From As to Cs to... Why Are My Teen’s Grades Dropping?

Part Two: Putting Your Plans into Action, Making Good Grades an Everyday Reality

(Read Part One: What’s Really Going On? Exploring Common Impacts on Teen’s Lives )

Young people’s GPAs bottom out for a broad spectrum of personal and societal reasons. Making and acting on a plan unique to a child’s needs and character is a surefire method for progress. Parents often find few productive outlets for their frustration when their teen’s grades drop. Yet, striving to build an empowering educational culture is paramount. Understanding the circumstances and mindset in the family, community, and student that contribute to academic success or stagnation has been discussed as a critical starting point for a healthy scholastic recovery. Exploring diverse planning options and discussing techniques for staying the course are the next steps.

The report card that puts so many families into a tailspin is likely a single sheet of paper defined by a few numbers. Grades are increasingly based on test scores. It is often self evident to insightful parents that no one can distill the essence of their child’s intelligence and talents to a string of digits. Especially if they are heavily influenced by multiple choice tests in which students make a flurry of guesses rather then articulating thoughtful arguments on profound concepts. Test anxiety, though an over diagnosed handy excuse, is a challenging reality for many—compounded by the perceived significance and ever present pressure of getting good test scores. When pondering the meaning of a student’s report card, do not fail to consider what it does and does not actually say about character and actual ability.

Leading by Example
Children take after their parents much more than many admit. Doubling your efforts to be a strong example as crisis strikes can only do so much. Teens know their parents all too well, and their lives have been shaped by who their parents are far more than any short-term parental sprints to change their children’s lives. Parents might do well to consider ways to bring out their own strengths rather than reinventing their parenting style. Yet if there is one guiding watchword to reshape parents’ approach, it must be empowerment. When parents act out their fears about the trials that academic woes can bring they only pass on a yoke of pessimism to those they love.

Families that build a strong value of education as an enriching cornerstone to a fulfilling life have children naturally more apt to achieve. According to the seminal U.S. Dept. of Education Early Child Longitudinal Study conducted during the late 1990s three prime factors-among others-were shown to increase student test scores. They are: having highly educated parents, having many books in the home, and having parents who were members of the PTA. Understanding the effects of these characteristics centers on seeing them as symptoms of the parent’s long-term life choices and opportunities, rather than something parents can change over night. Yet nurturing a culture of scholarship and reading in your family is something that can brighten a struggling teen’s school experience with a little familial concentration. Being active in the PTA not only connects you to resources and opportunities to improve the quality of your child’s education, but also sends a message of action to them that their parents are invested in their efforts.

Changing the Subject
When students are passionate about their education the odds of them getting great grades are strong. Considering the exact implications of which grades dropped and how far can help outline a conversation on how to bring a young person’s interests and passions back to the heart of their school experience. Mulling over the broad implications of the title example of a drop from As to Cs provides a starting point. As mean achievement, C’s may indicate a student simply slipping by on the low end of average, listlessly going through the motions so as not to flunk out, or truly struggling with subject matter a little too difficult. Confronted with such circumstances, families would do well to discuss ways of breaking the cycle of disengagement by reinvigorating a teen’s intellectual pursuits through playing to their strengths and dreams. Building on young people’s personal achievements and areas of curiosity outside of class is a potent proving ground to reawaken their drive and focus. Since this approach is centered on what is most important to individual students, it is crucial that the choices be their own. While parents can provide the necessary support by listening and brainstorming, they provide the most benefit by actively helping teens make their plans happen.

When the conditions spurring a teen’s declining grades create a clouded mind, like stress, depression, or drugs, a change of scenery is often the curative gut check they need. Getting involved in an outdoor activity that they have long desired like horseback riding or sailing can be stimulating incentive and therapeutic resource to break a negative cycle. One might ask, since a student is already so far behind how could they possibly have time for more fun? The answer highlights widespread misunderstandings about getting good grades. For many schools, except for rigorous private schools, the time it takes to study, do homework, and do well in classes, is small compared to the significance of an engaged and positive state of mind toward going to class and doing the work. If a student is not personally prepared to focus, that must be the first step to a dynamic turnaround plan. While it is generally a positive thing that school sports and activities regularly have minimum academic requirements to stay involved, pulling a teen out of activities that they are committed to when their grades drop may be denying them the outlets and pursuits that keep them from falling further. With simple time management skills, many students succeed in a cornucopia of classes and after school activities.

If the slide in grades is dramatic, an additional activity or two may not be enough of a scene change to sprout the needed realizations. Especially if their grades dropped in a spring semester or quarter, taking time to travel or work or spending the summer doing something that ignites their creativity is a time-tested remedy. While the options span the globe and are too astronomical to explore here, three websites that can provide great jumping off points are idealist.org, leapnow.org, and coolworks.com.

Teens do not have to take off for months at a time to seek an awakening adventure. Finding peace of mind in the wilderness every weekend with a healthier crowd, rather than tromping the same old downward spiraling social scene, can help young people turn the corner. The key is to use the time and resources they have to learn as much as they can in ways more experiential and personally valuable than the unhappy atmosphere academia may have become.

Academic Plans and Practices
Tailoring particular tactics that may be useful in supporting an overwhelmed student’s study skills is a vital strategy to support them finding their way back to an acceptable GPA. First of all, sharing and discussing a routine checklist of what teens need to get done for class should help parents foster time management skills so that students do not go adrift in procrastination, fall further behind, and become overwhelmed and despondent. Helping young people get organized with a system of their own choosing from old fashioned accordion folders to new fangled blackberries can supply them the tools required to stay on top of their commitments.

Pursuing the influences and relationships that point teens in a progressively better prepared path requires imaginative planning and active networking. Orchestrating study groups between friends and successful students can provide the peer-to-peer skill-sharing required to grow a productive culture of studying, in a stimulating youthful atmosphere. Considering the right people to help teens get on the ball with a little extra tutoring is critical; good choices can provide prudent and fruitful relationships to kindle. Local college students can be a cheap choice with the right one providing a rewarding mix of friendship and academic role model. Building on what has worked for students in the past is always a touchstone of a swift resurgence in grades. Going to discuss their situation with an old teacher that they truly admired and learned from avidly is a wise way for teens to reconnect with academic mentors. Perhaps the teacher can even be persuaded to do a little tutoring on the side, or point students towards resources that would serve them well.

Striking a Deal
Melding these concepts and best practices into a plan in a collaborative process with a teen still leaves the potential roadblock of reaching consensus on a recommitment to the most menial aspects of doing well in school. A typical teen diatribe frequently sounds a bit like this, "It’s all just busy work . . . it is not fair, I’m not even learning anything real . . . I’m so far behind I just can’t catch up." The conversation required get beyond these typical objections has a great deal in common with finally admitting to children that Santa Claus is not real, it may be hard at the time, but it really needs to happen at some point, and it won’t be long before they are laughing about it.

The sixteen years that most young people sit in a classroom is more of a process of conditioning them and educating to the social norms and organizational techniques society requires for favorable employment, than it is an intellectual playground of learning. However, teens can still have an enchanting Christmas without Santa, they just have to learn to make a little of the magic themselves. Good grades open a galaxy of potential paths in life where they can choose to explore what matters to them in their own way. Families can cooperate to make school as stimulating as possible. Like so many other aspects of growing up, dealing with school institutions requires fostering an adroit balance between realism and idealism.

Making the Difference
An empowering community of family, friends, and mentors is the engine of a teen’s triumphant return to good grades. Building young people’s self confidence and optimism by letting them navigate many of the choices leading to their change means that their accomplishments will leave them better prepared to continue school rather than learning little from band-aid solutions. As plans play out, observant and caring parents continue to listen for their children’s reflections and monitor progress with teachers regularly. It is important to trust what teachers say but also to verify. Clarity reveals time and again that successful parents have successful children, leading by example rather than saying, "do as I say, don’t do as I do." Change takes patience and love. Supporting teens even if they choose a significant break from the sixteen years in box plan is a direct and wholehearted way to show them that you believe in them.