Dd won’t tell us her GCSE results- anyone else experienced this?

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

And if so how did you approach it?

All I know is that they were good enough for her to do the A Level subjects she wanted, which is nice.

Is it just us? Has this ever happened to anyone else?

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘Even if she's not stressed, if she doesn't want to share yet, I'd try and support that. She'll likely change her mind.‘

I thought so too at first but now I am not convinced that us leaving her alone about it (which we have done for nearly a month now) would change her mind at all. She’s quite determined when she wants to be.

She obviously doesn't want to tell you for a reason. Would a better tack be backing off on finding out and telling her that you are really sorry that for whatever reason she doesn't feel safe enough with you to share her results. Tell her you love her and you couldn't care less what her GCSE results were as long as they are what she wants and is happy with them but you are.sad that she feels she can't share then with you

Maybe ask her if she is worried you will be disappointed ot maybe that you will go on about how great they are . Either might feel excruciating to her

. As her mother of course you want to be with her through her important moments when she is a child but unfortunately this doesn't always happen.

I do understand though as my DS has resolutely refused to share anything about his school life with us for 7 years . Since he started secondary school he has refused to even name his friends to us. Nowadays he occasionally mentions them as in ' my friends' but we still don't know any of their names.

We know he had some as the school confirmed he seemed to but as he has never gone out with them after school ( he has ADHD and ASD) we had no reason to insist. He does play online with them still. Now he is at college he is becoming a little.more forthcoming .

For DS this was about him not wanting to be observed to have something for himself . He had spent years in primary being the focus of every adults attention ( usually negative as his behaviour was quite extreme). He just wanted some privacy so we let him have it with regards to this aspect of his life. If he had bee more social physically we may not have been so accepting of that though !

.

I can see an argument for publishing results - perhaps especially A levels. Forgery is very easy these days.
I remember going into the school grounds in the holidays when I was in the lower sixth and looking at the upper sixth A level results posted on the front door. My God were they dire!

[quote TheBraveLittleTailor]@SleepingStandingUp
The OP says
“One thing these comments are doing for me is helping to crystallise why I want to know and posters are right, it is about supporting her. It didn’t matter for the last month because she was on holiday/doing her summer job, but she went back to school yesterday which may be why I am posting this now.”
They need to be fully informed to help her make good decisions.
NB Just to clarify, when I talked about the parents exercising their rights I meant their right to find out not to withdraw all support.[/quote]
But she's already made the decisions re further education - she's in sixth form. I got top grades in maths GCSE, I still needed support at A Level. There are other ways OP can find out if she's handling her A Level work OK without demanding to know why she scored in 6 other subjects or withdrawing financial support.

You're being extremely odd
Not Really. I get that op is upset and why. I don't think pushing her to tell her something whereby op doesn't actually need to know is the way to build trust. DD either thinks op will be cirtical or ott and is protecting herself, or she feels she has little control over life so this is a fairly safe way of exerting it, or she's playing power games in which case don't feed the troll.

All these suggestions of going through her room, not supporting financially are about wanting to wrestle control back for controls sake.

@ZoyaTheDestroyer no but someone cited op NEEDING to know for "practical" reasons.

online forms I have had to sign which confirmed the A levels she is doing.

Too late now I know, but I would have declined to sign those forms on the basis that I didn't have the necessary information. Cuts both ways.

Given that as pp have shown, the school have to disclose, I would just go to them directly now and ask for the records. I wouldn't then tell her I knew. But I wouldn't accept being kept in the dark.

Update - After discussing with dh and making dd aware of what I was going to do I have written to the school quoting the Exams Office guidance that ChristinaXYZ linked. Many thanks to Christina for finding that.
I have also forwarded dd a copy of my message to school, in the interests of openness, so she knows what we are saying about her.

@SleepingStandingUp
Of course her mum wants to know. The whole point of school, the only evidenced proof you have of how smart your offspring are is exam results. It’s what 11 years of schooling produced. Until they find a better measurement, it’s important.

PS I agree with anyone who says they aren’t the best measurement of how smart a kid is but it’s all we have that can be used for uni or for a job or whatever.

And yet this child feels she doesn’t want to share. Somethings not right with that. Why does she want to be so secretive. It must be about her mother’s reaction. What else can it be.

Our exam results back in the 80s were pinned up on notices in the foyer. We could all see each other’s results. It was like a scrum trying to get to the wall to see them! No privacy back then!

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Update - After discussing with dh and making dd aware of what I was going to do I have written to the school quoting the Exams Office guidance that ChristinaXYZ linked. Many thanks to Christina for finding that. I have also forwarded dd a copy of my message to school, in the interests of openness, so she knows what we are saying about her.

She's happy for you to do that rather than telling you herself? So very odd

Bribe her? No way. She sounds like a diva.

I hope the school are immediately reasonable!
Please let us all know anything significant.

Well I hope that works out okay, OP. I suspect it will in the sense that you will find out what results she got.

For me, if I withheld information from my mother, it was because I felt in many ways she pushed for things that were private to me. Yes, I was a child and she was my parent, but I was increasingly becoming autonomous and, child or not, I was entitled to some privacy. She saw it differently and never thought she was overstepping and could never see the problem Now, that's me and her, you might be entirely different. But once I was an adult, my mother continued to want to know and as an adult, I took full advantage of the fact that I didn't have to tell her anything at all. Her need for information ultimately damaged our relationship and meant that she knew less about me, not more.

I don't think the school will share - ours don't share the results with parents and parents need a signed note from the student to collect the hard copies.

Has she done things like this before?

You say she is ‘determined’ but this seems really extreme behaviour.

My GCSE results (the whole year group) were published in the local paper in the mid 00s!

GreyhoundG1rl - She's happy for you to do that rather than telling you herself?
So very odd

Yes, I thought so too. She wants to have a conversation with the y12 pastoral head about it? Maybe she actually does want this and it’s a way of getting help around some evident anxiety issues that she doesn’t want to talk to her parents about.

I think whatever happens with disclosure/non disclosure of results, it is important that school are aware of the issue. Apart from anything else, quite frankly, they have more experience in dealing with teenage exam anxiety issues than we do. She is our oldest so this is all uncharted territory for us.

I would have refused to sign the paperwork for 6th form .

@a8mint

Gcse results were published in the Yorkshire post until gdpr cane in a few years ago with each student's name no of passes at a-c and number of as. A level results had the list of individual subjects and which were at A

Yes, mine were there, including my O level pass for A level Geography Obviously pre gcse but pleased to hear a few others suffered after me!

Tread carefully OP but do warn her about it becoming a habit. She may know less than she thinks she does.

It definitely sounds like anxiety is the main reason for this, given your update. Your DD sounds like a hard working and sensible person and you come across as a really lovely mum.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Update - After discussing with dh and making dd aware of what I was going to do I have written to the school quoting the Exams Office guidance that ChristinaXYZ linked. Many thanks to Christina for finding that. I have also forwarded dd a copy of my message to school, in the interests of openness, so she knows what we are saying about her.

Op this is very odd behaviour.

Could there have been an issue with the results not being as she hoped/expected and that she holds a teacher to blame?

In my experience, young people of that age do not want a fuss and contacting school because she won't disclose her results would come very firmly into that territory for most.

Did you ask her to tell you the results again before saying this is what you intended to do?

Did you tell her that you were hurt by her actions?

Is your dd NT?
It's very unusual to prefer parents involving school rather than just revealing the grades.

Can you update us! And good luck op

I’m sorry but this one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read. You don’t know your child’s GCSE results. What has happened to your relationship that means it was even an option for a child not to share this. She might be 16 but she’s a dependent living at home reliant on you for everything, you’re her parent. This is just beyond strange

@Travielkapelka

I’m sorry but this one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read. You don’t know your child’s GCSE results. What has happened to your relationship that means it was even an option for a child not to share this. She might be 16 but she’s a dependent living at home reliant on you for everything, you’re her parent. This is just beyond strange

It really is.

I wish I'd had the gorm to not disclose, but I was always scared of my mum.

When I did get my results my mum phoned relatives whose own children had just taken their exams and compared notes before I got a congratulations.

I had nothing private.

I told my dad my A Level results and I assume he told my mum because she never mentioned them.

Actually my parents never saw my certificates so I could have said anything.

@TheBraveLittleTailor

I can see an argument for publishing results - perhaps especially A levels. Forgery is very easy these days. I remember going into the school grounds in the holidays when I was in the lower sixth and looking at the upper sixth A level results posted on the front door. My God were they dire!

I wonder if the results being published made us more resilient or forced us to face things head on rather than hiding away and pretending that it didn’t happen, which is not a particularly healthy way of dealing with things?

It does seem to me that nowadays everything is set up for success, winning and achieving highly and that kids are not as used to failure or disappointment. I include my own dc’s in this too. I’m not saying that this is the case with op’s daughter but just a general observation.

My ds never told me his a level (resit) grades. I've had to guess them! But in his case it was because he flunked and he was just so stressed about it, so I didn't make him.

My dd threatened not to tell anyone her GCSE results, but she did actually do it.

I don't know OP, presumably she's in the sixth form she wants to be in? Why do you think she's done it - to be difficult/contrary or because she's upset about the results?