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Alright. Hey and welcome back to Words of Life. As parents, it's easy to focus on grades, assignments, and our kids' academic success. But how can we encourage our children without making achievement their identity? In today's episode, our guests share some practical wisdom on partnering with teachers, supporting struggling students, and helping our kids navigate challenges like anxiety and their growing independence.
We pray this conversation encourages you and your family. And that was a project. I know. Oh, no, I'm not sure. I want to be able to help with those.
I know. I'm going to say that. I'm doing it right. Because when you're having so much fun, that I then turn around and she's nowhere to be found. And I'm having a blast.
And I'm like, look at this dinosaur. Look at his mouth and stuff. And she's like, okay, that sounds cool. I love that. I know, I remember helping Troy with a project.
They had a talking zoo in second grade. And he had to write this big, huge poster board about the sharks and What they did. I'm like, this kid has his handwriting's not great.
So I wrote everything and then I got to school and no other parent helped. Like I was the only one that did the right at least. Yes, he did get a good grade. He knew all his facts and everything because you had to push his little button and then he'd tell you everything. But I'm like, oh man, I need to stop rescuing.
I just need to let him, like you said, like just struggle through it. I also think nowadays with technology, with all these apps, like it's almost hard not to know what's going on. Like school, I get school notifications all the time, a whole just list of emails of like, they got this on their assignment. And so if you have the information available to keep track of You know, the grade trackers and all these things. And teachers, I think they actually tell you on their website, you can go to each.
Like grade, and they have a link to view the class guide. Like, hey, this is what they're working on.
Some of our teachers, I mean, we can go in and we can get a PDF of what they want. All that information is available for you to know, like, where they're supposed to be, what they're working on, more than before. I can't imagine my parents had that information. I'm glad my parents didn't have that information. I just want to be like, girl, you and me both.
Yep. The danger, the only danger with that is because it's information overload. It can start to lose some of the value. And so I think that when we have so much information, we are convinced that we, okay, we know what our kid's doing, or we know what. When, you know.
It's sometimes Isn't actually that. And so I think we want to make sure that we are still having those. personal conversations that we've already talked about you know today about Hey, okay, so Talk to me about what you learned in science. What was that that's a really cool assignment you're doing, but. what is it that you're actually taking away from that?
Try to have those conversations because I think that those conversations are far more valuable than just the surface of what was the assignment, what did you get on the assignments. The only other side note to what we were talking about were we how do we check on our kids and We want to promote that independence. One of the most important conversations every parent needs to have, especially middle school, high school parents. is they need to talk their to their kids about how they're using AI. Because every kid is going to.
And so you need to have a conversation with them. About how it's going to be helpful to them, how it's a tool they need to learn how to use. but how they cannot just use it to replace what they're doing. I think math is one of the elements that is a little bit more safe in some ways, but I know my colleagues in the English department absolutely just have their hands full with kids are not writing their own thoughts. And so, you know, our daughter, especially our going into high school, she's often talked to us about.
Yeah, all my classmates just did that on AI. They just used the AI to answer that question. And so she's come to the point where, like, okay, I can see where it can help me be a bit more efficient. But we're trying and we want that conversation to happen. We need to.
And it's hard for us as parents because we didn't have that as kids growing up. And so we don't have that experience.
So it's important that we start to have a conversation with each of our kids about.
Okay, how are we going to have Would some form of AI help us? but not replace your learning. Because if if you don't actually do the work, then you didn't go to the gym today to work out. No, you you let the AI bot do the workout for you. You didn't you know.
So you have to actually do the work. And if every single thing we're researching, we're just letting a bot do for us, that's got to be doing something up here that's diminishing. I don't have the science behind that, but I know that there have been studies that are out there that like the brain, like we're not thinking as hard as we did before. Like our creativity is slipping away because we're just letting the bots do it. Yeah, so have the conversation with your kids.
It you don't have to have great solutions. But you have to start talking about it because Yes, you may just see the grades in the grade book and you may see your students turning something in, but how much of that was their own creative thought? How much of that was their effort? Um when their your kid needs to needs to have that conversation and it's an ongoing conversation. And I imagine that conversation is better to start having early.
Earlier than you probably think you need to have that conversation.
So, if you're waiting, it might be too late, and your kid's already developed some bad habits. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. We're going to take a quick bad break, and we'll be right back. When life gets overwhelming, true peace isn't found in doing more. It's found in Jesus.
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What should parents do? How should they respond appropriately if their child is struggling academically? I think one of the things that we've talked about for and Previous to this is One, if you immediately jump on the grade. And why was that grade sub four? then you're starting to tie identity to the grade.
And so we have to really be careful as parents that we Have done the groundwork. And if we haven't, we go back and we really emphasize, okay. Your identity is not tied to this grade. You'd be surprised. I say to my students before every major assessment.
How much of your identity is tied to this test? And a lot of them say a lot of my identity, and I say zero. Zero of your identity is tied to this test. And so I'm saying that, but I'm one voice out of many voices, right?
So I think that's the first thing is we just have to really make sure that our child knows. My identity is not found in whether my grade is a B, C, anywhere in between. If the child is really struggling, You've tried to have some conversations and you don't really feel like you're getting anywhere. When should parents reach out to the school? What should that look like?
What are parents allowed to do? Like, what is that process then? I feel like the first line of defense should be reaching out to the teacher. the one who is Present with the student, knows the student, hopefully knows the student, and we would also assume that you have established. Rapport and communication from the beginning of the year, right?
By going to the open houses, by going to the meetings. If I were to think about it on the teacher side, you just want to be present, but not overbearing at the beginning, especially. Be positive, be encouraging, and be curious. Be curious, be careful. Like, ask them: hey, what are you seeing?
Not accusatory. And then, when things are struggling, coming with.
Okay, not making an accusation here, just curious: why do you think my son or my daughter might be struggling on this particular topic, or what was it that maybe they missed?
So I think opening the conversation as opposed to It being, hey, this didn't go the way I wanted. We ought to fix it. That's a team effort. I think very often teachers begin to feel like babysitters as opposed to teammates. And so we want to make sure that as parents, when we're reaching out to our kids' teachers, that they know, hey, we are equally as a part of this, if not the biggest player on the team.
How can I support you as you support my child? I was telling Dinez earlier that it's amazing how many Emails I get that are very, very aggressive and and almost Just snarky, and I'll say, hey, let's have a phone conversation. And we get on the phone and all of a sudden the tone has changed. And they're much more receptive. And so I think that if we as parents reach out to our teachers, it should be very positive, but saying, okay.
We want to partner with you in assisting our child. whatever that looks like. I think you said a couple of really good things. Was one, like, we are on the same team. And I think that's helpful to recognize that, like, it's not me against you, but like, we really are on the same team to help my kids succeed.
And I appreciate what you do for that. The social-emotional side is asking, being curious about what else is going on in my child's life. Are there any significant stressors or events or things that might be? Um You know, Hey. distracting them from performing the way that I know that they can.
Right. And talking to, yes, the teachers, talking to your child themselves, or just maybe their friendship circles are changing, right? That's a huge part of their life. The dynamics between friends and what is going on in their life that you have to consider that could be impacting how they're performing too. Guidance counselors are a beautiful resource.
Now, they're usually more. They're being proactive and they're trying to kind of respond when something's already happened. But you can still bring them in on the conversation so that they can keep an eye and they can sort of assess like you know, what could be going on in the school environment for them. Yeah, I think getting to the why Is first to communication and then getting to the why is this. Either suddenly becoming a problem or is a problem.
I know our son was bullied and we didn't know about it. uh for a long time for a significant amount of time And that was his why. That was his why. was just trying to get through the day. And um just focus on It wasn't a physical bullying necessarily, but it certainly attacked his character and his mental health and all of that.
So that was a huge part of it. You know, just like, I'm not good enough. I can't get through this.
So, yeah, so getting to the why is definitely a huge, huge thing. We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation. We're going to take one more ad break and we'll be right back. You don't need more discipline. You just need more of Jesus.
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Well, we touched on celebrating progress just a little bit, but I feel like you said something about, like, hey, celebrating, you know, just celebrating the wins, really, and whatever that looks like.
So even if it is, hey, they're not bringing home an A, but maybe it's a project or an assignment that they wrote and they're reading out to you or just celebrating whatever that is for your child and maximizing that, because those are the experiences that I think that's going to stick with them as part of their academic journey, right? Every person, every student, every human has different gifts and different interests. And I think when you find the thing, the subject, the project or whatever that you saw your kid really shine in, I think really leaning into that and supporting that, encouraging them. School historically has a bad rap of just trying to make you better at what you're not good at instead of just really like investing in what your talent is. And I think making sure that we as parents are finding those little sparks in our kids and just like just celebrating that in whatever way we can.
I know our second struggles a little bit more in math. She really works hard on just studying. And, you know, she came home and she got like an 89, right? And that's still, that's a phenomenal grade. But knowing the work and the effort she put into it, I was like, that's amazing.
Let's go get ice cream. Yes. That's so amazing, you know? And she's like, but it wasn't. And I was like, oh my gosh, I know how hard you worked.
Like, we're just so proud of the work you put into that. I was like, this is worth going out and getting ice cream for. School is hard. I mean, it just is. I wouldn't want to do it.
No, I don't either. I know. I go every day. It's lovely. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs.
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These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com, where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more.
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