This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting.

Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.

And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.

Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves.

Most of the time, I'll be getting answers to your parenting questions.

So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com.

Episode 93, should I monitor my kids' grades online? Well, it's a time of year. You're starting to see the grades roll in. Yeah. No, this is, the honeymoon's over. The school year is in full effect. Well, not only is a honeymoon over. It's like back to normal school,

right? So I feel like you can't run and hide anymore in your bedroom, literally. Nope, nope.

School is school. And, you know, not everybody's ready for it to be what it used to be in. And it's

a hard time to be in school. No question. Yeah. So we got this letter

from a dad who talks about technology and how to deal with it with online grades. I want to read

the letter to you. It says, Dear Dr. DeMore, I have two teens and have been listening to your podcast

since the very beginning. I've taken notes on many episodes and truly appreciate your suggested

words and phrases

and in the right tone of voice. The real reason for my email is to suggest an episode on how

parents and kids can better manage school's online grading systems. I believe these systems like

schoolology, power school, and Google classroom create as much anxiety as social media. Since teens are drawn to the real-time apps and immediately compare marks with their peers, our school counselors confirm that teens check them 10 times a day for the latest test grade and potential negative impact on their GPA. Our schools also strongly encourage families to

check them often with no guidance on how often or what to look for. Last year, I told my teens

that I would no longer check the system, and we were all so relieved. Our only ask was that they'd let us

know verbally when a grade is slipping toward a sea,

and they need to brainstorm ways to improve.

What do you think of this approach?

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