Parents, it’s your turn to experience report card anxiety—or satisfaction—as your kids get to grade you in a viral new exercise for families.
It’s called the parent report card — a simple list that lets children evaluate their moms and dads on their parenting skills. The questions range from “Does your parent make you feel safe and protected?” to “Does your parent pack good lunches and snacks?”
Actress Brooke Burke-Charvet recently blogged about the eye-opening test after she shared it with her kids.
“It was really fascinating to see it sort of flipped and to allow my children an opportunity to tell me how I'm doing,” Burke-Charvet told TODAY.
“And it takes courage. You have to be brave to actually hand this report card, this parent report card to your children. It makes children feel like their opinion matters.”
NBC’s Darlene Rodriguez asked a group of children and their parents to take part in the exercise and the results were enlightening. The children were quick to note that they thought the report card would be useful.
“The things that they're doing bad, we should probably tell them that they need to improve on it,” 13-year-old Tori said. “Parents lose their temper with us for no reason.”
Meanwhile, 9-year-old Eli complained that his parents sometimes don’t understand his moods. That particular category resulted in an F for a few parents.
“Sometimes, I feel like parents forget about, like, how they felt when they were our ages. So then they don't understand how we feel at this time, at this age,” said 11-year-old Caprice.
But an A was common in some very key categories, including “Spends time with me alone” and “Makes me laugh.” Most importantly: All of the kids said they felt their parents loved them.
“Oh I'm happy to see that they said I spend time with them, that I make them laugh. Because that's what they'll remember,” said Deborah Lifshey, Caprice’s mom.
You can buy a parent report card from the Creative Therapy Store or find a version of this test on ModernMom.com.