How to politely phrase, "Don't lecture me, I don't even do that anyhow." (principal, assignments)
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My daughter is an overachiever all on her own. She is also competitive and driven to succeed. Again all on her own. (well she takes after her dad but he doesn't pressure her)
She knows I am very pleased with her if she gets what I call an "honest" grade. Meaning as long as there aren't any zeroes for missed assignments and studies hard. So if she got a C, I be fine with it. But she thinks I am too "nice". lol She makes straight A's and always has. She had a threat of a B and it nearly killed her. She brought it right up the next week. I throughout all of this encouraged her and told her that B isn't the end of the world. It's truly isn't.
She is better about it now in Middle School but still makes straight A's. She has a teacher that didn't return any papers back to the kids OR put in grades on the online system till almost end of the quarter. Unknown to me, kid had been asking her every week or so if she could know what her grades are etc and teacher would tell her she would get around to it.
Well quarter ended and due to a few quizzes where kid skipped a few steps and didn't show fully the work, she got C's on them which brought her overall grade down to a high B. She was very sad as she wished she had known that the teacher was looking for ALL the steps and could have corrected herself on the next few quizzes. She approached teacher and asked if she could do any extra credit to bring up her grade or attend tutoring. (teacher offered tutoring credit points to C or below kids for attending allowing them to bump up their grades) Teacher told her no and that she should be proud of her B.
I then got an email from teacher basically but nicely lecturing me on how I should be pleased that kid got a B etc.
I showed it to kid and she said she never said anything about me and how ridiculous as I would have been happy with a C. So I am not sure how to respond or just ignore it and let her think I am an overbearing hyper mom driving her kids to the brink if they don't bring home an A?
It would bug me enough to say something, although not because I would worry about the teacher's opinion of me. I would want her to know the request was something your daughter did on her own, because her grades are important to her. And, I might be tempted to throw in a little barb about her failure to provide grades until it's too late to do anything about them.
My daughter is an overachiever all on her own. She is also competitive and driven to succeed. Again all on her own. (well she takes after her dad but he doesn't pressure her)
She knows I am very pleased with her if she gets what I call an "honest" grade. Meaning as long as there aren't any zeroes for missed assignments and studies hard. So if she got a C, I be fine with it. But she thinks I am too "nice". lol She makes straight A's and always has. She had a threat of a B and it nearly killed her. She brought it right up the next week. I throughout all of this encouraged her and told her that B isn't the end of the world. It's truly isn't.
She is better about it now in Middle School but still makes straight A's. She has a teacher that didn't return any papers back to the kids OR put in grades on the online system till almost end of the quarter. Unknown to me, kid had been asking her every week or so if she could know what her grades are etc and teacher would tell her she would get around to it.
Well quarter ended and due to a few quizzes where kid skipped a few steps and didn't show fully the work, she got C's on them which brought her overall grade down to a high B. She was very sad as she wished she had known that the teacher was looking for ALL the steps and could have corrected herself on the next few quizzes. She approached teacher and asked if she could do any extra credit to bring up her grade or attend tutoring. (teacher offered tutoring credit points to C or below kids for attending allowing them to bump up their grades) Teacher told her no and that she should be proud of her B.
I then got an email from teacher basically but nicely lecturing me on how I should be pleased that kid got a B etc.
I showed it to kid and she said she never said anything about me and how ridiculous as I would have been happy with a C. So I am not sure how to respond or just ignore it and let her think I am an overbearing hyper mom driving her kids to the brink if they don't bring home an A?
A few thoughts my friend...
don't assume the teacher has an opinion of you that she is all likelihood does not.
She could just talk to every parent this way across the board knowing that odds are there is at least ONE "overbearing hyper" parent receiving the message.
Basically, do not take this so personally.
Secondly, your daughter is showing signs of perfectionism. Taken too far this extreme can put a kid at risk for some unhealthy behaviors as they go through their academic lives.
Please keep an eye out for signs she has gone to an unhealthy level and get her some help if that were to happen
don't assume the teacher has an opinion of you that she is all likelihood does not.
She could just talk to every parent this way across the board knowing that odds are there is at least ONE "overbearing hyper" parent receiving the message.
Basically, do not take this so personally.
Secondly, your daughter is showing signs of perfectionism. Taken too far this extreme can put a kid at risk for some unhealthy behaviors as they go through their academic lives.
Please keep an eye out for signs she has gone to an unhealthy level and get her some help if that were to happen
It was a pretty personal email and it detailed the grades kid did get and how proud I should be of her getting a B and that straight A's isn't always "all that" etc. So it was pretty clear she thinks I am exerting pressure on kid. But it doesn't truly bother me, if anything I was amused. And every reply I tried to send sounded like I did care or that I was angry, which I am neither. Hence, I think I will just leave it alone and not reply.
As for kid showing perfectionism, we have worked on it with her over the years. Like I mentioned in the OP, she has gotten much better about it. Thankfully!
Secondly, your daughter is showing signs of perfectionism. Taken too far this extreme can put a kid at risk for some unhealthy behaviors as they go through their academic lives.
Please keep an eye out for signs she has gone to an unhealthy level and get her some help if that were to happen
In addition to this, she is going to be in for a surprise when her college professors don't allow her to do extra credit to raise her grade to an A. A's aren't really real if extra credit was needed to get them. She'll be in for a rude awakening because college grades are mostly based on test performance. It's a whole new ballgame from high school where teachers assign homework to help the poor testers past class or the average students to get A's.
If it bothers you that much schedule a meeting with the teacher and ask her exactly what she meant when she wrote the email.
Then you can also pass along your daughters concern that she could have done better had the teacher posted progress online as is available for the teacher to do.
Otherwise let it go and get your child to understand that book smart is great as long as you are street smart as well as have common sense, otherwise book smart is useless in the real world of daily life.
In addition to this, she is going to be in for a surprise when her college professors don't allow her to do extra credit to raise her grade to an A. A's aren't really real if extra credit was needed to get them. She'll be in for a rude awakening because college grades are mostly based on test performance. It's a whole new ballgame from high school where teachers assign homework to help the poor testers past class or the average students to get A's.
Although my college professors did explain the grading system at the beginning of class and also returned tests/quizes in a timely manner so we could work towards a better grade. It seems this teacher did not.
If it bothers you that much schedule a meeting with the teacher and ask her exactly what she meant when she wrote the email.
Then you can also pass along your daughters concern that she could have done better had the teacher posted progress online as is available for the teacher to do.
Otherwise let it go and get your child to understand that book smart is great as long as you are street smart as well as have common sense, otherwise book smart is useless in the real world of daily life.
I like this approach. I would take the opportunity to ask the teacher about her grading and posting habits, because sometimes as smart as kids are, they don't understand what teachers are really doing.
There also may have been a little CYA element to the email, though it's hard to know without reading it verbatim.
I'm kind of in the middle on this. On the one hand, it sounds like your daughter honestly earned the B. She is not entitled to any extra credit to bring up a B.
However, I don't consider it best practice for a teacher to not post the majority of grades until the very end of the marking period. Grades should be given out each week to allow students to track their progress so that students who want to improve can change what they're doing in a timely manner, rather than finding out weeks later that what they've been doing was ineffective. At many schools it is policy that gradebooks must be updated online at regular intervals, or that X many grades must be put in per week precisely for the reason of avoiding the scenario you described.
I would send an email to the teacher (and if you don't get an appropriate reaction, send it to the principal) saying you are not disputing the grade, however that your daughter is a serious student who cares very much about her performance and wants to get regular feedback as to how she's doing. Explain the plain facts about when grades were put in and request that in the future they be updated more regularly so that your daughter (keep it about her, not you or the teacher) can make changes immediately when she's learning something incorrectly.
Just to clarify, I have zero issue with the grade. And I am definitely not going to ask for a teacher's meeting. This is middle school and if kid has an issue or a question, she needs to bring it up to the teacher. I am hands off unless there is something severe etc. And this in my eyes isn't severe at all. not even remotely. If anything, I was caught by surprise as I didn't expect this kind of email at all. I only mentioned how kid asked about her grades and if there was any extra credit thinking that the teacher thought I put kid up to it contributing to send that email to me. And the extra credit apparently is only available to those that get a C or below so they can bring up their overall grade. Kid didn't know that and now does so she won't ask again.
I decided not to respond and glad after reading some of the replies on here that others agree.
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And every reply I tried to send sounded like I did care or that I was angry, which I am neither. Hence, I think I will just leave it alone and not reply.
