Parents on Powerschool
Do parents constantly checking grades really motivate students?
For some parents, their daily routine consists of checking their kids’ grades to see what needs fixing. With this constant pressure to abide by the high expectations of parents, students feel pressured to always have an A in the grade book. How come grade went from looking at it one time a semester to now, where parents have full access to their child’s grades always.
When a bad grade is put into PowerSchool, most parents get an immediate notification. No matter how small or big of an assignment, the parent sees a letter grade with no context. Parents believe being “good” parent is regularly making sure the grade is at an A. They think that they are ‘helping’ but are really a constant pressure.
According to TODAY, “Let students get frustrated, support their efforts to push through the challenge, but don’t rescue.”
Failing isn’t always a bad thing, it’s essential to learning, so sometimes it’s okay to get a bad grade to fully understand the content. One bad grade in the gradebook does not define a student’s future. It does not define the intelligence of an individual.
According to poughkeepsie journal, “Understand that a poor grade early on doesn’t define them. It gives them an opportunity to see how they can improve.”
A continuous reminder to do better is not a healthy way to encourage a student to work hard. Instead, it creates unhealthy habits of students to always check grades and this creates a damaging obsession with a letter, and not learning and growing.
According to The New York Times, “Some parents interpret the school’s invitation to constantly monitor grades and scores on the portal not as an option, but as an obligation. This obligation adds to the mounting anxiety students and parents feel in these districts.”
This constant pressure of needing a 4.0 in the gradebook is tiring and useless for both students and parents. Instead the best alternative is remind your child that failing is okay and there will always be other opportunities, this will teach them to learn to work through challenges.
