BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA | Grade Seven results are out, and parents must adopt a healthy perspective. Unconditional love and support are essential for a child’s development and well-being. Celebrating their effort, progress, and resilience—even in the face of failure—helps build their confidence and self-esteem. Children must never be compared; accept what they bring home and encourage them.

 

By acknowledging and embracing your children’s imperfections and mistakes, parents foster a growth mindset, encouraging them to take risks, learn from errors, and develop problem-solving skills. Striking the right balance between celebrating achievements and teaching children to learn from failures is crucial for their development.

Parents must focus on effort, not just results. Praise your child’s hard work, persistence, and progress rather than only their grades. Grades are just numbers; your children have potential—support them and help them cultivate their success.

Emphasise learning over grades. View failures and setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning.

As parents, we must use positive language. Focus on what your child did well, instead of dwelling on what they did wrong. Grade Seven is not everything. Encourage self-reflection in yourself and in your children. Help them reflect on their experiences, identifying what went well and what they can improve.

Model a growth mindset and reassure them that they have potential. Share your own struggles and how you learned from them, demonstrating that mistakes are a natural part of learning. Celebrate progress, not just milestones. Acknowledge and appreciate small victories and steady improvement, not only major achievements.

Have open conversations with your children. Talk to them about their feelings, fears, and disappointments, and offer guidance and support.

By adopting these strategies, parents help their children develop a healthy perspective on success and failure, raising resilient, motivated, and confident individuals.

Your children have received their Grade Seven results—let us prepare our hearts and minds to accept them.

It is harmful for parents to put pressure on their children or on themselves.

Every learner in Zimbabwe will be placed in a high school come January. That is where they will relaunch their academic journey.

Not every child can get 6 units—and that is perfectly normal. Do not compare children.

We must always remember how units work in Grade Seven:

85%–100% = 1 Unit
77%–84% = 2 Units
70%–76% = 3 Units
60%–69% = 4 Units
50%–59% = 5 Units

These children wrote six subjects. So a child getting 2 units per subject earns 12 units total—this is not failure.
A child getting 3 units per subject earns 18 units total. If your child has 18 units, that is a “3”; celebrate your child.
A child getting 4 units per subject earns 24 units—still not failing.
This represents 60%–69% in every subject. How is that failure?
Even 5 units per subject—30 units total—is still a pass at 50%–59%.

Remember: Grade Seven results simply show that your child is ready for high school, where grading becomes:

75%–100% = A
60%–74% = B

So let us thank God for our children’s results, whatever they receive between 6 and 30 units.

Every mark is a step forward. Every child has a future.

Remember: your children have only you as their parents in the whole world.