I don’t know about you, but I was a very average student all throughout at least the first 10 years of my schooling. I did the least amount of work I could possibly get away with. I took the easiest classes, put forth the least amount of effort it took to make a B or C and I even begged my way out of taking a required home economics class.

During middle and high school, my parents, perhaps like yours, were only aware of my grades during the semester if I told them. At the end of the semester, of course, I had to physically hand them a report card and have it signed to take back to school.

Not one teacher ever sent home a note, mailed them a letter (because this was before email) or called them about my daily performance in school – not once.

Had they been contacted during middle or high school, about my lackluster grades on a regular basis, and had scolded me or even talked to me about it, I can absolutely guarantee you, without a doubt, based on my personality…my grades would not have improved – probably quite the opposite.

So, why is it that in the 21^st century, the schools have adopted this approach of bombarding parents with information about their kid’s school performance on a daily basis? Who is this helping? You? Your kid? The school?

Please stick around and let me give you some suggestions about how to handle those often intrusive communications from your teen’s school that force you into a state of academic hypervigilance, and how to avoid letting this negatively impact your teen and your relationship with them.

PODCAST INTRO

“Parental academic involvement” has long been said to increase student academic success. The assumption has been that the more involved the parent is with a child’s schooling, the better that child’s chances of academic success – better grades, going on to college, doing well in the future and so on.

It appears that schools have taken this to mean that teachers should be in constant communication with parents so parents can micromanage every assignment, obsess over every grade, and bug the ever-lovin’ crap out of their kids.

What does the science say about parental involvement with a child’s education?

Studies have examined parents volunteering at the school, going to PTA meetings, communicating with teachers, involvement in “academic-related activities” at home, discussions between parents and administrators and between parents and their teens about school and plans for the future, parents’ relationships with other parents, and on and on.

There’s simply no consensus as to what type or how much parental involvement is best for kids as far as academic performance goes – just that involvement is good.

Obviously, parent-teacher communication is part of the equation—it’s a good thing. But too much of a good thing…is a bad thing!

Yes, involved parents help the schools keep kids doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s the opposite of the uninvolved, perhaps, neglectful, or permissive parent. Of course, that makes total sense.

But you’ve been an involved parent. You wouldn’t be listening to me right now if you hadn’t been. You’ve done your job, you’ve been on top of things, helped them at home, talked to the teachers, gone to the parent-teacher conferences and open nights, advocated for them when you needed to, and held them to account when they strayed off course.

But when schools expect your parental involvement to include monitoring, controlling, and micro-managing your teen so they’ll do their work—even if it could possibly increase academic achievement in the short term—there’s also a very good possibility that it could prevent them from developing intrinsic motivation even worse - adversely impact your relationship with your teen, which could lead to far worse than bad grades.

Schools should understand (as the science tells us) that as your kids get older, it’s your communication, your engagement with them, your expectations, your support, your encouragement and praise for their effort, that positively impacts their academic achievement.

So, it’s having a good relationship with them (not nagging them about the assignments they’re missing) will help them achieve more in all aspects of their life.

But when the school floods you with communications about your teen’s schoolwork, homework, and grades, it’s setting you up for a breakdown in this relationship.

Because what happens is, most of us cannot properly process and deal with these school emails—we simply cannot regulate our emotions about it all. It’s a lot. It’s so much that we react, we cause conflict and create animosity between us and our teens, which means our relationship takes a hit—our connection is diminished—which in no way will increase their academic performance or improve their behavior.

 

You’re already trying to manage your daily intake of the parent portal and then the school starts emailing or texting or calling you on top of that just to let you know that your kid’s not reaching their potential or doing what they need to do or is in danger of failing a class. It’s enough to send any parent over the edge.

And just so you know, as I was doing my research for this episode, I read lots of lots of complaints from teachers in parenting subreddits talking about the mandates placed on them by their principal or district for regularly communicating with parents through emails, texts, or even calls.

This has apparently gotten so much worse in the past few years, likely because of the misinterpretation or overbroad assumptions made by various “experts” in the academic field. For example, a Harvard Graduate School of Education paper says, “If communicating with parents and students is an effective method of stimulating higher levels of academic engagement, far more teachers and students could be benefitting from this practice.”

But much of this type of scientific commentary was published prior to the widespread adoption of parent portals like ClassDojo, Power School, or ParentSquare. You can listen to my advice about parent portals in episode 188.

Yet, it appears the majority of schools or school districts around the world are forcing their teachers to reach out to parents on a regular basis as if the parents do not have information about their kid’s assignments and grades through the parent portal.

Some of what I read indicates that the schools literally do not trust parents to look at the portal and want to beef up this communication to make sure you’re on top of your job (making your kid do their work!)

The schools will tell you they do mandate this additional communication because, it “fosters open communication, promotes parental involvement, and ensures the student’s academic and behavioral well-being...”

But a) I’m not sure all these emails are actually achieving those goals, and b) I believe this mission completely overlooks the negative implications for the parents and teens.

Now, you might feel these communications are necessary, that you should stay on top of what they’re doing and not doing on a daily basis and that the parent portal is just not enough—you welcome all the information and reminders you can get.

And…at the same time maybe these emails make you anxious, angry, frustrated, or embarrassed.

You might even feel like you’re in trouble with the school, that you’ve somehow failed your kid or should have or should be doing more.

These emails may even take you back to your school days when you weren’t doing well, and your parents were constantly on you.

Or maybe just the opposite, you were always extremely studious and kept up with your schoolwork and homework and would have never gotten behind or gotten a bad grade so you’re completely puzzled and annoyed with your kid for not putting forth the same effort.

We interpret these communications about our kid’s behavior based on our own personal experiences—like our academic experience, or our lack of it, our views on education, school in general, our kids’ past academic performance or their sibling’s performance…our mind takes us all over the place so that we cease being just right here in that moment thinking about our kid and this one issue.

This is why much of the time, when you’re receiving constant push notifications from the school about where your kid might be falling short, all of these thoughts and emotions overwhelm you and cause you to react automatically, irrationally, without thinking things through.

You might remind, scold, lecture, or even threaten or punish your kid—none of which is going to increase academic performance or strengthen your connection with them.

The more communications you receive about your child’s implied shortcomings, the more revved up your nervous system becomes and the more nervous or angry or shameful you become, which means you’re even more likely to forget all your parenting skills and act inappropriately, become controlling, threaten your kid’s autonomy, and cause major blow ups.

Now of course, you and your child’s school do have the shared goal of wanting your child to do well academically.

This academic achievement is the school’s the top priority. As far as the school’s concerned, as long as your kid’s doing what they require, they’re not worried about the tactics you use at home to help them get there. You could be threatening to take away their phone forever, sell their car, cancel prom…that’s okay with them…whatever it takes to get those assignments done and bump those grades up.

But your kid’s academic achievement is not your only concern, and it shouldn’t even be your top priority. You want things for your child that go far beyond a decent GPA. You want them to be mentally healthy, happy, personally fulfilled, and successful (as they define the word).

And to help them achieve all that, you must have a good relationship with them, a really strong emotional connection—so they’ll not only want to cooperate and do their best in school but will also ask for your advice or reach out for help about things much more important than grades.

Having a strong emotional connection with your teen is the most important thing you can do for them. It’s a long-term goal that will carry them much farther than their grades will. This connection is what will improve their chances of making better grades and behaving the way you’d expect—not constant reminders, not lectures, not arguments and power struggles, or even punishments.

But to have this kind of connection, you cannot be at each other’s throats over schoolwork, homework, and grades (which is what these communications from the school cause).

The school is not concerned about your connection with your teen. Schools are evaluated on the grades and standardized test scores received by their students. Schools who don’t do well in these evaluations are usually put under a school improvement plan which is all about being monitored for goal setting, implementing strategies and so forth—all of which sounds like a major pain in the ass to teachers and administrators, not to mention embarrassing. No wonder principals insist on constant communication with parents, right?

I hate to sound so cynical, but I’m so tired of schools making you feel like you’re not doing enough to force your kid to do better.

The more they push you, the more you push your teen, the more conflict there is and the less progress you make in other areas of your relationship, not to mention the impact on your mental health and your teen’s. Grades are not worth these sacrifices.

You show me a kid who’s been coerced, pushed, and punished into making the grades a parent or school expects, and I’ll show you a miserable kid, a household filled with animosity, and parents on the brink of losing it.

Whose purpose does this serve other than the school’s? Because I’m telling you right now, good grades, under these circumstances, means trouble for your kid—if not now, then in the future.

Not only does this constant monitoring and micro-managing at home cause conflict and disconnection between you, which can lead to other behavior issues, but it can also truly cripple your child’s future performance in other areas of their life.

At some point, they have to learn how to take care of things themselves—to be self-motivated. And the main way we all learn to take responsibility and learn life skills, is through natural consequences.

Not turning in work earns you a zero, failing a class means summer school, vaping in the bathroom may get you suspended, using your phone in class can earn you a Saturday at school. Natural consequences teach.

If you involve yourself to the point that you make sure they never get a zero, a bad grade, or make any mistakes, if you protect them from all natural consequences, you’re depriving them of the opportunity to learn how to navigate life—to learn those executive function skills that they don’t quite have yet like using self-control, organizing, planning ahead...

So, the more responsibility you take for their work, the more you prevent them from making mistakes, the less able they will be to manage things on their own in the future.

And at the same time your teaching them that mistakes are not okay, that they need you to make sure they do everything right, all the time.

If they’re not given the space to screw up now and then, in ways that aren’t dangerous, while you’re there to support them—when they inevitably face small and larger mistakes after leaving home, the results can be devastating because they just can’t deal with it.

The research tells us this micro-managing our teens, helicoptering, making sure they never make a mistake or fail in any way, can cause them all sorts of problems later on, difficulty making decisions, setting goals, following through, and a lack of self-confidence and self-worth. They may avoid trying new things and putting themselves out there or stepping outside their comfort zone because they can’t cope with the fear of failure (because it’s never happened!)

This is a huge reason why quite often stellar grades in high school don’t translate to a well-adjusted college student (or one that can make good grades in college without your constant monitoring).

But again, that’s not the school’s concern – you kid’s life experience beyond high school doesn’t go on the school’s permanent record – only their current grades do.

 

So, being on top of your kid and constantly pointing out what they need to do and what they haven’t done and trying to prevent any possibility of a zero or a bad grade …it makes them doubt that they are capable of handling things on their own.

It cripples their self-confidence, tanks their self-worth and sets them up for far worse failure than you’re trying to prevent now.

Plus, the more control you exert over their school work, (the more you step in to make sure they do everything they should, the more you remind, lecture, threaten or punish), the less likely they’ll develop the intrinsic motivation to do these things on their own.

When you try to change their behavior through this type of external control—they will become solely focused on resisting your control—on fighting you. External controls set them up for failure. As long as they’re focused on fighting you and your control, they’ll never have the chance to decide they actually want to do the work.

Instead of exerting more external control to get them to do what you want, your focus needs to be on building their internal control and internal motivation.

This is where allowing those mistakes can make a difference. Your teen’s more likely to incorporate the pain of natural consequences internally – changing how they think and feel about themselves and the way they do things. Your connection with them is also a factor regarding their inner motivation. The better your relationship, the more likely they will want to do the things they know you want them to do.

And I can hear you thinking right now…but they won’t do it – they don’t have that internal motivation – No, they don’t yet, because you’ve been on top of them this whole time. They have to screw up a bit, see what it feels like in a BIG way sometimes,  without your anger about it – letting them take ownership of their screw ups, before they realize, that they want to do better.

……………………

Don’t let the school’s short-sightedness about grades and GPAs interfere in your relationship with your teen, or with their ability to learn how to do these things on their own.

I truly wish schools understood that there’s such a thing as too much parental involvement and that their constant contact with parents (their badgering) is not helpful, it’s not encouraging positive parental involvement—on the contrary—it’s causing you angst, encouraging you to nag your kid, which causes power struggle and worse…which in the end, even if it somehow miraculously improves their grades in the short term, may serve to cripple them for the future.

………………………

But I don’t expect schools to change their tactics anytime soon. So, I want you to change the way you think about and engage with these communications.

I mentioned in episode 188 (the one about parent portals that you should listen to as well) – I said you should ask the teachers to take you off the text threads and email lists. That may be a bit extreme, but I would advise you to send these emails to a separate folder (if not the junk folder) and only check them when you check the parent portal, which should be a matter of agreement between you and your teen.

If you’ve been a daily email/portal checker, and it’s stressing you out and causing issues between you and your teen, let them know you’ve decided to back off the portal and the emails, etc. for a bit, that you have faith in them, that you know they can figure things out for themselves, or work things out with their teacher, that you don’t want this to be an issue of contention between you.

I’d suggest agreeing to give them at least 3 or 4 weeks in which you’ll not check these emails from the school or look at the portal and won’t say a word to them about their assignments, studying, or grades. (I know – but you CAN do this). Then brainstorm with them to agree on the expectations for the end of that period.

By the way, I would say if they’re in middle school – somewhere between age 11 and 13, you could give them a longer period of time and see how they manage it - perhaps not even having set expectations the first time—let them take the lead and see where you are at the end of the period and then, if necessary, you could make an agreement about expectations going forward. Remember, mistakes are the best way for them to learn.

But if they’re in high school or secondary school, when the stakes are a little higher, you probably want that 3-to-4-week period and set expectations going in.

Remember to be reasonable here, considering where they are right now. You can’t expect a teen who’s currently failing one class, making a D in two others, and a couple of C’s to go to all Bs overnight. Think baby steps.

For example, if they’ve been failing to turn in the majority of their homework, maybe you agree that they’ll have no more than 4 missing assignments at the end of the period.

Or, if they’ve been tanking tests in a certain class, you might agree that they have no less than a C on any test or quiz in that class during the period.

Of course, you’ll also need to agree to what will happen if they don’t meet those expectations. This depends on your child’s situation and unique needs.

If they’re really having a tough time keeping up with assignments, doing the work, staying organized, it may be time for educational testing or someone else to help them. That could be anyone from another student, an older student, a teacher, tutor, or executive function coach…but not you. If you haven’t learned by now, you don’t need to be involved if it only causes arguments.

If you think the problem is just the amount of time they spend on their work, maybe you agree up front that if they don’t meet expectations, they’ll spend less time on screens to free up time for studying.

Whatever you agree on, write it down, initial it, and stick to it. Do not look at those emails or the portal – don’t even sneak a peek, do not mention homework, schoolwork, or grades to your kid – don’t you dare. I’m telling you, you and your teen will both feel 100-pounds lighter.

Just please remind yourself that grades are not the most important thing in your teen’s life—not by a long shot. There are many, many average students out there running successful businesses, making money as a YouTuber, working in the trades, making art. And college isn’t necessary for living a happy and successful life either.

Remember the goal is for your kid to live a happy, fulfilling life on their own terms one day. The connection they have with you is the crucial factor in this equation.

And allowing them space to learn from life’s mistakes, and develop intrinsic motivation, will not only help strengthen your connection but will give them the clarity and confidence they need to create the life they want one day.

Alright, that’s it for Speaking of Teens today. Thank you for hanging in there until the end. And listen, I would really appreciate you sharing this episode with your friends. They need to hear this message. I so want all parents to ease their stress over this issue – so please help me if you have time to hit that share button.

Until next time, remember to connect with your teen in some small way, each and every day.