secretive about "good" A level grades to family.

[wheresmymillionaire]

Genuine question, and I'm happy to be told I'm being nosy if necessary!
Is it normal to not share exam grades with family? We are a small family with one niece. Apparently DN was happy with her recent A level results as she passed them all, and my sister put on FB a pic of them out celebrating the results and how proud they were etc. I gave DN some money to say well done, but neither DN nor DS are prepared to say what grades she got. I just find this odd. What's the big deal? Why can't I know what grades she got and be proud of her?

My DC got between them a full mix of A* to E's so I'm not going to be judgmental!

In my family it led to my parent and their sibling not speaking for a couple of decades. The rhetoric was that cousin was Very Clever. Headed for uni etc. We were mediocre. Noone had any aspirations for us other than getting a job in a nice shop and finding a nice husband with a good job.
The way results went, that was upended. Noone was celebrating my results. In fact my cousin's parents didn't believe my parent when they told them. My parent was so under their control that they then told me I couldn't possibly have got those results. They finally believed the head of sixth form when they phoned to ask why I'd not gone to confirm A-level subjects the day after results.
Every achievement since then has been greeted with disbelief. Including my own parents calling me an evil liar.
So that sort of nasty, narcissistic person.
I'm now completely estranged from the whole lot of them.

My sister never tired of telling us how clever her daughter was - "Being moved up a year", "She knows more than the teachers" etc etc
The very least I was expecting was to be the high school Dux and have 5 As in her highers. When the results arrived she was very cagey and then mumbled that she'd got an A and some other stuff.

I just don't get why people do that and then they're made to look foolish.

Not saying this is the case with you OP but with one of my sister's when she talks of wanting to be close what she actualy wants and enjoys is hearing bad news. So none of us tell her anything good or bad.

DD got her results on Thursday too - lower than anticipated but still going to her 2nd choice uni so worked out in the end. However as far as I'm concerned they're her results and she can share the actual grades with whoever she wants and if she chooses not to then that's her decision. I'm proud of her regardless and she knows it - if anyone was overly invested in the grades rather than whether DD is happy with the outcome I'd say that was their issue rather than hers and not really as supportive as they may think

Telling their aunt isn’t exactly “broadcasting” it is it though? How odd!

I’ve learned that in conversation with most people, it’s best to simply say that your DC is really pleased/quite pleased and if you know, what they’re doing next. Further detail isn’t needed by most people. And people might see good results as bragging.

I also dont ask the details of others, just say I hope they were pleased.

But I do have a group of very close friends with kids of the same age and we do share the details…..regardless of if it’s good or bad. We are close friends though.

It’s a funny thing, because people can be very nosy about it. My DC say it’s all older people asked them about before results and after for months. People who were almost strangers wanted to know what they’d got. Especially if they are a bit sensitive about it, it really is private info that they shouldn’t feel obliged to share….and people should be wary of asking details about. If someone volunteers the info, that’s fine.

My parents also used to ask to see the kids’ school reports. But I didn’t show them - I felt it was unnecessary and their response wouldn’t be helpful - I know as I saw them respond to some of my nephews and nieces reports - commenting that X was pleasing but Y clearly needed some work etc. They weren’t sensitive enough to just be encouraging. They would also compare the cousins and say X used to be better at whatever ir X had done better or worse. I don’t think they intended to be hurtful but we’re lacking in awareness of how their responses would make the kids feel. And they never seemed to have any appreciation that people might have different abilities and it wasn’t all just down to effort.

Don't be ridiculous. It was a congratulatory gift, not a payment for info.

You think it’s no big deal for them to just tell you, maybe they don’t see the big deal for you to need to know.

If they want to say, great.
If they don’t, that’s up to them.

They got to the next stage in their journey, Uni.

I can’t believe you even need to ask the question, of course it’s none of your business. Move on and just be happy for her.

“Why can’t I know what grades she got and be proud of her”

Why can’t you not know what grades she got and STILL be proud of her ?

A lot of parents just want to know so they can judge if their own kids have done better that other family/friends kids, just to feel smug.

Please explain how knowing the grades will make you closer as a family?
Do you need to know everyone's smear test results in order to facilitate closeness?

YABU you don't need to know! It's only nosiness for the purposes of comparison

Some aunts are competitive judgemental asshats though.

OP, they might be disappointed in their grades. Can you understand that people don’t always like to share disappointing info.

Or that they simply don’t feel very close to you. Sharing grades doesn’t make you closer….you have to get close before this point so they feel they want to share with you, because you have that kind of relationship. Simply being family doesn’t guarantee that closeness ….it needs work. And it’s fine for not everyone to have that closeness. Being family doesn’t entitle you to information people don’t want to share, or wedding invitations or whatever. People have to choose to share and others should respect if they don’t want to. The

@CurlyhairedAssassin I don't feel as if it's about secrecy necessarily, but rather a quality of connection which isn't about 'information' but feeling?

I've got friends and family members whom I may not see or speak with for a year at a time, but when we do get together, we definitely feel deeply connected, even if ‐weirdly‐ we don't even do much by way of 'catching up', just spend time in each other's company, cooking or going for a walk or whatever. I feel I know everything they need me to know about them and vice versa. I don't get curious about the details of other people's lives, such as their exam results. Maybe that's odd?

I feel I have meaningful and close communication with my family, both immediate and extended, but I think we tend to operate in 'receptive' mode, including with our DC; if someone volunteers something we celebrate, commiserate or support as needed, but if it's not forthcoming, that's also communication and nobody would feel shut out or out of any particular loop. And we're not introverts or Trappist monks, quite the opposite. I have some friends who are much more 'sharey' and I can do that too.

Surely you must be aware that some adult sisters might be close enough to confide in one another when something unusual has showed up on a smear test? Maybe asked if they've ever experienced anything like that?

And most aren’t? 🤷‍♀️

But OP doesn't know if DN should be congratulated.

Sure she does, it's there in the OP.
Apparently DN was happy with her recent A level results as she passed them all, and my sister put on FB a pic of them out celebrating the results and how proud they were etc

That really is all she needed to know - her niece is happy with the results and her parents are too.

I wouldn't have handed over a gift in this situation.

Glad the OP isn't as mean as you then! What a weird attitude.

Oh good grief, that wasn't a literal comment. It was illustrative of the daftness of needing to know exact results in order to feel closer to family.

No but even if they got their preferred uni but didn't quite their predicted grades maybe they don't want the kind of aunt who starts a thread on mumsnet about them to be going round saying DN didn't get her predictions on what went wrong? 🤔

I’ve also had family who liked to give gifts for exam results….but what was given was determined by the results and only given if the results were shared.

I found this a bit unpleasant. Sometimes there was more than one kid taking exams in the family and some got given more than others as their results were better. Didn’t seem very encouraging. I think one of the family seemed to think that the kids would work harder if they thought they’d get more better results. To be honest they were imagining they had a much bigger impact on the kids than they really did - it became all about them and their largesse and impact, not about celebrating the kids’ success. I wonder if it’s a generational thing….perhaps in the past families felt entitled to know everything about the younger generation in their family and privacy simply wasn’t allowed. But today, many parents are more sensitive to the feelings of their kids and privacy. Perhaos grandparents etc can find this odd as it’s different to what previously happened.

Edited: this was supposed to be in response to whoever said it wouldn't be my information to share.

That's your view. It's not mine, and it's not my husband's either. We are supportive of each other whether it's "our" information or not. That includes sharing about when things are not going that great in our lives as well as the good stuff.

I guess we're just quite open people. I'm not bothered about being judged and neither is DH, because the quicker someone judged us the quicker we'd bin them from our lives! We've got through life quite well that way, I like all the people we have around us and vice versa. I don't think I know anyone who is judgemental, because they've been distanced a long time ago!

My DB's family always do this. In their case I think it's because the DCs don't do very well and they don't want to have to admit that.

They could do better if given support for dyslexia and ADHD, didn't live in squalor and had somewhere to study.

I don't know why grandparents do that - treat grandchildren differently. It doesn't matter how well or how badly they do in exams, they should just all get the same, otherwise it leads fo bad feeling. Why would a grandparent want to create bad feeling amongst her grandchildren?