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9.1. Academic achievement in school

Pathfinders make their children responsible for their own achievement and progress in school once they reach 5th or 6th grade depending on their level of maturity and appropriateness of the academic program in which they are enrolled. Pathfinders do not fight with their children once they reach middle school age to achieve in school. They allow the natural consequence of low grades or failure to teach these children the importance of applying themselves to class work, class participation, classroom behaviors, attention to studies, completing homework, and studying for examinations, tests and quizzes. In the elementary grades Pathfinders utilize logical consequences at home to encourage improvement in academic behaviors. They also can use logical consequences in the later years. They recognize that by middle school, academic motivation comes from within the students. These parents let go of the problem of under achievement or scholastic behavioral acting out and cease trying to fix and change their children leaving it to the students to handle on their own. Pathfinders recognize that they cannot control the outcomes of their children's performance in middle school, high school and college. They wait for their children to initiate requests for assistance and guidance on how to better their performance. They utilize family meetings to discuss the natural consequences of academic performance and non-performance with no lecturing, preaching or directing. High achievement and success is naturally reinforced in school by honor rolls and academic awards and scholarships. Pathfinders do not bribe their children with financial or material rewards for good grades in school. They do not pay for good grades. They allow the natural affect of the inner sense of accomplishment and personal success to motivate their children to continue to want to excel in school. Pathfinders discuss with their children the positive and negative impact of receiving a good education in school. They allow the natural consequences to affect their children's intrinsic motivation to succeed in school. Pathfinders emphasize that their children's primary work in the family is to be a student and to achieve a worthwhile education which prepares them for adult life.

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9.2. School placement

Pathfinders work closely with their children's schools to insure that their children are in an appropriate placement. They watch for signs of cognitive or intellectual deficits, slow learning skills, perceptual difficulties, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, distractibility, hyperactivity, language delays, visual or hearing impairments, emotional and behavioral problems, boredom, and inattentiveness due to work being too easy or not challenging enough, and other physical reasons for their children's problems with academics or school life. They intervene as soon as problems arise and request formal screening and testing from the school to better define why their children are having problems. They advocate for appropriate placement and monitor that their children are receiving what they need from the schools to insure them reaching their optimum potential. Once they have their children in as appropriate a school placement as possible, then they work along with the teachers to develop appropriate programs of natural and logical consequences to motivate them. If their children are in exceptional educational programming, they work on an annual basis with the teachers to develop an individual education plan(IEP) which will detail the goals for their children for the next academic year. They monitor this plan throughout the year and intervene with the teachers when it appears the IEP needs to be revised, altered, or discontinued. Pathfinders recognize that when their children are appropriately placed in school that they have an easier task of motivating them to succeed.

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9.3. Study location in home

Pathfinders designate the private rooms of children as their appropriate place to study and do homework. They emphasize with their children that if work is done in public rooms they have to accept the natural consequence of the distractions of the noise and activity. Pathfinders make an effort to provide their children with a desk or table to study on. They also make an effort to provide this space with a study lamp, comfortable chair, and enough supplies and equipment to accomplish the academic work to be done. Pathfinders encourage their children to recognize their own limitations as to if they can listen to music while they study. At family meetings guidelines for setup and maintenance of study space are drawn up.

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9.4. Study time in home

Pathfinders designate specific quite hours in home during which the expectation is that the children will be doing their studies and homework. These times are distinguished by the television and other electronic media in the public rooms being turned off. Children at family meetings help their parents to designate these study times. On an annual basis as the children grow older the times will vary in length and placement in the daily schedule. Pathfinders recognize that designated study times in the home provide their children with a structure around which they can plan their completion of homework, studying for tests and doing their required readings.

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9.5. Parental assistance with homework and studying

Pathfinders recognize that they cannot be intrusive in their children accomplishing of homework, projects, and studying for tests. They are reluctant to over do for their children. They resist giving the correct answers for the homework so that their children do not become dependent on them doing their work for them. Pathfinders maintain that they can consult and give advice, but that their children must do their own work. These parents do not overly intrude. They might ask to review the nightly homework but do not correct it. They leave the accuracy of the homework, and studying to the natural consequences in the classroom. They allow their children to earn their own grades on homework and projects so as to assist them to have realistic expectations about grades and academic achievement. Pathfinders resist contributing to grade inflation for their children by limiting the amount of assistance they give them in their studies. Children of Pathfinders never have it said about them, that "their parents got their grades for them."

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9.6. Academic equipment

Pathfinders make every effort to provide their children with the most adequate equipment and supplies necessary to accomplish their academic work. This includes paper, pencils, pens, notebooks, book bags, and folders. They also provide calculators, typewriters, and computers. The home has appropriate reference texts including dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, globe and encyclopedia. The children are encouraged to share the expensive equipment which is often stored in the parents' private rooms or public rooms of the house. At family meetings guidelines for use of the shared equipment are worked out. Pathfinders make appropriate academic equipment available for their children so that they can get the most out of their academic efforts in the most efficient way possible at home.

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9.7. Academic problems

Pathfinders make every effort to cooperate with school officials when their children are presenting problems in the school. Until their children reach middle school age they set up logical consequences in the home to address the school based problems. However, when their children are having problems in middle school and high school they do not necessarily set up logical consequences at home unless the wellbeing of the home life is being threatened; i.e. a student being kicked off a bus, being suspended, or being kept after school in detention. When children reach middle school age on, Pathfinders inform the school personnel that if their children are in trouble to please use everything in their power in school to make the natural consequence for the problem so severe that the children will have second thoughts of repeating it. They encourage the school not to use suspension to home because often times it is just what the students wanted. It ceases being negative except to the parents who must supervise the children who are out of school. Pathfinders recognize that often times their children need their support to understand the importance of the school's action. These parents do not rant and rave over the problems which their children get into at school. They allow the natural consequences the children are experiencing to sink in and hopefully to motivate them. Often times there are personality conflicts between students and teachers. It is a difficult judgement call to make when this is real or not. However, Pathfinders do advocate once they meet the teachers in questions and sense a bias or prejudice against their children. They will not hesitate to request a change of class assignment when such a bias is obvious. They, on the other hand, will not do this lightly if this event is a continuing pattern for their children. They will instead request assistance from the school to determine what is going on with their children that they are consistently have problems with teachers. Need for a more appropriate class placement might be the real issue underlying these problems. Pathfinders intervene in the problems their children have in school very cautiously so as not to lose their effectiveness as advocates for their children.

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