcuts and the easy ways out.
Diva Girl’s first report was excellent, nothing below a three and mostly resting solidly in the four category. She’s settling in to this new situation incredibly well, and finally, after 5 long years, flourishing in school the way I always knew she could. Looking at this tangible evidence of that, I was really proud of her.

But when Sabrina asked me what I thought of her report, I didn’t see her shining, eager face; I saw those 5 little checkmarks in the “Satisfactory” column:

“I think it’s great, honey. But I want to talk about those level threes.”

And that is where the lesson comes in, because I overlooked the excellent to focus on mediocre. I breezed right past her accomplishment in my haste to get to the correction, the parenting. But while a big part of parenting is about setting up the expectations and talking to the kids about meeting them to the best of their potential, it’s also about celebrating the achievements along the way.
My daughter taught me that when she answered my dismissal of her achievement–10 level fours and 2 level fives–with, “Ok. But what about the fives? Are we going to talk about those, too?”

I’m ashamed to admit that she stopped me cold. Because no, I hadn’t really planned to get into the level fives. They’re fives, for crying out loud. Excellent. Couldn’t do any better. Did we really need to talk about them? Especially when there were the threes in “listens attentively” and “neatness” to deal with?

Well, yes. The fives deserve just as much attention as the threes, when you think about it. But we rarely give it to them. We’re so concerned with doing our job, with teaching the children, that we constantly focus on how they need to improve. Very rarely do we take the time to put the spotlight on what they’re doing right. I mean, they’re already doing it, so why talk about it seems to be the default so many of us fall into.

It’s easy to remember with the toddler and preschooler set and cheer them on as they master each new milestone.  Somehow along with way, they become kids and we start to expect things; the accomplishments become less exciting and the failures are more glaring. Their accomplishments still need to be celebrated and reinforced, though, and our kids need to know that we’re just as interested in what they can do as what they can’t.

So, instead of talking about those level threes, Diva Girl and I talked about the whole report–the good, the excellent, and the satisfactory. We talked about those level threes and how she could do better with the paying attention in class and putting in her best effort with her printing. But we also talked about her level fives and how great she is at oral reports and class discussions. We talked about transferring those skills to help her in other areas, but we also just celebrated them for the achievements they are.

The best report cards should provide teachable moments. This one certainly did. Who would have thought that a child’s report card could be the lesson in parenting I needed?