What To Do If Your Child is Struggling At School
Your child falling behind at school in a noticeable way can be of great concern for mums, there could be a myriad of reasons causing it. However, there are many resources and techniques at your disposal and in this article, we will explore a few of them to equip you to be able to get the support and or information that you need. You can of course hire a tutor such as myself but there are other things to consider in conjunction or instead of.
What can cause Children to fall behind at school?
Some of the causes of learning and or attention issues can include;
1. Peer Relationships
This can include bullying, not having a sense of belonging/ feeling like an outcast and other children having a negative influence on your child.
2. Adverse Childhood Experiences
This can include experiencing violence (both actual or the perceived threat), poverty and abuse including physical, mental and or sexual.
3. Emotional Challenges
Experiencing some kind of trauma can easily have a negative influence on academic performance.
4. Pace of work
The pace of work can be too quick and children grow and mature academically at different rates but this doesn’t mean they do not have the capacity to learn, they may just require a more targeted or relaxed pace to process what is being taught.
5. Special Education Needs (SEN) that have not yet been identified
Your child may have difficulty understanding and processing what is being taught. If this hasn’t been identified yet, this could mean there is a lot of support and resources that your child is not currently accessing.
What Should Parents be doing?
If you’ve noticed that there is something wrong with your child’s academic progress at school there are a number of things that mums could do.
1. Be intentionally observant
Don’t just identify what is going wrong, but also identify what is going right. What are the specific triggers when things are going wrong and what are the specific triggers when things are going right? Note these down.
Do you recognise specific patterns of behaviour? For example, if they are finding homework difficult, do they become dejected and frustrated very easily leading to withdrawal and a lack of confidence?
Are there changes in attitude towards school? If they were once really excited to go to school are they now suddenly dreading it? Are other areas affected also, for example, eating and sleeping?
2. Telling the difference between struggles & Milestones
Parents will also need to be able to tell the difference between a short-term struggle that they will grow out of vs a long-term struggle that requires intervention. It’s also a good idea to be aware of general developmental milestones for children at their age. This needs to be taken with caution because every child is different but there are general trends for children that can provide a useful comparison.
3. Engage their school
There needs to be a good rapport and dialogue between home and school. Useful information collected at home can be matched up with what their teacher is seeing at school, and this opens the door for more to be done. The more you know the more targeted questions you can ask.
4. Have conversations with your child
Children are often a lot more self-aware than we give them credit for. Having a conversation with your child and seeing if you can get a clearer picture of what is going on and what the difficulties are is very beneficial. Try not to blame them but focus on creating an atmosphere where they feel comfortable sharing.
What are some solutions?
It goes without saying that their school needs to be engaged as soon as possible, there might be more provisions available or recommendations you may not have considered.
If the issue is more serious, you may need to seek professional help or advice, your local health service or school is a good place to start looking for recommendations and support.
Children can be overwhelmed when it looks like there is no hope in a situation, you can, therefore:
1. Modify expectations temporally until they catch up
There is nothing wrong with having high expectations for your child, however, if there is obviously an issue with their academic development at a point in time, it makes sense to reassess and put some aspects on pause if necessary and make getting back on track the priority. Small steps can be celebrated as big wins to encourage your child to develop perseverance.
2. Give the child a break
There are some instances when it’s necessary to power through and other times when your child needs to relax, it’s important that as a mum you know the difference so you can act accordingly.
3. Change the pace of learning and move more slowly
If the content is not making sense, it needs to be broken down and slowed. That way an educator, parent or tutor can pinpoint where exactly the child is confused or doesn’t understand.
4. Establish confidence and perspective
When confidence has been established it becomes a lot easier for children to make a greater effort. Academics are very important but even more important is having a happy and healthy child. Parents can often be anxious about how their children will fare in this very competitive world, taking a step back and taking stock of what is really important can do a world of good for both parent and child.
Remember if the strategies are not working, then try something new, sometimes it’s not about having all the answers but being willing to work through all the options until you find something that works.
5. You as a parent need to take care of yourself
You need to be in the right frame of mind to be able to make good decisions, so it’s essential that you take care of yourself and cut yourself some slack.
Your children are consciously or subconsciously depending on you to be able to sort out any situation they find themselves in, so it won’t help you to be overwhelmed.
In conclusion, a child struggling in school could be down to a myriad of reasons, and often but not always may be caused by an underlying issue. You have many tools at your disposal and this article is in no way exhaustive but provides an introduction to some of the methods and techniques you can use to support your child.
You can of course hire a tutor such as myself, they definitely should be a good fit for your child, if you’re curious about some of the things you should be looking out for when selecting a tutor you should have a look here at my video for my top 10 tips for selecting the right tutor.
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