The Crisis of Low Expectations: Why “Just Passing” is Failing Our Kids
We have a growing problem in our community, and it is hiding in plain sight behind a banner of mediocrity.
Somewhere along the line, the benchmark for successful parenting shifted. Today, it seems we’ve convinced ourselves that if our teenagers are staying off drugs, staying out of the back of a police cruiser, and managing to scrape by with a passing grade at the last minute, we’ve done our jobs.
That is not setting the bar. That is leaving the bar on the floor and breathing a sigh of relief when our kids manage to step over it.
The Real World Doesn’t Care About Excuses
I didn’t get my perspective on parenting from a psychology textbook or a seminar. I earned it through calloused hands and a career built from the ground up. I spent years in manufacturing and construction before transitioning into a full-time real estate career here in Volusia County.
If there is one universal truth I have learned across every job site, every contract negotiation, and every closing, it is this: the real world does not care about your excuses. If you show up late, if you miss deadlines, or if you refuse to put in the effort, there are immediate, tangible consequences. You lose the job. You lose the deal. You lose your livelihood.
Yet, we are sending an entire generation of young adults into this unforgiving environment completely unarmed.
Our public education system has fundamentally shifted its priorities. The focus is increasingly on pushing students through the system to maintain graduation rates, rather than holding them accountable to the habits required for actual success. Students quickly learn that they can show up late, skip the first hour of the day, ignore assignments for weeks, and still be granted an opportunity to “make it up” at the eleventh hour.
When the institutions designed to help shape our children refuse to enforce basic standards of punctuality and accountability, the burden falls entirely on us as parents. We have to be the ones willing to drop the hammer, even when it makes us the “bad guy.”
The Co-Parenting Challenge
This challenge is magnified tenfold for parents operating in a divided household.
Teenagers are incredibly smart. Like water, they will naturally seek the path of least resistance. When parents are no longer under the same roof, co-parenting requires an ironclad commitment to consistency. If one parent imposes a real-world consequence to teach a necessary lesson, and the other parent actively undermines it just because enforcing the punishment is “inconvenient,” the child learns nothing except how to manipulate the system.
Parenting isn’t about being your child’s best friend. It isn’t about buying their affection or removing every obstacle from their path to make your own life easier. It is about preparing them for a world that will not coddle them.
Raising the Standard
We need to stop celebrating the bare minimum. We need to demand punctuality, enforce consequences for laziness, and stand firm when our kids push back. If we don’t teach them that actions have consequences while they are still under our roofs, the real world will teach them that lesson much more harshly the second they step out the door.
It is time we raise the bar. Our kids are capable of reaching it, but only if we demand that they try.
Joey Giordano is a Volusia County father, a former manufacturing and construction professional holding certificates in Contract Management, and a full-time real estate agent with Gaffs Realty.