Parenting Lesson number 357 – The PSAT

I thought I would share another parenting experience, where I was the bad guy, again, in the hope YOU can avoid it.

For many of us, we have academic hopes for our kids., The standardized tests (SAT & ACT) loom large in the matrix of requirements to make it into most universities. I think we were like many parents in being a bit nervous about our son’s first brush with one of them, the PSAT.

This past fall his high school offered the PSAT to all sophomores who wanted to take it. He did.

When asked how he thought he did after taking it, he said “pretty good!”

Then we waited and waited.

Side note – despite being 2018, it still takes weeks to score and report multiple choice tests.

Then finally, the results were in. Much to our surprise, they were not great. 40th percentile.

This from a straight A student who typically tests in the 95th percentile.

Here’s the sad parenting part.

First, I told him these were poor results (as if he didn’t know, remember, he’s straight A student). In real lousy parenting form I added the line teens love, “these results were well below our expectations!”

I then I dug in, with a less-than-compassionate tone, “what the heck happened here? Did you even try?”

Then, I even upped the stakes, “did you cheat and just copy someone else?”

He looked befuddled and said he had no idea what went wrong. The only thing he said was, “They seemed like they were all trick questions, so I did take my time and ended up not finishing every section!”

My wife dug deeper into the results. On one section he got 7 out of 42 questions right. 7 of 42!!!

More denials from my son. More consternation from his parents.

I then called one of my friends whose child is in college now, “you ever have this happen?”

“Not that bad, but those tests are super tricky. We enrolled our kid in a test prep class with a private tutor. Made a huge difference! It was only $5K!” 

Yikes!

That was two weeks ago.

Then yesterday, an email from his High School, with the subject line, “PSAT Re-take.”

I quote, because this is so hard to believe, “We are very sorry to inform you that we administered the October 11th version of the PSAT on October 25th, and therefore our scores have been invalidated.  Furthermore, since the October 25th version of the PSAT answer key was used to grade our October 11th tests, these “for guidance only” scores may not be accurate.”

Don’t you love the carefully crafted language?

May not be accurate? I’m pretty sure if you used the wrong answer key, they are entirely inaccurate. Fess up! Fall on your sword!

At first, I was awash with relief. “Ah, that explains it!”

I immediately texted my son, “the PSAT results were corrupted, good news you’re not an idiot, bad news, the school administrators seem to be.”

Then, I reflected a bit. I knew my initial reaction to this whole situation wasn’t right. Where was the love? Why no compassion? How about some positive intent?

It wasn’t there. Instead, there was fear.

Hence the accusatory tone.

What I should have done when those results came in, was comfort my son with “you know, you’re a smart kid, so either you had an off day, or something is up with the test. Regardless, we’ll get through it, and you’ll be fine!”

Maybe next time, you can do that. Too late for me. I blew it.

As a friend told me, “Parenting is both the hardest and most rewarding thing you’ll do in your life.”

So true.