What About My Grades?

Kids who are gifted sometimes think they should have the highest grade in the class on everything. Sometimes they even worry when they earned an "A", but they didn't have the most points in the class.

Grades measure how you are doing in school. Your parents have probably tried to tell you to always do your best. They might have said that since you are a smart kid, you should always earn "A's" or at least "A's and B's" and you should never get a "C."

Let's think about why we go to school. We go to school to learn. We go to school to become educated people. Getting good grades is excellent, but what we have learned should be the most important thing of all.

I worried about my grades. I worried about my grades a lot. Now that I'm a little older I can look back and I realize that in one class where I didn't get a very good grade, I learned the more than in the other classes. Now that I'm older, I realize that what I learned was more important than the grade I got.

I used to think getting a B+ was a bad grade, but that's just because I was focused on getting straight A's. Now, I would do things differently. I would take some classes that I didn't think I would do well in so that I could have the experience. For me, that would have been Chemistry. I avoided it because I didn't think I could get an "A". Now, I wish I had taken it because people know things about chemistry that I don't know. I'm an educated person, but I don't know much about chemistry.

Talk to your parents or your school counselor about this. I wish I had said to my parents, "I think I'd like to take Chemistry even though it might hurt my Grade Point Average." I think my parents would have said, "Try it. Do your best. You don't have to get the highest grade in everything. Just think about the fascinating things you might learn." Your parents might say just about the same thing to you.

Sometimes gifted kids have another problem with grades. For some kids, they would rather get an "F" than a "C" or any grade other than an "A." Sometimes kids would rather not try and fail than try and get an average grade. If this is how you think, I hope your parents and teachers catch on to what you're doing. If you continue with this, you will become unmotivated in school. What a waste that would be!

If you do this, your parents might want to read a book by Dr. Sylvia Rimm, "Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades and What You Can Do About It" which can be found on the "Helpful Books" section of this website.