When Your Teen’s Grades Drop: How to Help Without Adding Pressure
If your teen suddenly has bad grades, it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. While one failing grade isn’t a huge red flag, a sudden drop in several classes needs your attention. Here’s what to do.
Teenage developing brains haven’t changed, but our world has drastically changed. For anyone (including myself!) who has ever wished for the ever-talked-about yet non-existent guidebook for raising teens, there is now a solution!
Maggie Dent’s book Help Me Help My Teen has a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to guiding your teens through today’s challenging issues. Throughout the book are beautiful examples of how to help your teen with connection and communication, with guidance on centering yourself first.
Teens are faced with difficult stressors with a complicated world around them, and the same complicated inner world that helps teens learn and grow into adults. Dent is known as the queen of common-sense parenting, tackling modern topics that even the most hip and savvy parents sometimes need help navigating.
As a mom with three teens and a 20-year-old at home, I can tell you firsthand how helpful this book is. Even though I have an empathetic approach and use gentle parenting techniques with my children, there are situations that happen all too regularly where I am stumped and don’t know what to do or say to help my teen.
This book has a clear layout, and it is so easy to find the topic quickly and learn what you need to do to help your child. Let’s be honest: Asking grandma isn’t always helpful (or available) since most parents in our generation had a much more hands-off approach than we do. Facing any issue together with your teen strengthens your relationship with them and helps them move forward with skills to be functional adults!
Sudden Bad Grades
In Middle School and the early months of High School, it’s common and normal to see a dip in a teen’s grades compared to what they were in elementary school. Teens have so much change to process: a hormone surge, needing more sleep, and more expectations and responsibility in school and at home.
It is particularly common among boys, as the prefrontal cortex of their brains are less mature and slower to develop than girls. This makes organization, focus, and thinking ahead more of a challenge for boys and people with certain types of neurodivergence.
Teens of all generations have been no strangers to risk taking behavior, which is another developmental process that comes with this age. If your teen has one grade that has plummeted, they may be trying out taking a risk in a small way as they learn to balance their new independence and responsibility, and a short chat should suffice.
Possible Causes
However, if you notice that multiple or all of your teen’s grades have dropped suddenly, it is a sign that their world is challenging them in some way, and a parent shouldn’t ignore it. Some common reasons for a teen to suddenly have bad grades across the board are:
- Family issues such as violence, loss of a loved one or pet, divorce, remarriage.
- Bullying at school or at home could cause stress and a lack of confidence or depression.
- An unaddressed health concern. For example, low iron makes you tired.
- Deliberate underachievement for social status. If the other kids in school don’t value high achievement, your child may be trying to fit in or be “cool.”
- Rejection from friend group. Belonging is a fundamental human need, especially for teens.
- Problematic anxiety rather than brief or normal situationally appropriate anxiety.
- Extracurricular demands such as band, sports, dance classes, or any other activity or time consuming hobbies. Expectations in all areas can feel too demanding for a teen to do it all.
- Learning challenges like ADHD or dyslexia are possible to be missed in younger years but can cause more trouble in teens when the work is more challenging.
Quick Tips For Positive Teen Conversations
This is not an all-encompassing list, so it’s vital to connect with your teen without being preachy or punishing when faced with bad grades. There could be many things, directly or indirectly, affecting your teen’s ability to maintain good grades.
Dent encourages parents to take a breather, center themselves, and gather their thoughts before having a difficult conversation with their teen. It is important to respond, not react.
First, approach your teen with concern and curiosity, and be open to their input on what has happened to lead to these sudden bad grades, especially if it is out of their norm.
Try some of these tips to see if they help open the conversation smoothly:
- Get comfortable: Have a cup of tea, walk together, or be cozy on the couch. Avoid intimidating body language.
- Keep a calm tone: Using a kind tone and a level voice (not too loud) decreases the chances of escalation or your teen tuning you out.
- Be present: This is a good time to put your phone away and stay connected in the conversation.
- Be empathetic: Take their issues seriously and relay how hard that must be for them. Let them know that their difficulty is valid and they’re not alone.
- Avoid blame: We are in this situation. Let’s accept it and encourage cooperation.
- Autonomous problem solving: Let them have a say in the solution. Without their buy-in, it won’t work. These skills will carry them through life.
“Good Enough” Grades
It’s so important that you don’t stress about high grades over good enough grades. With a “let’s get through this together” attitude, any improvements are a win. Your teen will be more open to trying if the expectations are realistic. Remind them that their grades don’t define them and they have so much to contribute to the world, even if it is not shining through an academic setting right now.
“We have become overly focused on the education of our kids and teens, especially in the pursuit of high grades rather than the nurturing of the whole child.”
Maggie Dent
A great place to start is chatting with their school counselor. They can help you develop a plan for what classes your teen should prioritize and, if necessary, which ones might be able to be dropped or retaken for another semester. Remember, perfection is not the goal.
Make sure to check in with your teen regularly. Tell you love them no matter what, and school grades don’t make a person who they are. This is just a moment in time, and it will pass. Keep listening to how you can help them make a bridge to good enough grades.
Nurture The Whole Child
Recognize and respect whatever challenges led them to sudden bad grades. Be sure to tune into whatever it is and address it. Talking to their doctor or setting up some therapy appointments are helpful ways to begin supporting their needs.
Make sure that the goals you and your teen set are attainable and flexible. Set up progress in small increments to avoid overwhelm. Nothing is set in stone, and all improvements are a win. Your teen got an assignment turned in? Good job, bud! Or got their grade from an F to a C-? Yay, that’s passing!
Taking care of the underlying issue can often help a teen get back on track. Remember that this can take some time and there is catching up to do, which can feel overwhelming. Take their lead in making a plan to get back on track while helping them implement necessary tools (help organizing, planning, therapy).
Supports and Resources
Some teens have success with peer tutors or having homework time with friends. Some public libraries also have free tutoring open to teens, and getting out of the house and away from siblings, pets, instruments, and snacks can be more productive and less distracting.
Don’t underestimate the compassion and help teachers can give. A life skill that every child who flys your coop should know is how to communicate with teachers (someday they’ll be communicating with a boss!). Yep, even the difficult ones. Sometimes, the teachers who seem the most strict are the most caring and helpful when you bring your problem to them and ask for help.
If talking to a teacher feels intimidating for your teen, have them listen and sit beside you as you model talking to their teachers first. That can open a door for your teen to do it independently.
Academic Help
Your teen may need extra support in school as they work on grade recovery, especially since it can take time. If your teen gets a new diagnosis in the process of identifying an underlying issue, such as anxiety disorder or ADHD, they might benefit from a 504 plan, which would give them learning accommodations specific to their needs.
Help your teen identify learning tools that work for them. I can’t help my kids with math, nor do they want me to! Khan Academy has some really helpful videos and tools. YouTube also has helpful math and other academic channels, but beware of the YouTube rabbit hole. It’s a real algorithmic phenomenon! Used cautiously, it can teach Algebra 2 much better than I can, though.
The Executive Functioning Success class called Seeing My Time is incredibly helpful for kids (and adults) learning how to organize, plan, and achieve goals in practical increments. It’s great for people with ADHD or dyslexia (which affects time management) and is helpful for all growing brains. The brain’s frontal lobe isn’t done growing until around age 25, and it controls the executive function.
Focus on The Process, Not The Outcome
It is important to be involved in your teen’s life. However, avoid being too involved or too personally invested in the end result of their school grades. This is their path; part of it is learning independence through this process.
Teens make mistakes, just like all people. They’re human! It’s essential to avoid “outcome love” which only focuses on the end result rather than the process. It’s been shown that paying your child for good grades and punishing them for bad ones doesn’t work. It makes them feel that your love is conditional, missing the point of the life skills learned during adversity.
Good grades can’t be forced, and during the bad grade recovery process, consider how you’d like to measure success as a parent. At the end of the day, ask yourself what the wins were. Were they all huge and bragworthy? Or can you and your teen rest well knowing that progress was made and each day will be a little better than the next? Did they learn the life skills and grit it takes to get through a difficult time?
Supporting your teen in the way they need can be tricky. They need autonomy and help at the same time. Approaching any difficulty with an open heart, lots of hugs, a cup of tea, and a practical plan is a great way to make a new connection they’ll carry into their adult lives.