Every parent enjoys putting up one of those stickers that say that their child is an honor student. After all, when your child does well, you have done well by proxy- it is a generally good feeling for the entire family to have. When one of you succeeds, you all succeed in a way. That is the great thing about families- they succeed together. And in the same sense, there is something that your child can do that is even more important than getting on the honor roll, even if they only do it a little bit and never make the honor roll once in their entire early education. That one mysterious thing is setting high goals and making the effort to achieve them, and it will rocket them past a lot of the kids that get better grades.
Of course, it is always a good idea to work for the best grades that you can possibly get. It is always a good idea to encourage your kids to make getting good grades one of their goals- but in the grand scheme of things, those grades will not be all that important. What will be important, however, is for your child to decide what they want to do early enough that they can figure out what college would be the best place to learn how to do it- even if it is an Ivy League school.
As a matter of fact, aiming to get into a top tier university is a great goal to set for yourself. And the sooner your child learns this fundamental fact about their education, the better off they will end up being. Far too many children who have plenty of potential think that just because they do not get the best grades, they can not get into one of the best colleges. While great grades will certainly help, they are only marginal determinants of future success. Top schools want ambition.