Mrs. Miriam Klein
Director of Educational Support

 
It’s one of the most anticipated times of the year in education …  Yes, you guessed it correctly… the night that every parent anticipates… parent-teacher conferences. This is the night where parents get seven to eight minutes to discuss the progress of their children with their teachers. Most of us go into those meetings with mixed emotions; some of us are hopeful, some excited, some filled with dread, and some are lost with how to navigate the situations. There are also always the others who come, filled with positivity and expecting to hear how well their child is doing, only to feel the punch in their gut as every teacher repeats the same sentiments about their child.

Every parent falls into at least one of the above categories, however the focus of this article is not WHAT we hear on that night but HOW we deal with the information and the steps we take after parent-teacher conferences. As parents of teenagers, our reactions and conversations that follow this evening matter more than the words of the teachers that night.The follow up meetings are what can make or break our children!
 
The day after parent-teacher conferences is the busiest day in the Guidance and Support offices. We see so many students come to us with “deals” they have made with their parents, ranging from monetary to vacation incentives. For others, the deals are the opposite: things taken away if the student does not get certain scores or improve in classes. While this may seem like a wonderful motivation, it actually is just the opposite. These incentives create stress, anxiety and, in many cases, anger, for those students to perform to their parents’ standards. One must also recognize that in many cases, the students really are honestly just trying their best. Students sit in our office, devastated that their parents have offered them something that the students know in their hearts they will never be able to achieve. We watch as their self-esteem plummets and their love of learning slowly begins to diminish.
 

Believe it or not, rewards or incentives can actually be harmful to your child’s motivation. According to Dr. Stacey Schenkner, a family psychologist, it is important for parents to focus on the effort and not on the outcome, and rewards should not be given based on grades, but rather on the process students use to get the grades. Using money, vacations or even electronics as an incentive will never get anything more than temporary obedience from our children. Yet, one must realize that the temporary obedience that the incentives buys comes at a great cost. The tactic of incentives leads students away from flying solo and taking responsibility for their learning. Students will only try to achieve the better grade because of the reward, rather than learning the tools and strategies needed to succeed in the outside world.
 
According to Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards, there are at least 70 studies showing that extrinsic motivators – including As, money, vacations, taking away privileges, and other rewards – are not merely ineffective over the long haul, but counterproductive with respect to the things that concern us most: the desire to learn, the commitment to good values, and so on.
 
There is nothing wrong with giving your children things, but the issue is with making those things contingent on performance outcomes. It is critical to understand that the way school is structured not every child is going to be at the very top of the class. Thus, giving students incentives that they personally know they can never receive is setting them up for ultimate failure, clearly the opposite of parents’ best intentions.
 


So what can you do to help motivate your child?

 
A much better approach is for parents to motivate their child by:

  • Conveying and modeling the right values
  • Showing care, concern and helpfulness when they encounter obstacles and difficulties
  • Recognizing your child’s strengths and focusing on those
  • Celebrating the small things
  • Using positive language
  • Affection, like a hug,  to show that you care when a good mark is received
  • Working with your child through the process of learning
  • Encouraging them to find their true passions and explore it will help make your child feel special and valued

When they feel this way they will only then want to prove themselves to you, as their parent and the school. This is more valuable to them then money, vacations or electronic incentives.
 
The world around us is moving at an incredible speed. Our children need to be resilient to change and learn to adapt to it. Let us all work together to make parent teacher conferences successful in their outcomes and let us take a careful look at the manner in which we motivate the individuals we all care so deeply about.