parenting q: school marks

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mooks

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So, minimooks is in her 1st year of high school and is doing the equivalent of higher grade on all her subjects. She's no Stephen Hawkings but she is also no airhead and I am fully confident that she should be bringing home 75% as an average mark for her tests if she puts in the hours for homework and revising.

I've just found out that she failed 2 of her exams from the mid term exam round and I'm not sure how to respond. On the one hand we've moved towns recently so there is all the adjustment stress, missing her old friends etc. Plus high school is so different to junior school i.t.o expectations etc not to mention the general stress of puberty and hormones. To top it all off there is a girl in her class who has been making minimooks downright miserable in class for the last 3-4 weeks.

On the other hand, we've recently enrolled her in an after school homework class and placed restrictions on the internet access at home outside of hours when we're home because we found out she has been sitting on youtube all day while we're at work instead of studying.

So, I either want to klap her for being a lazy so and so and not studying properly or I need to take a step back and be more concerned that my kid might be under so much stress that she is failing when she should easily be passing... Any seasoned parents feel like weighing in?
 
Make sure she has Mom's and Dad's attention. Lots of it. And listen to her.

Tough love worked for me at school. Didn't work for my child.
 
I'm afraid you are going to have to answer the question yourself. Some people respond well to having their parents sit on their case while others (like me) responded well to the exact opposite. I found that seeing confidence in me from my parents and being allowed to mature myself worked for me.
Of course you need to help her through her emotional issues and then see if she can possibly fix things herself. Also remember that studying time is not always important, some kids study short hours but concentrate hard while others need longer hours. You need to find out which learning methods work best for her.
I have been reviewing masters work on some teaching science papers and almost all studies show that children need different treatment based on who they are.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that forcing her to do more hours will make things any better. You could kill her motivation to learn completely!
 
mooks said:
girl in her class who has been making minimooks downright miserable in class for the last 3-4 weeks.
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A bully can have a huge affect on ones school performance, go into more detail on this.
 
I thought the way nowadays was to blame the teacher? :p


How does she feel about failing? Hopefully she feels like she let herself down and it will spur her on to achieve what she knows she's capable of?
 
Vaughan said:
....Don't make the mistake of thinking that forcing her to do more hours will make things any better. You could kill her motivation to learn completely!
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This is what I'm afraid of! She can't study at home, too many distractions in her room, too many in the living room, she cant concentrate if there is noise around her etc but she can't be trusted to do her homework in her bedroom because she needs her laptop for homework but without supervision she tends to wander off into vine+youtube land... But I cant police her and stand over her shoulder the whole time otherwise she will just become more and more resistant.
Rickster said:
A bully can have a huge affect on ones school performance, go into more detail on this.
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Yeah, this girl is something special. I've already had 1 sit down with the school about it within the first 2 weeks of school. I came home early from work one day to surprise minimooks with a Friday afternoon outing and found her sobbing her eyes out on the couch. This girl was completely humiliating her in the class whatsapp group and some of the other kids were joining in. Since then this girl has done it another 2 or 3 times (although not on whatsapp anymore - it was too easy to get caught like that last time I guess!) and minimooks hasnt made any real friends in her new class as a result. So she is feeling pretty lonely I'm sure but she doesnt really talk about it unless the ***** is really hitting the fan. The school is aware of the issue but its not overt enough that we can keep bringing it up. Its a she said/she said situation. Maybe its just normal teenage girl crap but minimooks isnt emotionally mature enough yet to process it and thats having a huge impact.

Sinbad said:
I thought the way nowadays was to blame the teacher? :p


How does she feel about failing? Hopefully she feels like she let herself down and it will spur her on to achieve what she knows she's capable of?
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lol, wouldnt that be the easy way out! Nah, I dunno, she doesnt seem altogether too phased by the failing which is also pretty worrying right? She just says 'yeah well I didnt understand the question, but at least I tried'.... Which also doesnt make much sense. For maths she got 79% for the class test and then failed the exam with 44%?!

crackersa said:
how many hours a day is she studying? have you actually asked her why she didn't pass those subjects?
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We're doing on average 4hrs of studying per test. I've had to teach her how to make notes and study cards because the school isnt teaching them any study methods. I make her read through the chapters, then make notes, then study them and then I test her. Please, feel free to ask me about the Dutch std 6 geography syllabus on population dynamics :p I got at least an A for that I'm sure :D With the homework class she doesnt have much homework left to do in the evenings which is great but that isnt enough for study time.
 
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Its the bullying compounded with moving towns and going to highschool and puberty.Tough one.Good luck.
 
My kid has the same issue - also in highschool and he has enormous pressure at school and is constantly stressed out as he needs to achieve certain pass-marks for the subject choices he wants to make next year. By the looks of it he will not make the pass mark to get onto the subjects he wants to do next year and this is tearing him up.

I think kids today have enormous unnecessary pressure at school and peer pressure. He will probably fail and I am okay with this - it would be unnecessary and not helpful to try and push or punish him - I think most kids are doing their level-best and any punishment will just make matters worse. In the worst case we will just reset and give the grade another good run next year. In the best case he will make it through. He also had cases where he passed pre-tests with flying colours and then flaked out with miserable sub 30% at the actual exam (this seems to be quite common amongst his peers too).
 
What subjects is she struggling with? This is a great site with past test papers for maths - it has the questions & answers - I found it good to make my daughter do these for practise - then I could see where she was struggling, (google how to do it myself - hahaha) - and then explain it to her:

http://mathsandscience.com/tests-exams/gr-7-maths-test-and-exams/

(there's a Grade 8 link on the left)

What school does she go to?
 
Let her figure out how to improve her marks. She knows she did badly and should feel disappointed in herself (hopefully). Compounding that disappointment with your own will not help her in this particular situation, because it is really the internet + bullying that is doing it to her.

The internet is an easy distraction to allow her to ignore real life for a while. You have taken a great step in restricting internet access. But dont try to replace it with extra studying. Get her to focus on other hobbies that have fixed timeslots. The problem with Youtube as a hobby is that there is always just one more video to watch, so the time just vanishes.

Now focus on giving her the tools to deal with this girl at school. If you empower her to handle this girl well and get her off of her case, then she will grow in confidence and the effort at school will increase.
 
Colin62 said:
That doesn't sound right. It's the end of October, you should have got her report in July.
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We live in the Netherlands so our academic school year starts in August after the summer holiday :) Maybe I should have mentioned that, sorry....

Also, we dont need to wait for her report to get exam results. They have an online system here for marks, homework, timetable etc. So, as soon as the test is marked, I can see the result in the app. Quite handy but also a bit Big Brother. I can see if she is late in handing in homework, if she is late for class or if she has forgotten her books for a lesson. I dont often check it because playing policeman is NOT my thing. How will she learn responsiblity if she always has a parent in the background nagging her or checking up on her? Some freedom is needed for these kids to develop IMO.
 
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MagicDude4Eva said:
My kid has the same issue - also in highschool and he has enormous pressure at school and is constantly stressed out as he needs to achieve certain pass-marks for the subject choices he wants to make next year. By the looks of it he will not make the pass mark to get onto the subjects he wants to do next year and this is tearing him up.

I think kids today have enormous unnecessary pressure at school and peer pressure. He will probably fail and I am okay with this - it would be unnecessary and not helpful to try and push or punish him - I think most kids are doing their level-best and any punishment will just make matters worse. In the worst case we will just reset and give the grade another good run next year. In the best case he will make it through. He also had cases where he passed pre-tests with flying colours and then flaked out with miserable sub 30% at the actual exam (this seems to be quite common amongst his peers too).
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Thanks MagicDude4Eva, good to hear e're not the only ones in this boat! I decided not to freak out in the end and rather we had a quick chat about life stress and coping techniques. In keeping with her erratic performance she came home last week with a 77% on her French test (which is her worst subject) so I think it really is her teenage brain that is struggling with all the external stuff. We're trying to shuffle things at home a bit to make it easier for her for homework and studying and free time etc.

We'll see how it goes. The system here is a bit more restrictive than SA though. They have 3 main academic levels VWO/HAVO/MAVO. You can only get into tertiary education with VWO or HAVO (and in fact you only get into university with VWO, HAVO gives you access to college). Minimooks is in HAVO right now but uf her marks drop more they will move her to MAVO next year. That means she only does 4yrs of highschool (apprenticeship type stuff) and cant get into tertiary education. Upstreaming to higher levels from a lower level is really hard and our best bet would be to put her into a private bridging school if she did graduate on MAVO.

Its all quite complicated but the moral of the story is that failing the year would have longer reaching consequences than just repeating the grade. It really does escalate the pressure for these kids too I guess!

I dont remember life being this hard when I was a teenager :p :o
 
mooks said:
Thanks MagicDude4Eva, good to hear e're not the only ones in this boat! I decided not to freak out in the end and rather we had a quick chat about life stress and coping techniques. In keeping with her erratic performance she came home last week with a 77% on her French test (which is her worst subject) so I think it really is her teenage brain that is struggling with all the external stuff. We're trying to shuffle things at home a bit to make it easier for her for homework and studying and free time etc.

We'll see how it goes. The system here is a bit more restrictive than SA though. They have 3 main academic levels VWO/HAVO/MAVO. You can only get into tertiary education with VWO or HAVO (and in fact you only get into university with VWO, HAVO gives you access to college). Minimooks is in HAVO right now but uf her marks drop more they will move her to MAVO next year. That means she only does 4yrs of highschool (apprenticeship type stuff) and cant get into tertiary education. Upstreaming to higher levels from a lower level is really hard and our best bet would be to put her into a private bridging school if she did graduate on MAVO.

Its all quite complicated but the moral of the story is that failing the year would have longer reaching consequences than just repeating the grade. It really does escalate the pressure for these kids too I guess!

I dont remember life being this hard when I was a teenager :p :o
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I missed the part that you said that this in the Netherlands - in that case I would not even worry as in Europe you have a lot more options available. My brother (lives in Vienna) has two of his 3 kids drop out of school. The older one always wanted to be in the army and joined the Austrian national guard where they seem to have a good career-path (he is now studying "cyber defence" as part of the army curriculum). The younger kid has signed up with one of the local car-dealerships to become a mechanic and auto-electrician. Speaking to my sister over the weekend, being unemployed in Austria nowadays fetches EUR 800/pm (plus other subsidies) - so most kids don't even bother finding work.

Technical colleges and any artisan education is horribly poor in SA, hence a lot more pressure on kids nowadays. I guess if the student strikes continue and how the department of education reduces entry criteria, very soon born child will just get a university degree with the birth certificate :whistle:.
 
crackersa said:
how many hours a day is she studying?

have you actually asked her why she didn't pass those subjects?
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High school is not about how many hours a day you study. You can study the night before an exam and total it. It's something else. OP should speak to his/her daughter. Its the only way to know what's going on.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
I missed the part that you said that this in the Netherlands - in that case I would not even worry as in Europe you have a lot more options available. My brother (lives in Vienna) has two of his 3 kids drop out of school. The older one always wanted to be in the army and joined the Austrian national guard where they seem to have a good career-path (he is now studying "cyber defence" as part of the army curriculum). The younger kid has signed up with one of the local car-dealerships to become a mechanic and auto-electrician. Speaking to my sister over the weekend, being unemployed in Austria nowadays fetches EUR 800/pm (plus other subsidies) - so most kids don't even bother finding work.

Technical colleges and any artisan education is horribly poor in SA, hence a lot more pressure on kids nowadays. I guess if the student strikes continue and how the department of education reduces entry criteria, very soon born child will just get a university degree with the birth certificate :whistle:.
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It's all good and well that there are opportunities available and lifestyle can still be sufficient on minimum salaries or artisan based work, but I dont support the whole notion of living off the state (and I'm not implying you do either :) ). Minimooks should develop a work ethic that pushes her to study to achieve, work for her earnings and her lifestyle and give back to her community. She cant and wont do that if she is living in social housing and living off state funds by choice. Obviously some people land there by difficult circumstances but I dont think it should be a default fall back at all. And if it means she has to work harder now to not be there when she's older then thats what needs to happen.

Plus E800pm really isnt much at all. Medical insurance (+-E110), basic internet (+-E50), gas + electricity (+-E100) alone will cost you around E250 per month which is before rent, groceries, transport and any disposable income. Groceries in my house (3 people) comes to +-E350pm so E800 really doesnt stretch that far.

But I digress :p
 
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