Dear Parents/Guardians,
Again, the school year is over or coming to an end soon (depending on your location and existing academic calendar in your state or province). No doubt, you’ve been wonderful over the year. I understand how you ensured that your ward’s tuition is paid, the morning school-runs, and how involved you are in your ward’s academic activities. Hence, I celebrate you for being so resourceful.

However, I also know that “nothing goes for nothing”. The motivation behind your resourcefulness must have been to ensure the academic success of your wards. And usually, this defines the expectation of parents and guardians in relation to the academic performance of their children/wards. So, varying emotions manifest in times like this. The School’s reports on the academic performance of students are out or will be out soon. Grades will be assigned. Being the last term of the school session, students will be labeled and categorized as PASSED or FAILED, PROMOTED or TO REPEAT. This is the reason for this open letter. Please read through; I will try to be brief.

I am calling your attention to a sensitive and recurrent global issue in times like this.
Over the years, it has been observed that our students (especially those with low academic performance as revealed by their assessment report cards) are being perpetually subjected to psychological distresses, devaluing addresses, demeaning acts, physical maltreatments and undue tortures; to mention a few.

May I tell you this: “It is demeaning enough for the school to have carelessly labeled your child with the “FAIL” term; parents do not have to add to the menace with irrational responses”
What do you see to these? A parent denied his son dinner because he failed Mathematics. Having to rescue a child from being battered to death by his own biological father because he/she had been asked to repeat a class. Parents addressing their children with provocative and insulting words due to poor academic performance. Parents comparing the academic performance of their own child with that of a neighbor; just to inform their child how weak he/she is. These and more are recurring incidents.
Quite despicable is the fact that these approaches are the supposed correctional measures adopted by some parents to check the seeming academic woe of their children.

As revealed from my interaction with parents and guardians in the past, it appears that, “Parents tend to react to grades on report cards than they respond to their children’s underlying needs”. It takes more than being just a parent to understand that the totality of the child is more than the figures and grades on the report sheet.

If you truly want that child to excel academically, why not concentrate on the child's disposition? You may be concerned about the failure statement in his/her report, yet, don’t let that prod you to engage in abusive conducts which are often detrimental to the emotions, personality development, social relations and psychological well-being of the child.

Have you thought about sitting him/her down for a reflection on his result? Ask him if he has any reason for the poor performance. Ask her if she thinks she can do better than that. Try to know if he/she is happy with learning. Ask how you can be of help to him. Ask him about his teachers and the school environment. Ask questions about his peer group. Evaluate the home environment and conditions, does it support learning? Help her develop achievable learning goals for the days ahead. Rather than outright rejection, make him feel that he is not alone; when he fails, you fail. I’m sure an average child won’t like to let his/her parents down.

I am not asking you to hide your disappointment from him, let him know you are concerned about his performance. However, the right message must be conveyed. I believe these will help.
Listen to details and not just react to figures and grades on a sheet of paper. As much as I do not want play down the informative and placement value of the results turned out from schools, I will also like to bring to your knowledge that these results do not tell accurately everything about your child. It may even surprise you that the low scores in your child’s report card could be an outcome of his/her teacher’s lapses and or poor learning environment. It may even be an outcome of poorly tailored school activities/schedules. For instance, I have seen schools where five to seven subjects are written during class assessment test and examination periods (in a day). This is a topic for another day.

You should also be aware that high scores in exams do not necessarily mean mastery of subject contents. So, don’t turn out to be that envious parent who compares his child with others; fingers are not equal. Mind you, I am not playing down the place of model-referencing for the purpose of motivation in learning.
Highly esteemed parents and guardians, you don’t really have to nail that child/ward. Help him get out of his mess. Seek to help her discover the gaps in her learning. When it's about children, it's about lives not files.

Sincerely yours.
Omolayo M. Ademimiko, Chief Consultant at Edupsyche Konsults wrote this piece from Benin city, Nigeria.

http://www.loftycentre.com/scores-grades-an-open-letter-to-nigerian-parents-and-guardians/