Top 3 Reasons Why Parents Prefer Grades Over Education
Wonder why your parents ask you what grade did you achieve in your test, not what did you learn from your test? Well, you are not alone. Parents care more about their child’s grades than the child itself. Parents expect many things from their offspring, but the most valuable thing in their eyes is good grades. They want their children to succeed in life and in their vision, only good grades lead to a successful life.
So look no further, here are the top 3 reasons as to why parents prefer grades over education.
Grades Are Everything:
Every parent has said something like this to their child. They believe that the sole purpose of going to school is to attain good grades. Attaining bad grades is a slap to their face. They believe that only good grades can lead to a better living. They don’t care that whether or not you are learning new material, they just want straight A’s on your report card. They take drastic measures in punishing their children when they do not live up to their expectations, they scold them, ground them, take away their computers and mobile devices. They pressurize them to achieve nothing but good grades.
Parents care about grades more than education as they want to tell others that their child completed his course with flying colors. They do not want to tell others that their child barely passed his course. They do not want to feel embarrassed while discussing their child’s academic development.
Only Good Grades Lead to Scholarships:
Parents are interested in scholarships because they are the ones with the financial burden. They want to provide the best for their child when it comes to education according to their financial means, which is why they prefer grades more than education. It is true that good grades lead to scholarships which reduces the education fee by 25%, 50% or even 100%. But grades are not the only factor in achieving scholarships. Being good in sports like basketball, baseball, soccer, American football (Rugby) can also lead to exceptional scholarships. Being a pro in other activities like proficiency in writing, music, theatre etc, can also help in getting a pretty decent scholarship. Many top universities like Harvard and Stanford enroll students with scholarships based upon sports or other activities.
According to a research, over 177,000 sports scholarships were available for students in the United States of America between 2019 and 2020 and American football (Rugby) accumulated over 30,000 scholarships.
Grades Are More Important Than Extracurriculars:
This is partially based on the latter reason. Most parents believe that being involved in extracurriculars makes it difficult for the student to study hard which in turn, results in bad grades. They believe that studying 24/7 is the right choice and that is, just not normal.
They blame the school’s authority and management for holding many events (which are unrelated to education) throughout the year.
Extracurricular activities build a person, teaches them perseverance, dedication and makes them discover their hidden capabilities especially at a very young age. But parents are obsessed with good grades and they are ready to undermine other achievements until the report card does not shape up to their standards.
Effects on Students:
· Students fall in depression, suffer from anxiety. Some even go to the extent of committing suicide. During the 2018–19 academic year, doctors claimed that among their student patients, around 24 percent cases were related to anxiety.
· Students resort to cheating in order to gain good grades to please their parents.
· Students get addicted to cigarettes and do drugs like marijuana, cocaine etc.
· Students start drinking alcohol despite being underage.
· Constant scolding from parents can lead to insecurity, second guessing everything.
· They become short tempered.
They subject to doing anything which relieves their pain, they just want to make themselves happy and stress free.
Conclusion:
Hey, an A+ is just as good as an A, one B in a line of A’s is not the end of the world. Pick yourself up and try to do better next time. Remember talent lies within a person regardless of whatever grades he/she achieve.
Remember that Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and Bill Gates created Microsoft and both were college dropouts. But that did not stop them in achieving their goals and both of them are now billionaires.
Studying should never be characterized as “a way to achieve good grades”. Studying should be characterized as “learning about something in which you have interest”. Just study hard and study that very thing that excites you.
Do remember that parents want the best for their children. Their primal objective is to see them happy and well-adjusted in life. Parents will keep doing their thing until their child has reached success.
And remember that grades are not everything, they are just a contributing factor to a good life ahead.
