By Harry H Harrison Jr.
www.fearlessparenting.com

Parents, mainly moms, are cramming into malls in a frantic effort to clothe their kids with the latest designs, outfit them with the coolest backpacks and wire them up with iPads and computers. But there are a list of things schools would rather see you leave at home this fall.

1. Your "help". Yes, I know it's hard to fathom, but your "help" is getting in the way of educating your kids. You do the science project, you do their homework, you write dumb excuses why your child needs extra time on the test and in fact, you even phone the teacher asking for a copy of the test in advance. The danger here is what? They fail to do their class project and get horrors! a bad grade? Or they show up to school without their homework and the teacher then writes down an "F" for the grade they earned? Ask yourself, how long will this go on? Through college? Through their first two jobs?  Sure, check their homework. Sure, enforce study rules. For your kids. Not for you.



2. Your blaming the teacher. Inevitably, this year thousands and thousands of moms will jump in their car and scream to schools to scream at the teacher for . . . handing their child a grade she deserves. But, we don't think our kids can handle life. Certainly not a 72 in seventh grade English when all they really had to do was ummm, read the chapter. Say it with me now, "It isn't the teacher's fault for your child's terrible grade." Repeat that. It isn't the teacher's fault. It's your child's fault. And if you haven't established regular study hours, shame on you. Leave the teacher alone. Take it out on your spouse. 



3. Your keeping up with Jones'. My wife, an ex-English teacher never failed to be amused by the girls who carried $400 purses to middle school as well as a note from their mother that a book the class was studying was too expensive to buy. Drop into a middle school or high school and you might think you've wandered into a European fashion show. Here's the thing. You can either teach your kids designer names don't matter, or you teach them designer names mean everything, then cry with them when their Burberry purse, iPhone, or Beats Headphones are stolen. Your kid shouldn't be envying other kid's possessions, but the grades of the kids who study. 



4. Your guilt. Why would a mom try to get a teacher fired after he had caught her daughter cheating? Why would a mom text a teacher her 11th grade son's chances of going to medical school would be destroyed if she didn't raise his F to an A? Moms do this every day from their guilt of not doing the right thing. Parents need to sit down with their kids when they study to make sure they won't be texting their buds all night. They need to go through their child's backpack to find the notes the teachers have sent home about their kid's grades going down the drain. They also need to put the kids to bed at a decent hour. Many parents will literally abandon their kids with permissiveness until the report card comes and then blame the teacher, principal, and school district.  



5. Your low expectations of your child. While all moms want their kids to be Ivy League material, the fact of the matter is many moms don't want their kids to compete for grades. So instead of making their children study all night for a test, we tell their teacher that their precious child has ADD and cannot possibly take their test in one hour. Three days might be more like it. It's like today, we expect our children to be unable to handle the rigors of eighth grade, but believe they are totally competent to face down medical school. If they can have extra time on the MCAT, don't expect the worst out of your child, expect the highest and best. High expectations breed amazing behavior. 



6. Your absence of rules. One of the great mysteries of modern day parenting is just when exactly did parents hand over the keys to the house and car to their kids and say, "Okay, we'll do it your way." Teachers are seeing the most undisciplined kids they've seen in years and it all starts with the parenting. A student is stunned to learn he can't cuss out a teacher because he regularly cusses out his mom. Another student's feeling are hurt because the principal has decided a skirt that shows her underwear is too short and she needs to go home and change. Another child is perplexed about the big deal over marijuana in his locker. After all he can smoke it at home. Buy a parenting book. Grow some gonads. Make some rules.



7. Your hungry kids. Anybody remember breakfast? Your family may not be eating it, but your kids need it. They show up tired, exhausted and hungry. This isn't ideal for learning anything. Put something in their stomach that isn't pure sugar in the morning. Bacon and eggs and toast will actually do their brain a world of good.



8. Your tired. Kids think about this. You go to bed about ten or eleven and you wake up tired at 6 am. Your kids are Facebooking till 1am or later, then stagger to school tired and hungry (see above). Every doctor on the planet says that teens need 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night. Younger kids need even more sleep. My wife, the English teacher, reports that many teens (mainly boys) are unconscious by the afternoon. Take away their phone and make them go to sleep. They'll reward your efforts by graduating. 



9. Your ambiguous morals. This is the clincher. The reason many of today's kids don't know right from wrong is their parents don't seem to know it. Their parents smoke marijuana so what's wrong with showing up at school stoned? Their mother dresses like she's 15-years-old, so what's wrong with showing a little skin in the classroom? Dad proudly talks how he cheats on his income tax, so no wonder their son is caught with a stolen exam. Their daughter is upset with another girl, so Mom slams the girl on Facebook. We need to have morals and values so we can teach our kids to have them. Don't depend on the school to replace parents here.



10. Your non-support. You could fire a cannon through most high school PTA meetings and hit nothing, but this is where the decisions are made. If you want to be involved in  your child's education, here's what you do: cut off the TV, sit down with your kids and make sure they study in front of you. Get involved in your PTA. Find out if your school need volunteers. (You'll be amazed at the impact on your child if she sees her mom walking through school.) Get to know the teachers, the principals, the rules. See for yourself what a teacher has to deal with. In other words, don't be the problem. Be the solution.

Harry H Harrison Jr. is a New York Times best-selling parenting author with over 3.5 million books in print. He has been interviewed on over 25 television programs, and featured in over 75 local and national radio stations including NPR. His books are available in over thirty-five countries throughout Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Norway, South America, China, Saudi Arabia and in the Far East. For more information visit www.fearlessparenting.com. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.