TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050189/05018900.065

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.5 KB | 72 lines

                                                                                BEHAVIOR, Page 75

Report Cards Can Hurt You


In many homes, poor grades trigger a torrent of child abuse


    In Atlanta a mother beats her three children -- ages
twelve, ten and eight -- with a rolling pin until they are black
and blue. In Richmond a man forces his nephew to stand at
attention and circles the boy while spitting on him. During a
parent-teacher conference in Detroit, a woman grabs her
twelve-year-old son, hits him in the face until he bleeds, then
punches him in the ribs and walks out of the room. What did
these children do to earn such treatment? They brought home
report cards with poor grades.

    In America's increasingly competitive society, the bad
report card -- once fodder for Norman Rockwell and Leave It to
Beaver -- is no longer a laughing matter. More and more social
workers, educators and police are recognizing that report-card
time can trigger a torrent of emotional and physical child
abuse. While no national statistics are available, experts in
communities nationwide say there is a spurt in the number of
children suffering brutal beatings when report cards are sent
home.

    In Cobb County, Ga., police have reviewed accounts of child
abuse for a two-year period and found that reports as much as
double in the three days after school grades are issued. Many
experts find that the problem intensifies toward the end of the
academic year. Observes Rosalyn Oreskovich, area manager of
children's protective services in Seattle: "From March to the
end of June, our referral rate will rise dramatically. By
spring, the parents' frustration has really built up."

    The harsh reaction to poor grades is a symptom of deeper
problems. "The cards may be an emotional lightning rod,"
explains child psychologist David Elkind of Tufts University,
who notes that "grades are a concrete embodiment of many
issues." For one thing, bad grades can unleash parents'
anxieties about their social status and their children's
prospects. To the poor, success in school offers a way for
children to escape impoverished lives. Middle-class parents push
their offspring to surpass their own accomplishments. And
wealthy, well-educated people routinely expect stellar
performances from youngsters.

    In many families, good marks are equated with good
parenting skills. Says Anne Cohn, executive director of the
Chicago-based National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse:
"Many parents take bad grades as a personal affront." Sometimes
abusive parents are repeating the verbal assaults or whippings
that they received from their mothers and fathers.

    Schools contribute to the problem. Often a disastrous
report card is the first signal parents have that Johnny or Mary
has been sailing too close to the academic shoals. Education
specialists say that parents should receive progress notes
throughout the year, and that report cards should praise a
child's strengths and indicate a plan for dealing with
weaknesses.

    Child-welfare groups and educators in several areas are
mounting public-education campaigns aimed at stopping the
"report-card reflex." The programs, modeled after one begun in
Houston by the Child Abuse Prevention Council, use newspaper
ads, TV and radio announcements, school flyers mailed to
students' homes and brochures inserted into report cards. All
these materials contain the same basic message for parents:
raising voices or fists is not the answer to raising grades.