Now don't get me wrong, we are not all loosy goosy anything goes around here. We do have high expectations for our daughter Reagan. We are doing all that we can to set a good foundation for her to live her best life. She is expected to do her best at all times, do her homework and learn. However, we ( her parents) are not tripping on her grades. Reagan has a B average with a couple of C's sprinkled in. That's cool.
Of course coming from a strength based perspective, I focus on the things that she is good at which at the time is reading and art. She struggled with math in the 1st grade but we worked with her on it and she improved. She now maintains a C in math and I'm happy that she knows how to add and subtract .
The real reason why I don't care about grades is because Reagan's self esteem and internal strengths are far more important that what grades she gets in the 3rd grade. I barely remember my 3rd grade teacher let alone my grades. What stays with her forever is how she feels about herself and that will determine her level of accomplishment in life.
Internal strengths such as effort, social and emotional intelligence, critical thinking, creativity, capacity to love and collaboration cannot be measured by grades or standardize test. In fact, many tests only measure a student's ability to produce a correctly memorized answer.
Children succeed in life for many reasons; grades do not guarantee success. So why does our society place so much emphasis on it. One reason maybe because internal strengths are difficult to measure. Another maybe that the school system was designed for an outdated industrial workforce.
During this time we may obsessed with numbers and comparison, but that doesn't mean we have to teach our children to measure their self worth by grades or test scores alone. As parents are in a position to nurture our children's self love and help develop the internal strengths that determine a meaningful life.
