'AITA for giving my husband a hard time about his reaction to our daughter's grades?'

"AITA for giving my husband a hard time about his reaction to our daughter's grades?"

My daughter is in the 6th grade. She is in the gifted program and is taking 7-8th grade math. She had her first report card and had all As. Her lowest grade was in science at a 94. Upon seeing her report card my husband asked my daughter "What happened there? Why is that a 94?" I got mad and told him that was f#$ked up because a 94 is a great grade.

He says he is giving her motivation and he knows she can do better. I think he is sending the message that her grades aren't good enough and he's going to give her a complex. Am I being unreasonable? I know he is coming from a good place but I think he is sending her a terrible message.

People did not hold back on this one.

Europeangirl101 wrote:

NTA, but he is. A massive one for that instance. I did pretty great in school, I had almost straight A's but not because I loved so much to learn, rather because my mom would lecture me hours and hours if I got any grade below an A.

I ended up burnt out and with a lot of anxiety about learning and to this day I still can't enjoy the process of learning, I feel the need to excel on everything and I give myself a hard time over every mistake.

uncreative_user_id wrote:

NTA. The husband definitely is. That's a toxic as hell mentality and it'll always reinforce that belief for your daughter that nothing she does will be good enough for her father. There's a way to reward/congratulate her while also motivating her to strive for high grades.

Olapalapa wrote:

NTA. My dad used to say "A is average, B is bad, C is crappy, D is don't come home". It was terrible and stressful for me, I still remember being scared to bring home two B+s on a middle school report card (one was gym, lol).

The_White_Ferret wrote:

NTA. My kids are pretty much straight-A students with the occasional B in the mix. I always encourage my kids to work hard, but not to hyper-fixate on the grade itself. I’m far more concerned with, “are my kids doing the best they can?” I tell them, “if you’re getting a low grade, let’s figure out what you’re struggling with.”

If they have grades floating in the A’s and B’s, they get no flack from me in the slightest. Why would they? They’re passing well and are succeeding. No reason to put unnecessary pressure on them. Your daughter is clearly a solid student.

snarkyshark83 wrote:

NTA. If your husband keeps up this type of motivation your daughter is either going to burn out trying to keep up with his expectations or she’s going to learn to hate school and learning in general because she will never feel good enough.

OP is definitely NTA here, her husband could learn a few things about how to communicate with their daughter.