Question
One of my kids is extremely responsible and dedicated to school work. The other one is not but I am leaving him alone because his grades are good and he is social and active with sports. But what if, in the future, his grades drop because he prioritizes his soccer and social life above academics? He is a key player and star of his team and works so hard at it that he got promoted to be in a higher level and a more competitive team. What is the appropriate consequence, besides the bad grade, in this situation?
I have told him how much I admire his hard work and dedication to soccer and love having his friends over but school work is important too. I definitely don’t want to take soccer or social life away from him. Please help. Thank you!
Answer
I recommend you stop looking at his mistakes as reasons to punish/give consequences and more as an opportunity to mentor and teach.
The bad grade IS the consequence of his actions. Your parenting task is to help him process and think about how he can do better next time.
So how would you do that:
1- With questions: "What do you imagine happened that caused the drop in grade?" What do you think you can do moving forward so this does not happen again?"
2- Point out the great qualities he has in soccer: commitment, perseverance, responsibility and wonder, with him, how he can bring that to his school work.
3- Make a plan based on his actions. Until the grade comes up again, supervise and wonder with him if he is keeping up his plan. Predict that you will be checking in until the grade comes up. Once the grades are up, leave him alone again.
The plan above is a life skill of understanding, processing and learning from a mistake. The plan above builds long term skills.
A consequence of the phone being taken away or no parties just teaches him to avoid punishment. Avoiding punishment makes a person single focused which can result in lying, avoiding connection, and/or doing bare bones to not deal with pain.