More Than a Transcript

Family Meetings

October 24th, 2019

By Angela Traywick

Tip #3: Pick one day/time each week to discuss school/college.

Think about the one topic you don’t like to discuss.  The one topic that makes you uncomfortable, annoyed, or angry. The one topic that makes you feel insecure or anxious. And then imagine that every single time you see a family member, friend, or meet a new person, they ask you about this one thing. Sounds terrible, right?  From talking to many college-bound students over the years, I know that this is how they feel all the time. From the time they enter their junior year until after they graduate, the first thing people ask when they see them is “where are you going to college?”

It’s not just college talk.  This actually happens to kids of all ages, especially in high school.  I remember when I was in high school. If I failed a quiz or test, I knew I typically had several weeks before a written progress report or report card would be sent home in the mail to my parents. I had plenty of time to work out a plan to bring it up before that grade was final. In today’s age of 24/7 access to grade books, you immediately know the result of every single assignment, good or bad. (There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about this last week) I can’t imagine the panic I would have lived with sitting in class with the expectation that the minute I got in the car, I would be intensely questioned about a bad grade received that very day. I feel a little anxious thinking about that right now.

In an effort to relieve some of the anxious moments that our high school students face, let’s create some space for them to build those “figure it out” muscles.  Make a simple rule in your house. Choose one day per week, for one hour, to discuss academics, school performance, and college. Plan a weekly family meeting to discuss all the school-related activities that need to be addressed that week.  Take that time to talk about short term and long term goals. Remember that kids often love to talk about themselves, so open your ears to them, give them your full attention, and let them take the wheel and lead the discussion.

When kids know what to expect, they relax a little.  When they relax, they are naturally more open to discuss those things that may be uncomfortable. When you have had time between seeing the 68 quiz score on Wednesday to the planned family discussion on Sunday, you too have had time to relax. Maybe in that time of non-discussion, your child has had a conversation with his teacher and understands what went wrong on that quiz. Maybe she will have independently created a plan that she will be excited to talk about. This doesn’t all happen at once, and it more than likely won’t happen with your 9th grade student.  However, these weekly meetings will create a time of full attention that will allow you to walk them through strategies and techniques that will help them in the future and will make some of these results the norm.

Start and end these meetings with prayer.  There may be times when there is tension (sometimes teenagers and parents don’t see eye to eye), but starting and ending in prayer brings the big picture back into focus.  When we shift our focus to glorifying God through all we do, “where are you going to college?” seems like a much easier question to deal with.