Poor Grades in Teens: A Better Approach Without the Nagging

Poor grades can turn a peaceful home into a daily battleground. The pressure to bring home good grades often leads to constant tension and frustration for both the parent and the teen.

You want your teen to succeed and feel confident about their future. Most of the time, though, teens under this kind of pressure feel like their parents are overbearing, constantly nagging, or care about grades more than they care about them.

At Davis-Smith Mental Health in New Lenox, IL, teens are at the heart of our work. Here is a different approach to grades, one that starts with understanding instead of punishment.

Why Poor Grades Can Chip Away at Self-Esteem

Poor grades can lead to low self-esteem in students. A teen who keeps seeing low scores can start to believe they are just not smart, and once that belief settles in, effort tends to drop.

Parents get scared and push harder, the teen feels more pressure and pulls away, and the grades slip further. The good news is that this cycle can be interrupted, and it usually starts with the adults stepping back to see the bigger picture.

What Swimming Lessons Taught Me About Struggling Students

When I was younger, my parents put me in swimming lessons. I hated them. I couldn’t stand the smell of chlorine, the freezing water, or the idea of dunking my entire head in the water.

Any time I got the chance to cheat, I would. For one of our exercises, the instructors would throw rings in the pool and we were supposed to dive down and get them. There was no way I was doing that.

Whenever the instructor was busy helping other kids, I would use my foot to find the ring, get it around my ankle, lift my leg, and grab it that way. I wasn’t going to be a professional swimmer. To be honest, I didn’t really want to learn, and I consistently failed the lessons.

Eventually, my parents decided to stop having me go instead of forcing the issue. I was never going to love swimming, just like some kids will never love history or physics.

School is different, of course, and your teen cannot simply stop going. The lesson is about what happens when we force something a kid has already decided they hate: they get creative about avoiding it, just like I did with those rings.

It also helps to be realistic. If school has been a struggle since middle school, it probably will not get easier in high school on its own, so the question becomes what kind of help actually fits your teen.

What Is the Goal of High School?

If that sounds like your family, ask yourself two questions. What is the goal of high school? What is my goal as a parent of a teen?

I believe high school is supposed to help teens become MORE prepared for adulthood and independence, and that is our goal as parents, too. We can approach grades the same way.

Seen that way, a rough semester is a chance to practice real-life skills, like emailing a teacher for help, tracking assignments without a parent checking every day, and bouncing back after a bad test. These four steps work toward that goal while helping a teen who is struggling academically.

Step 1: Discuss Future Goals and Careers

It is hard to know which direction to go if you do not know your teen’s goals. If your teen wants to go to college, then GPA, SAT or ACT scores, community college, and four-year colleges or universities all need to be discussed.

If they would rather go to a trade school, you will talk about what it takes to reach that goal instead. Either way, you are building a roadmap of where they are trying to go, and grades start to mean more when a teen can see how they connect to a future they care about.

These talks go better when they feel casual, like during a car ride or over a late-night snack. Try an open question such as “What do you picture yourself doing after graduation?”

If your teen has no idea, that’s okay too. There are a lot of options for their future, and they can ALWAYS change the road they are on.

Step 2: Evaluate What Is Really Going On

One thing that isn’t done enough is asking the right questions to figure out why your teen is struggling. Here are some to start with:

• Are they working 30 hours a week on top of school?
• Can they handle the workload they have, or are they in honors courses that may be too rigorous?
• Are they turning in homework but failing tests, or passing tests but not turning in homework?
• Are they struggling in just one or two classes, or most of them?
• Do they need to be tested to find out if they need more help and support in the classroom?
• Do they care about school right now, and are their friends struggling academically too?
• Are they involved in any extracurricular activities?
• Have they recently lost friends or just gotten out of a relationship?

The more questions you ask and the more answers you get, the clearer the picture of what is really causing your teen’s poor grades. If they are failing most of their courses, homework and tests alike, it may be time to ask the school for an evaluation.

If they seem overwhelmed, your goal can be helping them find ways to cut back. If their grades are average, the goal might be raising their motivation in the classes where they struggle.

There is a more productive way to help than anger or punishment. Contact teachers, ask them questions, and get to the root of the problem first, even with a short email like “I’ve noticed my son’s grade has dropped, and I’d love your perspective on what’s going on.”

Step 3: Provide Resources That Fit

Once you know the root of the problem, you can sort through your options. Here are five resources that might be a good fit for your teen:

1. Weekly tutoring. One steady hour a week with the same tutor usually helps more than a panicked cram session, and it takes some of the homework tension off of you.
2. Incentives. Money, video games, or driving privileges can help some teens get moving. They work best when tied to effort your teen controls, like turning in every assignment this week, and agreed on ahead of time rather than in the middle of an argument.
3. Changing the class. Dropping the course, switching teachers, or moving to a class at their level is not giving up. Sometimes an honors class is simply crushing a teen’s confidence.
4. A consistent study buddy. Regular study dates with a classmate or friend can help. One person is better than several, since a crowd makes it hard to be productive.
5. An evaluation for an IEP or 504 Plan. You can ask the school, ideally in writing, to evaluate your teen. An IEP provides specialized instruction and services for students who qualify, while a 504 Plan provides accommodations like extra time on tests.

Contact your teen’s high school to ask about other resources and support, too. School counselors often know about options families never hear about.

Step 4: Decrease the Talk About Grades

If most of the conversations you have with your teen are about grades, it is not going to help them get better results. We often feel that pushing harder will make them take school more seriously, but that rarely works.

Easing up on the constant grade talk can lessen the pressure your teen feels, which gives them the space to find ways to be a little more successful. With online grade portals, that might mean one short weekly check-in instead of reacting to every score the minute it posts.

In the teen years, it is very hard to help your teen without using outside resources. Try your best to step back from the grade conversation and put more of your energy into finding the right support.

Grades are not the most important thing; learning is. Focusing less on grades can help you have a better relationship with your teen, lessen tension in the home, and raise your teen’s self-esteem.

Don’t tackle the results, tackle what is causing them. Our post on five ways to decrease tension in the home has more ideas for calmer days.

When Poor Grades Point to Something More

Sometimes poor grades really are about workload or one tough class. Other times, slipping grades are one of the first signs that a teen is dealing with anxiety, low mood, or stress outside of school.

What you notice	A rough patch	Worth getting support
Grades	One or two classes slip for a quarter	Grades drop across most classes, or fall quickly
Mood	Frustrated about school but still themselves	Seems sad, irritable, or flat most days
Sleep and energy	Tired during busy weeks	Sleeping much more or less, or always exhausted
Friends and activities	Still connected to friends and interests	Pulling away or quitting things they loved
How they talk about themselves	Complains about a hard class	Says things like “I’m stupid” or “What’s the point?”

If several things in the right-hand column sound familiar, or they have lasted more than a few weeks, it is worth reaching out. The National Institute of Mental Health and HealthyChildren.org from the American Academy of Pediatrics both have helpful information for parents of teens.

If your teen ever talks about hurting themselves or not wanting to be alive, take it seriously and act right away. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any hour, or go to the nearest emergency room if there is immediate danger.

How Therapy Helps Teens With Poor Grades

Therapy gives your teen a place to talk about what is underneath the grades, without grades being the whole conversation. At Davis-Smith Mental Health, we use approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help teens notice the thoughts that keep them stuck, like “I’m just bad at school.”

We also use Motivational Interviewing, which helps teens find their own reasons to make a change. Sessions are relaxed and conversational, and teens 12 and older have privacy in what they share, though parents are always told about any safety concern. Learn more about our counseling for teens, school anxiety therapy, and test anxiety therapy, or read our post on competing for good grades.