Making the Grade

So yesterday when Lexie called me at work to say she was home from school, she wanted to discuss her upcoming report card. Apparently the teachers have been really drilling it into the kids’ heads that report cards are coming out in about TWO WEEKS, so they’d better crack down. Lexie related to me that she THINKS she will be getting all A’s with the possible exception of math (probably a B) and music (of which she is uncertain because her music teacher wouldn’t tell her whether two wrong on a test was an “A” or a “B”). Obviously, I am glad she is so determined to get good grades, but I also don’t want her getting too pumped up about having all A’s until she gets her actual report card. I told her that no matter what her grades were, I know that she has tried very hard so far this year, and I am very proud of her work. She barely acknowledged that comment as she proceeded to tell me that she thinks school has been getting easier for her, and that hopefully if not this trimester, NEXT one she will have all A’s.

This whole situation makes me kind of nervous, because I really don’t want her putting that much pressure on herself. I mean, obviously I want her to work hard and do well, but I remember when I was in school how important grades were in my home, especially to my father. School had always been easy for me, I somehow managed to get pretty much all A’s with very little effort. So when I did get the occasional B (or God forbid, a C), there was hell to pay. No excuses – anything less than an A was unacceptable, and next time you’d better improve. One time in high school I pointed out that a C in Honors Advanced Algebra wasn’t actually a BAD grade, it just meant that I was average in an “above average” class. Which to me, balanced itself out. Not to my dad. He BLEW UP. I somehow managed to pull up the grade and keep him from killing me by the next quarter.

Anyway, because of always being told that anything other than perfection was unacceptable, I am now bound and determined not to do the same thing to my daughter. As long as she tries, which Lord knows she does, I will praise her for ANY grade she receives. But this new obsession she has with getting A’s has me scrambling to explain to her that A’s are not the bane of her existence. Without implying that she should stop trying, of course.

From the beginning, Lexie has had a more difficult time with school than other kids. Even now, she struggles with some reading and math. But dammit, that kid busts her ass TRYING. And she never gives up. She was a late bloomer when it came to learning to read, and fell behind in second grade. This prompted me to enroll her in Sylvan (and take out a loan that I will be paying off until she is 23), which worked wonders. Her self-esteem shot up, and she seemed to be grasping all her schoolwork much better. Even her teacher commented that her confidence level had improved greatly, and her grades reflected her new learning skills. Well worth the investment, I have never regretted it for a second.

See, I have always felt responsible for her learning problems. When I was pregnant, I didn’t follow the protocol very well. And to this day, I beat myself up over that. I constantly wonder if what I did to my body during that time caused her to encounter these struggles with learning. And I also wonder if things would’ve been any different had I done everything RIGHT during my pregnancy. Of course, water under the bridge and all that, but I still allow that guilt to consume me every time I hear her mispronounce a word or see her write an incorrect answer to one of her math problems.

Then yesterday in the mail, I get a letter from the school district with the results of her standardized test scores for science. According to them, she is below average in every category. WAY below average for the school norm, and not even that close to average for the state norm, either. I know I shouldn’t let things like that get to me, but they do. Unlike my dad was with me, though, I am not upset with her for not doing well, I ACHE for her because I know how hard she tries. And I just don’t understand these stupid tests, either. Lexie is frequently telling me how much she loves science, and she KNOWS she is getting an A in it, then the stupid district sends me a graph basically implying that she just isn’t cutting it. To top it off, the envelope was actually addressed TO my daughter. Which really angers me, because she doesn’t need to see something like that, something that bursts her bubble and makes her feel inadequate. Thank God I opened it before she saw it. Oh, and? Right after I read it, I threw it out.

I think the bottom line is, I don’t want my daughter to have to struggle. I don’t want her to ever feel that her best just isn’t good enough, and I NEVER want her to feel stupid. I want her to know that no matter what she does in life, or what grades she gets, or what a standardized test graph shows, she is SPECIAL. She is uniquely intelligent and perceptive when it comes to life in general, and unfortunately they don’t pass out grades for that. Maybe she will get all A’s. Obviously, I would be proud as hell if she did. But I would be just as proud of all C’s. Know why? Because she’s my daughter, that’s why.