Just want to hear other experiences

I have two kids in elementary school, one 3rd grader who gets straights A's however he is still young. My 5th grader's has been regressing year over year with his grades, currently averaging B-'s and C's across the board. I feel like he is not taking school seriously and just likes to goof off with his friends at school. I've been able to observe him in class a couple times (through parent events) and he is certainly not as active as other kids at his table during group assignments (the girls at his table seem to be taking the lead). I've been sending him to tutoring at the public school once a week but that does not seem to be helping. To make matters worse, my wife does not take their school very seriously as well and thinks I'm too hard on the boys...... thinks B and C averages is good which I very much disagree. My son will be moving up to middle school next year and so I think it will only get harder for him as well. I'm considering taking him out of all his sports until he takes his school more seriously.

Am I jumping the gun here? Am I worrying to much about grades for a 5th grader?

Absolute guess here, but wouldn't surprise me if he's getting bored and has figured out others can/will carry the load in group work. We review some of the work they bring home to make sure understanding.

Bigger picture though, if there's not any major behavioral issues the teacher is emailing/calling about, I personally wouldn't go so far as to pull him out of sports and such yet.

I have kids of similar ages.

joerobert_pete06 said:

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Am I jumping the gun here? Am I worrying to much about grades for a 5th grader?

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No, because if your school is anything like ours, starting in 6th grade the kids start getting sorted by the enriched classes. These classes not only put them on the track to start doing the more advanced classes in high school, i.e. the classes that will better prepare them for college, but it also automatically sorts them into the classes that will have less kids with behavioral issues.

I haven't found our school to be particularly helpful with educating our kid. She is a 6th grader now. I think that the school will "teach" your kid up to whatever their natural aptitude is and then if you express concern they just say "oh they're doing great don't worry about it!". Which, yes, her making As and Bs is "fine" but I know she is doing that with hardly any effort, and I want to know what I can do to make her excel and push herself, but they aren't interested in that.

So, I hate to say it, but the only time we saw improvement was by sitting down at the kitchen table every single day and reviewing everything, confirming understanding/aptitude, etc. And if she didn't have any homework, you work on things you know they're supposed to be studying, make them sit down and read a book, etc.

Your wife will have to be a part of this though or it will never work. Because when he complains that you're riding his ass and mom doesn't support you, you're toast.

I know exactly how you feel and it drove me crazy but once I realized I had to take it into my own hands, things improved some. Still not where I want them to be, but you are the one that is going to push your kid out of their comfort zone, not his teachers.

We've seen a dramatic shift for the better in how seriously our 6th-grade son takes his academics. Participating in band and athletics have been the motivator to make sure that he is eligible (even though that's never been a question). He has consistently improved this school year, making the honor roll this marking period. He also sees potential in moving from on-level math to advanced level math, and he is really pushing himself to satisfy those requirements.

We also do a daily/weekly tech check searching his school Chromebook history during the school days. Online gaming has been a problem at his school, with kids sharing links/websites in shared Google documents and slide decks. We have to consistently delete files from his Google drive on his computer of these shared documents.

I don't believe in pulling other activities as a form of consequence unless you see that your child just simply is drowning in work and needs extra time. Just dont believe it will be much of a motivator. TV, video games etc? Sure pull those.

From my own experience as a parent, some of this might just be maturity. My daughter lollygagged with academics until she was in 7th grade or so. She's a sophomore now is in all the advanced classes she can be in more or less, works hard at at her academics and excels by measure of every metric.

Make sure you understand and evaluate whether it is attitude or aptitude. Don't just assume it is attitude at that age… because he might legitimately need extra support and you just aren't seeing it.

Thanks for the repose. He has high aptitude, I've seen it before in school and in sports… he is usually the smartest on the field. I think it's more attitude at this point.

Thanks for your response. I started making them show me their graded assignments, started that last year, but the problem I see is that the teacher returns assignments in bulk…. As if she gets behind at grading them and then does a big dump on the kids and then their backpacks are a total mess with papers. I like the idea of staying on pace with their curriculum and reviewing fresh material.

I will start having them show me daily their notebooks to see what they are reviewing in class. It won't be graded assignments but it's something.

joerobert_pete06 said:

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Thanks for your response. I started making them show me their graded assignments, started that last year, but the problem I see is that the teacher returns assignments in bulk…. As if she gets behind at grading them and then does a big dump on the kids and then their backpacks are a total mess with papers. I like the idea of staying on pace with their curriculum and reviewing fresh material.

I will start having them show me daily their notebooks to see what they are reviewing in class. It won't be graded assignments but it's something.

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We have the same issue. Our kid will have one grade in a class then they dump a ton of graded assignments in at once, so she'll go from having a 95 and we're thinking "OK great, we're going to have a good quarter!" then it drops to an 83 because of the grade dump. Then we are in scramble mode trying to figure out what happened, what she is struggling with, etc.

It is incredibly frustrating. I think you just have to check in with them daily and start with the subjects they really struggle in. For ours, I think reading and comprehension was her big problem, and they bled over into every subject - hard to do word problems in math when you aren't figuring out what to solve for.

Best of luck - I totally understand where you are coming from. But keep your head up because you actually care - it blows my mind the attitude that most parents have nowadays about their kids and their grades. It's truly sad to listen to some of the stories my friends in education tell me about some of these poor kids.