When a child brings home a result that falls short of what you hoped for, the next few minutes matter more than most parents realise.
What you say, how you say it, and what your face communicates in that moment will shape not just the next study session, but how your child sees their own ability.
Drawing on a recent KiasuParents Growth Series webinar session with parenting coach Eric Tan, here is a practical guide for talking to your child about improving their grades.
Children may pick up signals from your tone and body language, even if you don't say anything negative.
Common word habits, including labelling your child and making vague requests, can undermine your child even when you mean well.
What primary school children need from these conversations is different from what secondary school teens need.
Be mindful of non-verbal cues
Many parents focus on what they say to a child after hearing their results.
But children can pick up on more than the words: the look on your face, the tone of your voice, even the pause before you speak.
During our Growth Series webinar, Eric shared a story about a father who said nothing when his son showed him his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) results. The father took the paper, looked at it, looked at his son, and gave a long sigh.
That son, now in his 20s, still remembers this moment. This highlights that although no scolding took place, and no words were spoken, the message of disappointment was received in full.
“The younger the child, the more sensitive they are to what they feel, not just what they hear,” Eric says.
For a more positive discussion, do be aware of your non-verbal signals, and try to maintain a neutral expression.
Words and habits that tend to backfire
Focusing on outcomes that you don’t want
Your child is dragging their feet on revision. You want them to get moving.
What parents might say: “Don’t be lazy.”
What to try instead: “Can you be hardworking about this?” or “I need you to focus on this now.” When you state the outcome that you want, the positive memory is what sticks.
Labelling your child
Your child keeps forgetting to hand in assignments, or has been caught being dishonest.
What parents might say: “Why are you so forgetful?” or “Why did you lie again? You’re going to grow up to be a liar.”
What to try instead: “I expect honesty from you.” Repeated labels become part of how children see themselves. State the standard you expect, not the flaw you see.
Being vague about what “better” means
Your child scores AL4 when you know they are capable of AL2.
What parents might say: “You need to do better” or “Try harder next time.”
What to try instead: Go through the paper together and identify what specifically went wrong. “I can see you lost marks on the comprehension questions. Let’s work on that.” This gives your child clarity and direction.
Starting questions with “why”
Your child comes home with a result that is well below what you expected.
What parents might say: “Why didn’t you study? Why did you get this result?”
What to try instead: “I’m curious, can you help me understand what happened?” The word “why” can feel like an accusation even when that is not the intention. Softening the phrasing can help to open the conversation.
Using “but”
You want to acknowledge your child’s effort while still addressing the result.
What parents might say: “I can see you tried hard, but this result isn’t good enough.”
What to try instead: “I can see you tried hard. At the same time, let’s look at what we can do differently.” The word “but” tends to cancel out everything that came before it. The phrase “at the same time," paired with "let's do this differently," is less likely to be perceived as negating their efforts.
How to approach any conversation about grades
Check yourself first
Before addressing your child's grades, it helps to check your own state. If you are already frustrated before your child walks in, that will show.
It is also worth examining your intention: is the goal to support your child? Or is part of your discomfort about how the result reflects on you as a parent?
Meet them where they are
If your child comes home deflated, greeting them with “come on, it’s not that bad” creates distance rather than connection.
Acknowledging where they are first, such as “looks like it was a hard day”, is more likely to open a conversation.
If they are not ready to talk, do not force it. Timing matters, and insisting on discussing the result when a child is exhausted or upset often produces withdrawal rather than honesty.
"Guess" their feeling rather than stating yours
“I am so disappointed” puts a child on the defensive. “I guess you’re feeling disappointed?” signals that you are trying to understand their experience, not deliver a verdict.
Go through the paper, not just the mark
Reacting to a grade as a number misses useful information. Going through the paper together to identify specific weak topics, careless errors, or penmanship issues turns a verdict into a solvable problem. It also sends the message that you are interested in understanding what happened.
Ask about their wins before their gaps
Starting with “how did you manage to get these marks?” before moving to what went wrong creates a safer space. Children who feel their effort is noticed are more likely to open up about where they struggled.
Co-create a plan rather than imposing one
Handing a child a study plan is different from asking them what they think they can do differently, and helping them shape it. Children who feel ownership over a plan are more likely to follow through.
If your primary school child is underperforming
For younger children, grades carry emotional weight that adults can underestimate.
A child who brings home a low result is not simply dealing with an academic setback. At this age, many children equate their results with how much their parents love them. A poor grade can feel, to a primary school child, like evidence of having let you down.
This means the most important thing a parent can communicate after a disappointing result is not a study plan. It is that your love is not conditional on the exam results.
The practical goal for this age group is to build confidence rather than pressure, and to focus on small, achievable improvements rather than large jumps. For children in local primary schools, an improvement from AL5 to AL4 deserves acknowledgment. Progress matters more than perfection.
It is also worth resisting the instinct to compare, whether directly (“your classmate scored better”) or indirectly (praising a sibling in front of a child who has just struggled). Comparison is one of the faster ways to extinguish whatever motivation remains.
If your secondary school teen is underperforming
Teenagers are in the process of building an identity separate from their parents. They need to feel respected as individuals with some agency over their own choices, not managed or talked down to.
Presenting a ready-made improvement plan to a teenager is likely to be received as controlling rather than helpful, even when it is well-intentioned. A more effective approach is to ask questions and let them find their own answers. “What do you think you could do differently?” and “If you made that change, what difference do you think it would make?” are more likely to produce real engagement than a lecture.
If they suggest something you think will not work, resist saying so immediately. Ask them to think it through: “What happens if that doesn’t work as planned? What would you try next?” This builds problem-solving rather than dependence on parental direction.
The goal for this age group is to build ownership rather than obedience, and self-motivation rather than compliance. A teenager who believes they are studying for themselves will always work harder than one who is studying to get their parents off their back.
If your child is failing or seems to have given up
When a child is already failing, or close to it, increasing the pressure is the most common yet least effective response. The child already knows things are not going well. Adding to that weight through scolding, comparisons, or warnings about the future tends to make them withdraw further.
“Behind every failing grade is a story the child is too scared to tell,” Eric says. “Our job as parents is to rebuild their belief, not add to the burden.”
One practical way to get struggling kids to open up: share your own experience of failure first. When a parent talks about a time they worked hard and still fell short, or made a poor choice and had to recover from it, it gives the child permission to do the same. Vulnerability from a parent tends to reduce shame in a child.
If your child seems not to care about their results, it is worth looking below the surface. Indifference is often a defensive reaction. A child who has tried and failed repeatedly may have stopped trying as a way of protecting themselves from further disappointment. Heavy device use can serve a similar function, providing a sense of reward and achievement that is harder to find in their school experience.
In this case, seek to understand what is actually happening, whether there are concepts they cannot grasp, a subject they have disengaged from, or pressures from peers. Such conversations are more likely to lead somewhere useful than pushing hard on the academic side alone.
Importantly, when children say “I just can’t study” or “I have a bad memory”, point to evidence that contradicts this: the song lyrics they memorised after hearing a song twice, the game mechanics they mastered without being asked, the skill they picked up on their own. Capability is rarely the issue. Belief in their own ability often is.
The full recording, including a Q&A segment addressing real parent scenarios, is available for purchase on our Payhip store.