There is a substantial number of children whose primary goal is to “win” vis a vis adults, even if that means (from the adults’ point of view), losing in every other possible way.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder
It would be a fairly big mistake to run the school system as if some large fraction of the students suffered from oppositional defiant disorder.
My point is not that it is necessary for schools to give a zero on work that has no name on it. My point is that if this is what your child’s teacher does, the thing to do is to teach the child to gain something from it in terms of self-improvement. No one gets an unbroken line of teachers whose methods they agree with. The trick is to get the most you can from whoever you get, just as you’re going to have to do in life.
Grades do not matter in grade school in the US. What matters is what your child learns–does he or she gain the skills and knowledge that will come in handy later in school and later in life? Much of that will come from the attitudes you instill in your child.
For instance, I have sons who are very good at math. One of them, however, came home one day, tried his homework, and just could not do it. This had never happened to him. He was in tears.
I told him that although this felt awful, it happened to many of us and probably most of us at one time or another. I told him that he was actually fortunate to have gone through this at home instead of during an exam, because that is when it often happens. Then we went through the emotional coaching about what to do when this happens. That’s right–I let him know that this could happen again. It wasn’t the end of the world, and he didn’t need someone else to rescue him. It was something he could learn to cope with, and then he’d be ahead of the game. He learned that there are things you can do when you get an exam and you get stuck and start to panic. He felt more confident, not less. Before we were done, he got himself going again.
It would have been a mistake to make this out to be something that shouldn’t happen to him or shouldn’t bother him or something that says something about his intelligence. His education came from learning that he was not alone in having that awful sinking feeling. He learned that smart people who know the material can get that awful sinking feeling. He learned that having it didn’t mean he was awful. He learned weapons he could use against that awful sinking feeling. He learned he could even get unstuck by himself and do the work all on his own. That awful sinking feeling was awful, but he had met it on the battlefield, and he could beat it.
If your child comes home from grade school with a zero on his paper, the first thing to do is to acknowledge that this is a bummer. He worked hard, and he got no credit. Feeling sad is understandable and feeling angry is understandable. After that, though, it is time to decide how to assess the damage and decide on the course of action most profitable to the student. Coach them through identifying strategies–fantasizing about screaming at the teacher does not hurt during the brainstorming phase–and choosing the ones most likely to yield a good result. Maybe the child wants to go to the teacher and protest the rule. I’d say, go for it. Let’s role-play through that. Then I’d give the kid credit for being someone who self-advocates, whether or not the decision was overturned. If it went badly, well, coach to do it better next time. It is all about what you learn, not the grade–and most of the most profitable lessons aren’t in the official curriculum!
When you allow a child to not like a teacher or to believe that a rule is stupid, you’re more on their side. We have told our children, “You don’t have to go to college, but you do have to get yourself ready for college. We’re going to force to give yourself that choice when the time comes. We want to make sure you have as many choices about what to do with your life as possible, when you finish school. Then what you do with those choices of yours, that will be up to you. We think you’ll like having lots of choices, though, even if it is just to tell everyone they can take their choices and jump in a lake with them. If all we do is to give you control of your life that you decide not to use, we’ll have done our job.” When it is put to you that way, there is a lot less to rebel against.
When our kids were in fifth grade, I think, I made this deal with them. You don’t always want to do your homework as soon as you get home. Fine. You don’t want me nagging you about it. Fine. Here’s the deal: If you get it in so that there are no complaints from your teachers about it and you are getting enough sleep most of the time, you can do your homework whenever you want to do it. If you don’t do that, though, then you have to do your homework when the time is good for me to supervise you. I don’t want to do that, because I don’t want to waste my time nagging. You don’t want that, because you want to do your homework when you want to do it. And so they’ve always done it. We’ve had to get them going on very big projects that are going to require our help–trips to the store for supplies and such–but that’s all. Their homework is under their control, and they like that. It makes them feel better about themselves, and they feel they’ve earned that control over their lives. I don’t nag because they took control of the situation, we’re all happier for it, and they get the credit for that.
