Hi – Sue Blaney here with your Parenting Tip from Parenting Teens Info.com

My tip this week is
If you have a struggling student, make an action plan >>Listen

It’s late October, and interim reports are out. A woman told me yesterday her 8th grade daughter has 5 D’s right now. Ouch.

Kids don’t want to fail, you need to know that. This child cannot be feeling good right now. What’s a parent to do when a teenager receives an interim report of a bad grade?  You have to make a plan.

First: watch your attitude. If you’re angry, and I won’t say that isn’t a reasonable way to feel, it’s easy for your child to see. And it won’t help you. What will be far more productive is for your teenager to see you as a member of his team, someone on his side. See if you can project an attitude that will help this situation, not make it worse.

Next: have an honest conversation about what your teen feels he needs to be successful. Whenever possible, try and let your teenager take the initiative and be in charge. Obviously, for younger teens and those in serious academic trouble, parents may need to intervene more, but keep the ultimate goal of self-sufficiency in mind.

Include school support services in your plan: whether it’s the teacher, guidance counselor or other support staff, a parent shouldn’t do this alone. This should be managed in conjunction with school personnel, and your teen should be at the table participating when you are putting the action plan in place.

Obviously, if your teen is dealing with 5 D’s or some other serious situation with grades, you’ll want to get at what’s really going on behind the scenes. This may take intervention and participation from the experts at school, and elsewhere. Make your call to the guidance counselor and keep at this until you’ve found your answers.

For a list of possible causes for lack of motivation and more actions to consider, click here.

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Teens…….