In most cases, parents, having learned about a bad grade, begin to express their negative attitude to the situation. Dissatisfaction can be expressed in words, gestures, incessant lectures, and some even grab the belt. Seeing such a parental reaction, children often withdraw into themselves, stop trusting their parents, and begin to deceive in order to avoid a repetition of the unpleasant situation. Growing up, children distance themselves even more from their parents, ignoring their demands and statements.
What should parents do in such a situation? Despite the fact that the situation with a deuce is not very pleasant, try to control yourself, do not call or scold the child, do not speak badly about his mental abilities, and so on. Schoolchildren perceive such criticism not as an assessment of their knowledge, but as a mockery of their personality.
There is also no need to treat it with humor or ignore the fact of receiving an unsatisfactory grade; such a reaction from parents can provoke the child to give up school altogether. If necessary, you can help the child with homework, explain misunderstood material, but there is no need to do homework for the student, such a disservice will not bring any benefit in the future.
If a child has not learned his lessons without a good reason, for example, he forgot or walked on the street, played with friends, etc., there is no need to cover him up in front of the teacher. The child must be responsible for all his actions.
How to react to a bad grade? First of all, pull yourself together, sit next to your child and try to explain what was the reason for receiving an unsatisfactory grade. Be sure to say that you are also upset and that you will try to help if possible. A bad grade is not always the result of a lack of necessary knowledge; sometimes it can be due to poor health, conflict in the class or with the teacher, poorly understood material, etc.
Due to the fact that recently a large volume of homework has been assigned, and the teacher gives the minimum required, it is quite possible that the child simply did not understand the material. Try to understand this topic together with the student; if necessary, call the teacher; if you have the financial opportunity, you can visit a tutor.
If poor performance is associated with the inability to speak in front of an audience, practice with your child telling the report and essay out loud, in the presence of other family members. When the student has mastered the incomprehensible material, ask him to approach the teacher to correct the bad grade. And, most importantly, be your child’s friend in any situation, so that he knows that the family will understand and support him.
What to do if your child gets a bad grade, and how to properly motivate him to do well in his studies. Recommendations from a psychologist.
Marina, is it necessary to explain to your child about the school grading system that “five” is good and “two” is bad?
If the school has a grading system, and especially if it is adopted in elementary school, then you definitely need to talk about it with your child. Explain to him in what cases and for what he can receive this or that assessment. It is important that the child does not form such a negative connection: “if I have bad grades, then I am bad.”
In a traditional Russian school, assessment is a public act. The whole class, or even the whole school, knows what grades a particular child achieves. And very often, especially in junior school, grades are a measure of the child’s personality as a whole, when labels such as “C” or “excellent student” indicate the child’s abilities in principle. They are also a filter in the process of adaptation of the child both in the group of peers and in the teaching community. And this prism is the main one in the school environment. The fact that a child’s speed of perception of material is lower than others, for example, or due to his choleric temperament it is difficult for him to concentrate on a task - all these nuances will be taken into account in the very last place.
Often, schools do not take into account the dynamic processes in a student’s development. At the beginning of the year, the child could show far from the best results, but by the end of the quarter his performance became higher, but the overall score when calculating the quarter mark will not take this progress into account - initial low grades, especially in large numbers, will devalue the final high grades.
Therefore, the child, of course, must know that he must strive to get good grades in order to be successful in the future. But bad grades should not be interpreted as ignorance, carelessness and laziness.
ChildI got a bad grade. Is it worth punishing?
You don't need to do this. Motivation for progress and achievement must be positive. If there is bad rating, which means you need to try harder to improve the result. Punishing a child for a bad grade, for example, by depriving him of walks, games or communication with friends, his motivation will be negative. It creates either fear or nihilism. In case of fear, the child will be afraid to take the initiative. This can be implemented like this: for example, one problem may have several solutions, but even if your child has them, he will remain silent or use the only acceptable answer because he will be afraid of making a mistake. In the case of nihilism, aggression and aversion to learning arise, the child will think like this: “if I have a bad grade, then I will do badly in everything.”
Let your child understand that a bad grade is just a reason to further improve the result. It’s like in sports, where a loss or a missed goal is not a failure, but another training session and a step towards a new achievement, victory. This is exactly the attitude a child should have toward a teacher’s grades.
If every bad assessment is followed by its analysis, and in the connotation of a positive outcome, then they will be avoided faster. Because the child who brought a bad mark will know that he can explain to the parent why this happened, why the bad mark was given, and where he misunderstood the material. The student will have a feeling of security, not fear. The task of parents and teachers is to provide such a safe space for the student and, first of all, the elementary school student.
Is your child afraid of getting a bad grade or very nervous before tests? What to do?
If a child is afraid of bad grades, most likely, parents have already played their “role” here, “loading” the child with their expectations and unspoken demands.
There is no need to make your child an extension of your own success! Become your child's friend! In every assessment, support and care are needed, the child must know that he has a safe place and this place is his family.
If your child is nervous before a test, tell a story about yourself, about how you went to tests, how you passed exams, that you, too, were sometimes scared and excited, just like he is now. And very often the tests ended successfully, because there was enough knowledge, just like your child. But when you got a bad grade, you always had a chance to improve it. And the child also has this chance. This identification is important in this case, it provides support for your student.
There is nothing good in the fact that a child is constantly afraid of getting a bad grade. The psyche of a child who is threatened with a bad grade will include protective mechanisms in the face of parental and teacher rejection. And this is a normal mental function. However, the protection itself will not be the best. One option is an endless feeling of guilt for a bad grade and dissatisfaction with oneself, which as a result can lead to the identity of an inferior person. The second option is to develop such a quality as slyness, silence, popularly called lying. To avoid punishment (provided, of course, that he is being punished for bad grades), the child will lie. There is a third option. To prove that he is good, a student, having received a bad grade, will take the path of perfectionism and focus only on his homework. The result can be impressive, provided that the child has a strong ego and is able to withstand failure. But in primary school, which instills in the child knowledge about himself through grades, this is not typical. In addition, all three options are united by a common feeling - a feeling of fear, which in adult life develops into background anxiety and becomes one of the components neurotic conditions. For some, this is practically unnoticeable, but for others who were unlucky with a teacher in childhood, they will be very sensitive to the disturbing effect on the psyche.
Is it necessary to praise for “A” grades?
Of course, you need to praise for A's. But don’t overdo it with comments like “you’re the best”, “you know everything”, etc. Do not create a cult of “A”, when “A” is good, and everything else is below the bar and does not deserve praise, then a “bad” grade will not become a tragedy for the child.
If a child receives excellent grades, this is a reason for pride, first of all, for the parents. They are the ones who can influence the development of the so-called excellent student syndrome. Children's perfectionism is a very severe neurosis for a child, but a child falls into it with the direct assistance of an adult. As a rule, such a child is initially loaded with high parental expectations. The only way to justify them is to be good at everything, to become an excellent student, to win even at something other than your own game. If this does not happen, then the child feels unworthy and unnecessary to his parents.
First of all, let your child know that you are praising him not for the grades he receives, but for the fact that he strives for knowledge and shows interest in learning something. And there is no harm in the fact that at some point the child shows less curiosity about the subject and does not receive excellent grades for it.
The child believes that the teacher was unfair to him and lowered his grade. What should I do?
Analyze the situation, find out why the teacher gave such a grade. When you talk to your child about his grades, you are showing him your support. But it is also important not to lower the authority of the teacher in the eyes of the child. Therefore, it is worth taking not the position of your child’s parent, but the position of a teacher. Because often, from the position of a parent, we have one desire - to protect the child. If there really is injustice in the mark, then it is worth discussing it with the teacher.
In the photo: painting by F.P. Reshetnikov. "A deuce again"
Every parent of a schoolchild has at least once seen the mark “2” in their child’s diary. But few people know how to approach this correctly. Someone grabs their head, and someone grabs their belt. To adequately respond to such a situation, you need to understand the following issues.
Grade. Its essence, meaning and content
We, like adults, have grown up and quickly forgotten our school years, we remember only our emotions associated with such a rating as “2”. These experiences, as a rule, are negative, and when we see a bad mark in our beloved child, we become indignant. We feel regret, worry, and anger. These are OUR past feelings, settled deep “in the heart” (and actually in the subcortex of the brain). And so, some parents, not realizing this, immediately take up the belt and thereby make a big mistake, but more on that later.
So, putting aside our own experiences, let's think. A grade is an indicator of a child's level of academic performance. This is an indicator of how a student has mastered a particular topic, a particular subject. Children don’t think about this yet. For them, grade is prestige, authority among classmates and parents. And it depends on whose authority predominates: there will be ratings with a “+” or a “-”. In addition, the assessment carries a psychological load - for the child it is reward or punishment. And what happens: the student gets a bad grade, then he is punished at home, and he ends up being punished twice. Where have you seen someone convicted twice of the same crime? This is only possible in relation to a child.
Then, you need to remember that in teaching there are two sides working: the teacher and the student. Learning is a two-way process. And the rating “2” is an assessment of the work and the teacher.
But we know how it happens: for some reason, the teacher puts into the assessment not only assessment criteria, but also his personal attitude. This is unprofessional, it is mean to children, but, unfortunately, this happens.
But not all teachers are like that. There are also teachers from God, they generally oppose the assessment system. Among them are the Georgian teacher Sh. A. Amonashvili, domestic A. I. Savchenko, B. G. Ananyev, E. P. Ilyin, N. F. Talyzina and others. Now many modern schools are striving for a lesson-free and grade-free education system. These are the schools of the future. Their principle: the child needs to be motivated to learn, and not kept in emotional tension: “What grade will I get?” And put yourself in the child’s shoes: would you like to be assessed 5-6 times a day?
Why does a child bring deuces?
Before scolding a child for getting a bad grade, you need to understand why it ended up in his diary or notebook.
I was an exemplary student at school, I studied only with “A” grades, and rarely with “4” grades. But the trouble is, the Russian language was not good for me. Once, having submitted my notebook for inspection (and it was brand new, clean, there were only 4 works), I received it back all covered in red ink, with marks “3” and “2”. I was so ashamed. Then I was terribly worried about what my grandmother would say (I grew up with her). The solution was this: I hid that “shameful” notebook, took a clean one, and rewrote everything. Then I was more attentive and began to read more. It was sixth grade. After 8 years, I took out “my sin” and showed it to my grandmother. We laughed. But at that moment when I got my unsuccessful job back, I was scared, worried: what if my grandmother finds out? And the idea of how she would scold me haunted me.
So, the first reason for a child’s academic failure is his lack of education: he did not practice enough, did not finish reading, did not finish writing. All this is due to haste: children have so much to do! And play, and do creative work, and run to clubs/sections, and also learn lessons. Therefore, parents must set the right priorities for themselves and for the child. Determine his abilities, inclinations, and then build on this: somewhere to help, somewhere to guide, and somewhere to treat with understanding and close your eyes. A.S. Pushkin, for example, had a bad grade in mathematics, but this did not stop him from becoming a great poet.
Second case. The parents of a fifth-grader came to me: the boy began to study poorly, slipped almost to “3” and “2”, which had never happened before. In the process of working with this family, it turned out that the boy was too obedient and unsure of himself. The children felt it, saw it and began to laugh at him, which is why he began to worry and close himself off even more. He was afraid to answer in class, because if he made a mistake there was a high risk of being ridiculed.
Good students are not very liked in the class. They are “nerdy” and “boring”. This is the problem of those children who do not have time, but are emotionally stable - they begin to ridicule the successful ones, thus bringing them to their level. “Keep your head down” - this is the solution my client found for himself. Homeroom teacher I also somehow paid little attention to it. Other teachers, not knowing the characteristics of a particular child (“There are many students, do you really recognize everyone?” - but you should), saw in the boy only a lazy, unsuccessful student. This is how pedagogically neglected children appear; among the unsuccessful they make up 60%.
Here's more from practice. Girl, eighth grade. He doesn't want to study at all. Her parents are busy with work, and she constantly hires tutors. The latter change every month, because they are “illiterate”, “will not find an approach to the child”, etc. In fact, by her poor performance, the girl achieved authority among her classmates, but the authority of her parents was not authority. The child simply lacked parental attention and understanding. And at some point she found him among her friends. She moved away from her family because they seemed indifferent to her. You need to understand and remember that no material wealth can replace live, emotional communication with a loved one. This also leads to pedagogical neglect.
Another reason for a child’s academic failure is his/her characteristics: level intellectual development, volitional sphere, emotional, temperament, health. Thus, children with hyperactivity find it difficult to focus their attention on the subject of study (they suffer from lack of attention syndrome), children with defects in physical and psychological health find it difficult to emotionally be in a group of other children, they have difficulty understanding and understanding educational material.
As you know, children from disadvantaged families also suffer from poor academic performance – this is a social factor.
For more details on the reasons for school failure, watch the video.
How to properly react to parents when their child gets a bad grade
So, before reacting to a child’s “F” in the diary, you need to find out the reason: why did the teacher give it? Think for yourself, comparing the teacher’s opinion with your ideas and knowledge about the child, his characteristics, the characteristics of the environment and circumstances at home and at school. Who, if not parents, will understand and stand up for their child? If necessary, you should seek help from a psychologist.
Remember that one bad mark is not a sentence of failure, but also not a reason to relax and ignore it. This is a signal to action. We need to stop and take a closer look at where we are missing in education, motivation, or maybe just in communicating with the child.
If deuces appear in your diary systematically, immediately seek advice, and then work further based on the reasons for the lag.
I recently heard an interview with a psychologist: “Children need to be punished” - and I was overcome with heat. How can a psychologist say such a thing?! CHILDREN NEED TO BE UNDERSTANDING! Then there will be no reason to punish. They get used to the corner, the deprivations, the screaming, the belt humiliates them, punishments like “now you will wash the dishes, clean up” discourage the desire for these types of activities, because this is normal, this is good and right. And in total it kills their children and their trust in people. This offends, angers and gives the right to do the same.
Punish with attention and love! A short video about this
Understanding to you, dear parents! Success and academic achievements for your children!
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