So frustrated with not being able to know my kids grades.....

[Anonymous]

OP here and I finally got my daughter to open up to me. She did fail a class her first semester but did well in the others. We talked about why she failed and she says she learned from it and it helped her realize she wanted to major in something different. To all those who said I came across as overbearing and controlling I can definitely see where you get that idea after rereading my OP. I was just very stressed out about the whole situation. My daughter was not communicating with me and I was worried something was up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I would wonder if she even has any grades. Maybe not even attending classes. may be a lot more going on here than just not allowing mom to see the grades. The secrecy is definitely a red flag warning.

This. This happened to an acquaintance. His DD wouldn't hand over the grades and made noise about "independence" and "maturity" and "trust." Turns out his DD was continuously stoned for much of the first year, was in a different boy's bed every night, and wound up with a sheet full of C- and D-range grades, from what I remember. DD was told not to come back absent taking a year off. Record destroyed, $55,000 down the tubes. In HS, DD had been the sweet cute "good kid" who got As andBs.

OP, make the demand.

How would the parents seeing the grades have changed this? Are they going to show up and make demands? How does that work? The college handled it, they made the girl take time off. Thats the way it works, when they screw up or need help (I suspect the latter was the case here -- sounds like there might have been a mental health issue) there are consequences. Just like if you screw up on a job. You don;t need parents to create the consequences.

Early demonstration of clear, continuing academic expectations, plus absence of a gap in expecting personal responsibility, could easily have headed this off. Waiting until after a full year's academic damage (and lost $) is awful for everybody. Parents would have known, and been able to directly intervene, if an up-front arrangement (like a student-signed FERPA/Buckley waiver) had been in place up front.

[Anonymous]

Most college kids don't know exactly where they stand until the end - end of the semester. Final exams count for a lot.

OP- sounds like you've made very good progress. I trust you saw the actual posted grades on a university website?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here and I finally got my daughter to open up to me. She did fail a class her first semester but did well in the others. We talked about why she failed and she says she learned from it and it helped her realize she wanted to major in something different. To all those who said I came across as overbearing and controlling I can definitely see where you get that idea after rereading my OP. I was just very stressed out about the whole situation. My daughter was not communicating with me and I was worried something was up.

I'm glad you feel better OP and it sounds like a good resolution for your family, but just to play this out what would the harm have been of not finding out? OP's DD failed a class, thats bad. But she learned from it and handled it. Had OP never found out about the grade, her DD would have realized she shouldn't major in this subject and gone on to study other things, where she clearly is successful. Her life would have proceeded just fine. I knew kids who went through the exact same thing in college and I suspect their parents didn't know, and it all turned out fine. I realize this was hard on OP's DD, but this isn't a crisis that requires parental intervention.