When your child brings home a bad report card

While a bad report card could be as result of laziness or unseriousness on the part of the child, other factors such as illness, learning disabilities, inadequate material and emotional support from the parents themselves, the inability of the teacher to adequately impact knowledge to each pupil or student according to his or her individual […]

While a bad report card could be as result of laziness or unseriousness on the part of the child, other factors such as illness, learning disabilities, inadequate material and emotional support from the parents themselves, the inability of the teacher to adequately impact knowledge to each pupil or student according to his or her individual needs or a not too meticulous teacher who failed to record the child’s grade appropriately or misplaced some exam or assessment scripts could contribute.
Parents must make it a point of duty to first find out the source of failure before reacting. How do you address a problem without first knowing the cause? Finding out  the problem sometimes takes patience and especially if there are no obvious reasons why the child should perform badly.
Those whose children have been doing well and suddenly start bringing home bad results have the main responsibility of finding out why.
Also when your child is always failing and bringing home bad results, it is not enough to write the child off as dull. Even dull children and those with learning disabilities can be helped with medication, behavioural and lifestyle changes or enrolled in special schools.
To find out reasons for the bad results, you need to talk and listen to your child. You need to meet with his or teacher. Look inward at yourself  too , have you played your own role properly?  Try to observe things all around the child including events  or things that  could have caused  him grief, emotional imbalance or lack of concentration.  
Also give in time to help your children with their homework, and endeavour to find out if your children have enough books, writing materials .  Also visit their teachers from time to time to discuss their progress, and get additional teachers to teach them after school or weekends.
A story was told of a ten year old boy who was always failing in his class until his parents discovered, he had problems with his sight and which he never complained of. Notes written on the board , appeared blurred to him, and so he copies only few words or as much as he can identify. He always gazes at empty note books while appearing to be studying or reading to his parents.
Until one day when his mother asked him to bring his note books  to see his scores in the previous week. To her horror, all he had written down in the notes  books made no sense.
Only after much prodding did he tell his parents the state of things, and that he was afraid to tell them for fear of being beaten or scolded for not  seeing what is written  on the black board.
His story changed when he was given a pair of glasses  after an eye check with the doctor and his seat was changed from the back to the front row. He became a straight A student immediately.
While some parents may find this difficult to accept, it is indeed true that some children are more gifted than others. Parents while giving all support should observe their children over time and should not have too high expectation of them. Your child with all support could naturally be an average student after all !
Do not over stress your child after all investigation by believing he or she  must get an A in every subject to please their parents. For a small number of gifted students, a perfect report card is attainable. But for most students, the idea of being a lifelong straight-A student is unrealistic.
Raymond  Iheme, a school teacher also advises that  said parents reaction should depend on the situation surrounding the bad result…whether the child is brilliant and whether the parents are brilliant or whether the child is handicapped.
He said if the parents are able to give the child what it takes to come up with a good result and the child comes with a bad result, the parents should be disappointed and encourage the child to do better but if the environment is not conducive to a good performance, the parents should blame themselves.
On expectations, he said: “It is garbage in garbage out. What you give to your child is exactly what you will receive from the child. It is not when you don’t invest in your child, you expect wonderful result from the child. If you invest in your child, you will expect bountiful result. But some parents find it difficult to spend money on their children, giving the child the type of education they need.
“Imagine a parent who gives their children stock to go and sell after school. If the child comes home with such bad result, will the parent blame the child? The parents don’t have any right to blame the child because they are the cause of the bad result.”
According to him “ If the environment is conducive, they allow the child to read when necessary, pay the child’s school fees on time, give him extra lessons, if the child comes home with a bad result that is when they have the right to scold the child, warn, advise or even punish the child because it is a great disappointment.”