Looking for Ideas re:Grades Motivation

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-14-2005
Looking for Ideas re:Grades Motivation
4
Tue, 12-13-2005 - 3:45pm

Hi, I am looking for suggestions about how other parents are encouraging their kids to get good grades. My daughter is 14, a freshman in high school, taking some honors classes. She is skating by with c's right now. She is clearly smart enough to do better and admits she is not trying as hard as she could. She is not overwhelmed by other things, although she is involved in color guard which can be time consuming. Knowing this, I try to keep her schedule pretty open so she isn't stressed out. She spends loads of time on the internet, talking to friends, designing her myspace and friend's myspaces as well.

My mom worked nights and I took care of my younger brother when I was in high school. My grades were so so, they could've been better. My mom has OCD and the main focus in our house was about the cleanliness of it, my grades were not very important. I have told my daughter I wish someone had more expectations of me, and that I have more of her. So, I have no experience from my own childhood of how to motivate a child to perform better.

I don't want to use color guard as a tool. I wouldn't be able to pull her off and then put her back on when her grades improved. My friend pays her son's car insurance as a reward for a 3.0 which seems to work for him. I am not sure what I could use though. My daughter doesn't think I need to do anything of course!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. It's a simpler problem than most on here, but that's only because we are already handling the depression, cutting, counseling and medication! Now we can focus on the "normal" parts of high school. :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-18-2005
Tue, 12-13-2005 - 4:07pm

One thing I did last year with my DD (then 13, 8th grade) was to have her review her homework with me. After she did it, she showed me what she had done. I proof-read most of her English essays, checked her math homework (or made her explain it to me), etc. It was a pain in the neck for both of us, but it worked in two ways. 1) Her grades got better so she saw how a little more effort made her grades go up; 2) when her grades got better, I stopped checking all her homework, so she got me off her back!

Another thing that helped was my DH talking to her (like you did) about how his parents never cared about his grades and he wishes they had, that he would have gotten into a better college and done better all around if they had.

You could make internet access dependent on better grades - set a specific goal like if you get a B on that English essay, you can go online tonight. We've limited online time all together, which also helped. I also am a total nag that you can't do homework AND chat on AIM at the same time. Seems common sense to me, but it seemed like a novel idea to her!

Finally, however, what helped with my DD was her own motivation. She's in a school where kids are expected to do well, teachers set high standards and kids work hard to meet them. She "decided" that she was going to do well this year. Unfortunately, as much as we coach and encourage our kids, we can only get so far until the motivation is from them.

Sue

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-22-2003
Tue, 12-13-2005 - 5:29pm

You say your DD spends 'loads of time' on the computer and internet. It's obviously something she enjoys, and that right there seems to be one thing you could use to motivate her. The hours she spends on the computer is time she could be focusing on her schoolwork.

I'd severely limit her computer time, unless it is school/homework related, until her grades improve to a B, or whatever letter grade you decide.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Tue, 12-13-2005 - 5:45pm
I agree with the others - the computer privileges seem to mean a lot to her.
Pam
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2005
Wed, 12-14-2005 - 8:05am

We've been dealing with the same thing here. Dd is at a small college-prep school where hiding in the back of the class is not an option. She's a bright girl but is not motivated to work at the things she doesn't like (math and science). Her grades are posted on edline and I have her review them weekly. When she was showing Cs in math and science, I talked to both of her teachers. They said her grades were mainly due to sloppy homework, incomplete assignemnts and not returning test corrections. At that point I told her we were going to "unplug" her from the internet (unless it is school work), IM and televison during the week and access on the weekends would be limited. We've told her Cs are ok as long as her teachers assure us that she is doing her best.

When she went online to check her myspace during a the week, we closed her e-mail account, and made her cancel her screen name and close her myspace. She knows we mean business and we have already seen an improvement. We approached the first "unplugging" not as punishment, but as a necessary step to remove distractions that were preventing her from doing her work.

The upside to all of this is that she is very encouraged by the turnaround in her grades in these two subjects and I think (I pray) that she also is beginning to recongize what a black hole of a time waster IM can be. One can only hope.

She will get her computer privilges back one at a time in due time, so it's not like there's no hope.

I suggest pulling the plug or at least setting limits on the computer time.

I feel your pain. Best of luck to you!
jt