Grades

As parents of children in school, one of the major issues that we deal with is GRADES. Brad and I try to deal with our children individually so our expectations from each of them vary. We try to look at their strengths and not compare them to each other.

First is Cody. Out of all my children, he is the friendliest and most easy-going. He is also a natural athlete. He is the most social and the most forgetful so he needs constant monitoring with school/homework. He hasn't been a stellar "A" student but when he tries, he can do well. He came home with his first quarter report card for 7th grade the other day. This would've been one of his best report cards... He had four B's, two C's (one in advanced math) and one F!! Well, needless to say, I forgot about the good part of his report card and focused right in on the "F." How do you get an "F" in Social Studies? He said that he lost a major part of his project and ended up turning in one page. I emailed his teacher and talked to her yesterday morning. That went well and I'm hoping to communicate with her more so this doesn't happen again. Last night, he made two lists: one is a list of additional chores he thinks he should do to pay us back for his December trip to Vegas (our deal was nothing lower than a "C" for his grades or he would have to pay us back--we bought tickets and can't change the name on the ticket.) The other list was things that he would do to maintain/improve his grades. I'm going to make a copy so we'll both have one. He will do this until his next report card comes out. Since this is the first time, we've had to deal with this, I don't know if this will work. We'll see...

Second is Brooke. She is an excellent student but things come easy for her so she can get lazy sometimes. I'm hoping that she challenges herself to try harder things and take her work to the next level (even when she thinks it's perfect.) We had a parent-teacher conference for her last week and we got her 3rd grade HSA scores. Wow! She made her Daddy proud with those. We hope she continues but who knows what distractions being a teenager may bring.

Third is Braden. He surprises us in the sports arena and in school. He has a killer instinct that kicks in when it matters most. When I think he hates to write stories and such, his teacher tells us that it's one of his strongest areas--talk about surprise! He did very well this past quarter. He needs to improve on his handwriting--very messy AND he needs to stop playing with his friends when he shouldn't. He's my December baby so we didn't start him in Kindergarten at 4-1/2 years old which is allowed here in Hawaii. We waited until he was five. He seems to be doing well in school and is very confident so I think we made the right decision.

Brody will enter "Junior Kindergarten" next year (new program started this year which Braden couldn't do the year he was eligible for kindergarten.) We'll see how he does and if he either goes straight to first grade or goes to kindergarten. He's another December baby so we'll just have to wait to see how that plays out.

Four kids--four different personalities and we LOVE them! (Yes, even when we've had to deal with things like "F's")