Your daughter’s grades and her GPA.

I hear this conversation from both sides – really ALLLL the sides. Parents come to me and talk to me about how their kids grades are tanking, and they’re not doing as well as they used to. They’re worried about it, but the kids seems really lackadaisical and not worried about it. So I get that view.

And then I get the girls, my clients in my groups, saying that they’re anxious about their grades.

And they were doing well, but it’s getting harder.

And they feel like they’re, there’s too much pressure, and it’s getting to be a lot.

Sometimes I’ll also have girls that will confess to me that they don’t really care about their grades, but they just kind of tried to do the best they can so that parents don’t get mad at them.

So there are literally FOUR SIDES of the coin (so to speak)

Parents who say their kiddos take grades TOO seriously and are getting stressed as well as parents who say their kiddos don’t take school seriously enough.

Girls who tell me their parents are TOO intense about their grades and they wnt them to chill as well as girls who tell me their parents don’t understand all the pressure they are under to get the best grades for their future.

I’m hearing every single angle of how you can approach GPA and grades, so I’m here to demystify a little bit about that conversation.

There is one huge foundational piece that has to be stated ANYTIME and EVERYTIME we discuss GPA and grades with our daughters.

This foundation piece is this one statement that needs to be said explicitly and repeatedly, starting at a young age… “You are not your grades.”

Let me repeat that … You. are not. your. grades.

Your grades don’t make you worthy.

Your grades don’t mean you are a better person or a worse person.

You are your own person completely independent of any grade that I ever see on a test or a homework assignment or a report card.

You are loved you are valued.

You are worthy, completely independent from that letter or that number.

These are statements that need to be spoken from the time that your children are extremely young, to the time that they are in college.

This needs to be a theme underlying any and all conversations about grades and GPA and school acheivment and their future.

SIDENOTE: This may be a conversation that we as moms or as parents probably need to have with ourselves, because we give ourselves grades too, right? We feel like we have this invisible grade card of how to be the best mom, or how to be this, or how to be that?  There is no scorecard. You are worthy, you are loved, independent of all of that. This is a foundational piece of how you talk to your daughter and how you talk to YOURSELF.

If there’s nothing else that you hear in this conversation… that is what I want you to be able to continue to come back to with your daughter so that she understands it, not just in her HEAD, but in her HEART as well.

You can’t just say it ONCE or even twice…even if you say 75 times…

you need to say it AGAIN.

And she needs to hear it again.

Because the rest of society and the rest of the world is constantly telling us that we ARE our grades, and that we are judged by our grades, and the grades are EVERYTHING.

We need to make sure that our kids understand that that is not the case they are worthy outside of their grades, their grades are not who they are.

…..

That being said…there are a couple of other aspects of this conversation surrounding GPA and surrounding grades that will come up that need to be discussed.

ASPECT NUMBER TWO of EVERY DISCUSSION SURROUNDING GRADES with YOUR DAUGHTER is….

WHAT DOES OUR FAMILY VALUE? and HOW DO GRADES FIT IN TO THESE FAMILY VALUES?

Does our family value having a 4.0 and being valedictorian? And that is the end all be all and that is what we’re all shooting for?

Or does our family value curiosity and learning even if it’s independent of what is being taught in this particular class in this particular day in this particular way?

Does our family value always doing your best even when it’s something that you don’t care about or don’t love?

Or does our family value, respect of teachers and of a certain societal norm?

I’m not saying any one of these are the right things that your family should value, but you need to talk with your family, what are the things that we value?

And what are we trying to instill in our kiddos for the long-term?

And how does that relate to this GPA issue?

THE THIRD ASPECT of EVERY DISCUSSION SURROUNDING GRADES with YOUR DAUGHTER is…

WHAT ARE HER FUTURE GOALS?

Young kids have ALL SORTS OF GOALS! I encourgae you to tlak to them about them, and what it takes to acheive them… whether it is how to go across the monkey bars, or how to earn enough money for the latest iPhone… they.have.goals.  And while (hopefully) their goals will change over time, in different ways for different reasons, they KNOW what it is to have a goal.

As you help them start thinkig about the future and bigger picture goals, grades are often aligned or correlated with those goals. There are opportunities that are made available to us because of certain grades that we get. Scholarships, college acceptance, etc.

I am not here to judge the validity of these sytems and how they are currenlty operating, but I am saying that this is part of how things work. More often than not, you’re not going to be able to get into medical school or law school or a Ph. D program, if you don’t have the right grades and the right work ethic and the right research and the right credentials. (although Bob Goff can tell you otherwise!)

Make sure you have developmentally appropriate expectations about what their goals are now, and what that means about and how it relates to the GPA and your family values.

At the end of the day, it all goes together.

The foundation of every conversation,tp reduce anxiety surrounding grades, is making sure they understand that their worth is not their report card.

Perhaps to increase some urgency for those on the more lackadaisical side, you do need to talk about the future goals and how what they’re doing now is going to relate to those.

And finally, the why behind what your family expectations are – your family values.

There is the quick blueprint of how to approach these ongoing conversations about GPA and grades. I urge you to discuss this often starting at the very youngest ages with short & quick conversations… all the way up through college. The foundations of this dicussion is important for kids to reflect on and to understand as they’re growing, and developing their own goals, values and sense of self.

Keep teaching those kiddos to choose their thoughts, so they can create a life that they love, that they’re excited about living…

because your kiddos are going to change the world.