Tomorrow is Report Card Day over at the high school, the first of this school year. The teachers have this annoying (well, annoying to me) habit of telling the kids their grades over the week leading up to the Big Day, so there should be few surprises. By all indications, the situation looks promising. Some As, some Bs, a C here or there. A pretty good showing for kids who missed a week of school to flit off to Florida.
I'm trying to prepare myself, because I realize I tend to get a little irrational about report cards. My least famous moment came last spring, when I had a huge freak-out over my daughter dropping 12 percentage points in English. From a 96 to an 84.
You heard me - I freaked out over a grade that was still an A.
I'm so ashamed.
That poor kid hardly even had the chance to bask in the French mark that CLIMBED ten percentage points. I just couldn't stop myself from expressing my dismay at her falling English mark. My reaction to her A was definitely an F.
It's just that I take it all so personally. None of my kids has ever failed anything, and it's widely agreed that they're smart, capable kids. Usually, their grades show it. But I can't help but feel like a drop in a mark- any mark- means I'm failing them. That a B- in Math means I get a B- in parenting. So, when a lower than average grade comes in, I freak a little.
No matter what my common sense tells me, there's still this little voice inside of me that says that if my kids don't succeed, it's because I couldn't succeed at parenting. I envision the teacher, filling out the report cards, thinking, "That Mrs. H, she's a lousy mother, so I'm putting in a C."
One of the hardest things about parenting teens is knowing what to let go of, and what's still up to me. It changes daily. In the case of their schooling- well, they know they're expected to work hard in school, and their dad and I have given them every opportunity to do so. Beyond that, it's up to them. I can't grade all their work before they hand it in, and I can't sit behind them in Biology and make them pay attention. I can walk with them as they walk their way through a problem, but I can't walk it for them. The days of flash cards and reading aloud, and helping them glue construction paper together are done. It's in their hands now, at least the majority of it, and like so many other areas, I've been sent to the spectator section, to sit on my hands, shut my mouth, and watch the show.
So, Dear Internets, I promise - for tomorrow, at least, I will try to remember that my kids own their grades. That they have enough intelligence, and common sense to know what, if anything, needs to be done to improve. I will praise their efforts and their successes, and give them enough credit to be able to figure out the rest on their own. I will be proud of who they are, and I won't freak at anything. Not even a little bit.
And maybe, in doing so, I might pull an A myself?
Comments