How to Tell Your Parents You Got F on a Test

How to Tell Your Parents You Got F on a Test Okay, relax, you got an F on the test and now you’re searching online for tips and tricks to telling your parents and coming out alive. First of all, you’re not the first person to fail a test and you won’t be the last. It happens. In this article we’re going to go over the ideal strategy when it comes to dealing with mom and dad. Let’s get started. 1. Don’t Lie: Just Be Honest Yep, there’s no reason to lie. It’s not worth it and in 99.9% of the cases or scenarios we could come up with being honest will work out better for you in the end. Trying to lie and avoid things will only make everything much, much worse. When you tell your parents, just be perfectly honest and keep the initial saying really short. For example, this will do just fine: â€Å"Mom/Dad, I got an F on the test.† Once you say that just keep your mouth shut for a second and let mom or dad digest the information. They might blurt out something like, â€Å"OMG!† or, â€Å"Come on! Why?† but don’t be quiet to reply. Wait at least 3-5 seconds to see if their finished. Gauge their current attitude. Hey, are they having a good or bad day in general? 2. Prepare Your Explanation Beforehand Even though you’re going to be brutally honest, you shouldn’t wing it. The more coherent, logical and thought-out your explanation the more they’ll take you seriously. If you found the class incredibly boring and partied instead, then tell them that without being a child about it. If they interject, that’s fine. There’s no reason to get into an argument. That won’t help. Just calmly make it clear you’re telling them the honest truth and do it with some forethought. 3. Take Their Reaction In-Stride like an Adult Resolve yourself beforehand to take anything they say or do in-stride. Meaning you’re willing to take your lashes. This isn’t the end of the world. It doesn’t mean you’ll be a failure in life. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to have to drop out. It just means you need to make some changes (more on this momentarily). Don’t protest. Don’t try to defend yourself. Agree with everything they say and do without hesitation or resistance. Trust me, it works wonders. If you agree with everything and erase any possibility of argument, they’re far more likely to see things from your perspective instead of theirs. 4. Be Ready to Tell Them What You’re Going to Change When they ask you what you plan to do about it, have something prepared. Don’t be like, â€Å"I dunno /shrugs.† Instead you should show them you already have a plan of action. And mean it! Be sincere! 80% of human communication is unspoken and most parent’s a highly attuned to their own child’s BS. You’re going to study harder and take the course work more seriously. You’ve arranged a meeting with the professor to go over your options. You’ve joined a study group to make sure that you pick up the slack for the rest of the class. You’ve spoken with your advisor and there’s more than enough room to retake the class and still graduate on time. You’ve nailed down what went wrong and you know exactly how to fix it so this doesn’t become a bad habit. You’ve talked to the grant people and are taking the necessary steps to stay eligible. Failing a test can be a pretty substantial eye-opener so let your parent’s see how much wider your eyes are now. 5. Practice Being a Good Listener but be Confident Listen to what they say, but if they’re way off the mark in how they react you need to be confident. If they go off the deep end then you need to take this chance to be independent and call your own shots. This is, after all, your own life and your own education. Listen intently and when you reply, make sure they understand you heard them. But, don’t let mom and dad walk all over you in their quest for the perfect son/daughter. â€Å"I appreciate your advice, but I need you to know I got this.† There’s a big difference with taking your lashings and letting yourself get walked all over just because you made a bad call. College is a time to learn from our mistakes on our own and mom and dad need to understand this. 6. Follow Through Unless you plan on dropping the class, follow through on what you said you would do. If you don’t, then you risk making things 10 times harder should something like this come up again. It’ll be a learning experience that in more ways than one helps to set the tone of your adult life after college. How did you deal with telling your parent’s about the last time you failed a test? How did it go? Share the experience and help others when it’s their time up to bat!

Definition and Examples of Family Slang in English

Definition and Examples of Family Slang in English The informal term family slang refers to words and phrases (neologisms) created, used, and generally understood only by the members of a family. Also called kitchen table lingo, family words, and domestic slang. A lot of these words, says Bill Lucas, a trustee of the English Project at Winchester University, are inspired by the sound or the look of a thing, or are driven by an emotional response to that being described. Examples [Examples of this] sort of vocabulary [i.e., family slang or kitchen table lingo] . . . include words for items for which no standard name exists, like Blenkinsop (a comical-sounding but authentic British family name) for the little tab which slides across the top of self-sealing plastic bags for refrigeration, or trunklements to describe bits and pieces, personal possessions. Words which have moved into wider circulation such as helicopter and velcroid for intrusive parents or neighbors, howler for baby, and chap-esse for female probably originated in family usage. (Tony Thorne,  Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, 4th ed.  Bloomsbury,  Ã‚  2014)Greebles and TwangerIf there was no word for a thing, Sally Wallace invented it: greebles meant little bits of lint, especially those which feet brought into bed; twanger was the word for something whose name you dont know or cant remember. (D.T. Max, The Unfinished. The New Yorker, March 9, 2009)Hotchamachacha!One of [my fathers] favori te words Ive never heard on anyone elses lips: hotchamachacha! I imagine this began life as a conjurors invocation, like abracadabra. My father uses it, though, to create a general sense of humorous mystification (Am I going to get a chemistry set for my birthday, Daddy? Hotchamachacha!), or to pour scorn on what someone (usually me) is saying (Come onquickseven nines! Um... eighty-two? Hotchamachacha!), or to warn you urgently against doing something dangherooz. (Michael Frayn, My Fathers Fortune: A Life. Metropolitan Books, 2010) KaboofI’m 64 years old and ever since I can remember, we’ve called the area under stairs (the crawlspace) the kaboof. (Paula Pocius, Grammar Composition blog, December 31, 2007)Missmas CardsMissmas Cards are those you send after receiving Christmas Cards from people to whom you would not have sent, and which will surely arrive at their destination after Christmas. (Tanja, Grammar Composition blog, December 31, 2007)Manniversary and Mundungus DrawerThe Today program (Today, BBC Radio 4) asked its listeners to e-mail in their kitchen table lingo:Manniversary: John Roser and his partner use this to describe their annual anniversary.Mundungus Drawer: a drawer in Caroline Harris kitchen where everything and anything lives. Splosh, Gruds, and Frarping: Family Slang in Britain Linguists have published a new list of ‘domestic’ slang words which they say are now commonplace in British homes. Unlike some other slang, these words are used by people of all generations and are often used as a way to bond with other family members. According to the research, people are now more than likely to ask for splosh, chupley or blish when they fancy a cup of tea. And among the 57 new words identified meaning television remote control are blabber, zapper, melly and dawicki. The new words were published this week in the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang  [2014],  which examines the changing language of today’s society... Other household slang used by families include grooglums, the bits of food left in the sink after washing up, and slabby-gangaroot, the dried ketchup left around the mouth of the bottle.The personal possessions of a grandparent are now referred to as trunklements, while underpants are known as gruds.And in less well-mannered households, there is a new word for the act of scratching one’s backsidefrarping. (Eleanor Harding, Fancy a Blish? The Daily Mail [UK], March 3, 2014) Homely Terms - Family slang undoubtedly does in one way or another modify and create novel forms of speech which tend to become homely terms of unconventional usage. It may even be true that the most insignificant member of the family, the baby, may have the greatest influence in the matter of introducing novel forms. (Granville Hall, The Pedagogical Seminary, 1913)- More often than not, family words can be traced back to a child or grandparent, and sometimes they get passed down from generation to generation. They seldom escape the province of one family or a small cluster of familiesso are therefore seldom written down and must be gathered in conversation. (Paul Dickson, Family Words, 2007)