<p>I know that she has HW and tests and gets grades.
She sends me a text when she gets a good grade on a test. She also tells me her gradepoint each semester. Her university professors post grades one by one by one, so she is usually home when they are posted and she often screams the grade when she gets it so we all know. Funny kid.</p>
<p>Funny with both my Dâs, one in med school & one a junior undergrad. Both call either myself or wife immediately after a big test, walking across campus while saying they messed up bigtime & for the next five minutes one of us is âtalking them off the ledgeâ. Sometimes theyâre accurate in their assessment, sometimes theyâre overly pessimistic, but I just think they have so much pent-up energy after an exam that they have to insanely vent, and of course they wouldnât want their friends to see THAT! So guess-who gets the call, which is OK.</p>
<p>RE: grades, for D2 I do have access to her final grades for purposes of discussing the plan of attack moving forward, but nothing during the semester, which is fine with me. Only time Iâve had to advise her during the semester was when she had gotten behind the eight-ball in MicroBiology & eventually had to drop it, which was at the time a traumatic thing for a former straight A student in HS. I told her to live to fight another day.</p>
<p>One thing you could ask yourself is if it would be useful or not to know. It might make you feel less anxious to know if heâs on the right track, but if you didnât like what you saw, would or could you saying anything that would help, or might it hinder? That is, could you give realistic advice that would actually make a difference one way or another? (which is quite apart from it just feeling good to offer it, feeling some sense of control over it yourself)</p>
<p>Iâm generally of the mind that Iâd rather not know about things I canât do anything about, as what will be will be. I only have a HS senior at this point, but realized especially this year that me offering unsolicited opinions and advice has not been helpful and has only created unnecessary stress. Now when my opinion and advice are asked for, itâs a different matter. But it probably depends on kid, parent and a load of other factors.</p>
<p>I have access to both of their accounts for financial and other reasons and I have to admit that I will occasionally look at their grades. They would tell me anyway. S2 struggled a lot his first two quarters (and got a dreaded F) and I think it made him feel better that we could talk about it and work through it.</p>
<p>Our freshman D has kept us updated on how she is doing on all of her tests and papers so far this semester. She also shared her grades with us when she was in high school. However, she has not granted us permission to access her grades online. Fortunately, she is very self-motivated and an excellent student. So far, she is getting Aâs. I would imagine that some students who are not doing so well may not want to share this with their parents.</p>
<p>Almost nada so far from our freshman daughter, except a couple of good onesâŠassuming the others were ânot so goodâ. </p>
<p>This is d2; D1 has told us every single grade since freshman year ( sheâs a senior)âŠ</p>
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<p>This is my thinking also. Iâve had to work on disengaging, letting go, etc. once the little darlings went off to college. But it really is time.</p>
<p>âWell, I just got off the phone with D3 who is convinced she flunked her midtermâŠâ</p>
<p>I always thought I had done horribly. I was almost always wrong. </p>
<p>My DS tells us very little. He has mentioned a few grades on a couple of papers and will comment on how much reading he has to do. Just had his first two midterms this week and he said they were very hard but he thinks he did ok. </p>
<p>I have no intention of checking his grades or asking him. Itâs up to him if he wants to tell us.</p>
<p>Last year, as a 17 year old freshman coming out of podunk HS amongst largely prep school crowd, we had specific and extensive discussions about some of DSâs classes/grades. He had a couple of honors classes that might have been over his head and considered dropping down to regular level. My job in our discussions was to make sure he thought through the pros and cons after the first midterms were, shall we say, less than stellar? He made the choice to stay in and did fine in the end. It was wonderful to see him run up against a wall, put his shoulder down, plow through and grow from the experience. I think it also helped him to know that we knew what he was going through, that we were in his corner rooting for him as he kept us apprised of his progress. </p>
<p>This year, having caught up, itâs more an issue of quantity of work rather than difficulty of work, and heâs on his own. We get general bits of info here and there and we donât ask for more.</p>
<p>We do have access to his semester grades. They come out when he is home and whoever sees one first (they trickle out over couple of weeks after end of semester) generally yells to the other, or we look it up together in the kitchen computer. Grades have never been a private matter in this household and we share like we would share any other successes and not-so-successes.</p>
<p>I only know what she chooses to tell me about grades until the year is all over and DH asks for a transcript to send to the car insurance company for lower rates. I feel grades are solely her responsibility now that she is in college. Like other posters have said, D will tend to mention the Aâs, so I assume the ones she doesnât mention arenât Aâs. However, since her freshman year GPA was OK but not stellar, I gave her several lectures on the need to bring it up so she can get a decent job or get admitted to a good grad school after graduation. Many companies set a threshold below which they wonât consider an application, and no doubt would prefer even higher. Recently, I added to that lecture the demand that she eliminate some distractions from her life and schedule, so that her studies and career prep. would remain the priorities they should be. I sensed they werenâtânothing grave, but a slippage.</p>
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<p>Agree. However, voluntarily sharing grades with parents has nothing to do with student shirking responsibility.</p>
<p>On the other hand, now that DS is in college, we no longer lecture. We suggest and discuss.</p>
<p>My D talks with me a lot about grades, papers, projects, etc. I think she likes to have someone to talk about the details with and itâs not something she and her friends talk about, except the occasional vent. I like hearing about it because I find lots of what she does really interesting.</p>
<p>My FY son reported early on, that his Spanish teacher from South America was difficult to understand. Thatâs all I got - LOL!</p>
<p>We play nice and discuss at first. Lectures and ultimatums follow as needed, and sometimesâlike this weekâthey are needed. Since weâre paying the college bill, we demand from our student high levels of diligence and responsibility, in return for the privilege of attending this expensive school. Not even discussion was ever necessary for S, but D is less mature with regard to time management and goal setting. </p>
<p>Everythingâs relative, though, since D is an accomplished kid at a top university and my friends would laugh hysterically if I ever complained about my D not being diligent enough! In sum, we all know our own kids best; no thread on CC should be a guide for the proper approach for a specific student.</p>
<p>Every parent/child relationship is different - even for families with multiple children.</p>
<p>Our first son is very clear regarding our expectations for his efforts and results. </p>
<p>He knows he has many resources avaialable to him (including us parents), should he feel the need for assistance or reinforcement. </p>
<p>If he doesnât perform to his potential and/or does nothing to seek available help⊠he understands the very likely consequences: funding his own education going forward, learning a trade or enlisting in the service.</p>
<p>Fortunately, heâs an independent, confident young man who knows how to study and to advocate for himself. Our philospohy with him is, until we hear otherwise⊠he is learning, and successfully managing the process. </p>
<p>One of the main objectives we have for him in this college experience, is to become an independent young man who finds his own passions. We are certainly here to guide and support him along the way⊠but the road map is his.</p>
<p>Recently we asked what the typical week looks likeâŠand got an idea that all is well with balancing academics, team and other obligations. No specifics though.</p>
<p>We know our student has been by to see the prof or TA to ask about some things.
We know there is studying going on.
We know that some mid term tests grades were lower than liked - though passingâand some other classes have very very high grades. </p>
<p>Our student seems to be handling the heavy work load and adjustments pretty well.</p>
<p>In college we need to let go of knowing these things . My 3 19-24 year olds let me know whatâs going on . ( 24 is in grad school p/t ). If you focus more on a general what is going on conversation , it is easier to slip in " So , whatâs happening these days in _____________ " ?</p>
<p>My son found college grading to be much different from high school grading. In high school, he always knew his grades in his classes at any given point. We did discuss with him the importance of grades in keeping scholarships, and he was frustrated because professors in many of his classes indicated that test grades would be curved at the end of the semester, but couldnât say how much the curve would be. We encouraged him to touch base with each professor during office hours to see if he was on track. They werenât very helpful, but I think it was good for him to have the experience of having contact with professors outside of class. Ultimately he did fine, and some of his classes had pretty big curves.</p>
<p>^^Here all the high schools have electronic grade books that can be accessed daily by parents and students. When students arrive on our campus, they think that we do the same and it makes it a bit difficult. Some college courses only have a midterm and a final.</p>
<p>sorry I have not read the whole thread âbut my opinion:
parents you need to let this constant monitoring go. It is time to let your kids grow up. If youâre paying the bill it is because you believe in us and our ability to make good decisions, if you donât ( you didnât do a good job as a parent or we werenât ready to move away) stop paying.</p>
<p>We need you for emotional support, not to check every quiz grade. If we donât tell you the truth about how weâre doing then you made a mistake along the way in raising usâŠwere you too strict, unable to understand that we have a life outside of the family unit, etcâŠ?</p>
<p>Let us be responsible for ourselvesâŠyou be responsible for your own lives. If you dont think we are capable now, i guess you never will. We will resent you when we get older.</p>