School & Academic Concerns

There are many reasons for children and adolescents to under perform at school, including a lack of motivation to do well, problems at home or with peers, poor work habits or study skills, emotional and behavior problems, learning disabilities (such as dyslexia), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, mental retardation or below average intelligence and other medical problems, including anxiety and depression.  It is important to find the reason for your child's poor performance and come up with a treatment plan so that they can perform up to their full potential.  Another reason to get your child help, is that doing poorly in school can easily lead to problems with low self-esteem, behavior problems and depression.

It is sometimes difficult to figure out if a child's problems at school are caused by their other psychological problems, such as depression, or if these other problems began because of their poor school performance.  Children who do poorly at school may be under a lot of stress, and will develop different ways to cope with this stress.  Some may externalize their feelings, which can lead to acting out and behavior problems or becoming the class clown.  Other children will internalize their feelings, and will develop almost daily complaints of headaches or stomachaches.  A thorough evaluation by an experienced professional is usually needed to correctly diagnose children with complex problems.

Motivation

Even if your child has normal or above average intelligence, without a desire or motivation to succeed at school, it is unlikely that he or she will do well. There are many reasons for children to have a limited motivation, including parental expectations that are set too high or too low, social problems, including difficulties at home or at school, and behavior problems.

To help your child develop a positive attitude and motivation toward working hard at school you should:

Give your child praise and rewards for doing something well or working hard toward a difficult or challenging problem.  Help build self confidence by avoiding frequent criticism and praising hard work.

Communicate with your child about school and ask her about her day to show that you are interested.

Help her to find something that she has a skill or special interest in, such as music, sports, reading, etc.,

Help your child to understand that success has a lot to do with how much time and effort you put into a task, and is not just about how smart or strong she is.  Children who believe this are more likely to take on new challenges and work harder on difficult  tasks.

Set realistic goals and expectations for your children and set up consequences for not meeting these expectations and rewards or privileges for when she does.  If your child is making C's, but is working hard at school and at doing her homework, then it may be unreasonable to expect her to make the honor roll.  You should instead reward and praise her hard work and not punish her for not living up to your expectations.

Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities can affect how children listen, think, store, retrieve, write, read and communicate information or perform mathematical calculations, and can cause her to have a short attention span without having ADHD.  It is common for children with ADHD to also have learning disabilities.  Among the ways that a learning disability can affect the way your child learns is by interfering with the input of information to the brain.  This can be a visual perception disability, causing your child to reverse or rotate letters and numbers or to not be able to focus on specific letters and words on a page, or it can be an auditory perception disability, so that similar words sound alike and cause confusion or she may not be able to process words that she hears as fast as people are speaking them.   Learning disabilities can also cause problems with the integration of sensory information, or how the brain processes the sensory data that is sent to it.  This can affect the information received from vision, touch, and balance and can affect your child's gross and fine motor skills.  Specific integration disabilities include sequencing disabilities, in which your child confuses the sequence of words, letters, math problems, etc.  They can also have abstraction, organizational, and memory (affecting visual vs. auditory & short term or long term memory) disabilities.  Children with learning disabilities can also have problems with the way that they output information.  These output disabilities can affect the way they talk or the way that they write or draw.   Most children with learning disabilities have one or more of the above problems, affecting the way that they input, integrate or output information.  These problems can cause them to have difficulty at school, but can also cause problems at home and when they play.        

Some children with learning disabilities have always had trouble learning new things, while others do well in school at first, but then start to have problems in the fifth or sixth grade as school gets more difficult.  Children with learning disabilities may only have trouble with certain subjects, such as math or reading, and may do well in other classes.   They will also have normal intelligence and may do well on standardized tests.  Children with learning disabilities are often described as not performing up to their potential or "being lazy."  Psychological testing is helpful in look for certain learning disabilities so that a modified education plan can be developed.  

Improving School Performance

After discussing your child's school performance with his or her teachers or other professionals and ensuring that he or she doesn't have a learning disability that is causing her to perform poorly, some steps that you can take to help her do better include:

Become actively involved in your child's schoolwork, by talking with her teachers, reviewing homework, and helping with study strategies.

Develop a daily study routine for after school, during which she can study and do her homework.

Help her become better organized:

·         Use clear directions.

·         Use colors, heading size or highlighting to help important concepts stand out.

·         Vary the type of activities to keep her interested.

·         Consider getting a tutor at school or a private tutor to help boost performance.

·         Prepare a quite environment for her to do her homework, without the distraction of a TV, stereo or siblings.

·         Make sure that she has enough time to complete her homework and that she isn't too involved in extracurricular activities or an after school job.

·         For children with below average intelligence, learning disabilities or ADHD, be an advocate for your child by making sure that the school is providing the proper education modifications to help her succeed.

·         Avoid creating a power struggle over homework and school performance.  If there is already a power struggle and your child's grades are worsening as she is becoming more defiant about school work, you can try and withdraw yourself from the conflict by making your child responsible for her performance.  Make time available for her to do her schoolwork by limiting television or video game use.  You may also want to provide incentives or rewards for improved school performance and removing other privileges, such as phone or car use, until her grades improve.

School Strategies

There are many classroom modifications that can be put in place to help improve school performance, memory and attention, impulse control, organization, and self esteem. You should discuss implementing these techniques with your children's teachers.

Improving memory and attention span:

·         Seat the child in an area with the least amount of distractions, near the teacher if possible. Consider using a study carrel, especially for independent work and keep her work area uncluttered.

·         Make instructions clear and unambiguous.

·         Keep oral instructions brief and repeat them at least once.

·         Consider providing written instructions and directions to supplement oral instructions.

·         Use visual aids.

·         Break up instructions, assignments and homework into small steps.

·         Improve reading comprehension by teaching her to underline key words or topics with a highlighter.

·         Improve listening comprehension by teaching her to take notes of key concepts.

·         Provide special signals or cues to remind her to get back on task.

Improving organizational skills:

·         Establish a daily checklist of assignments.

·          Keep a special notebook in which she can record homework assignments, project or report due dates, and test schedules.

Improving productivity:

·         Divide work sheets and assignments into sections.

·         Reduce the amount of homework and written class work, especially repetitive assignments such as math problems and spelling words that she can do accurately.

·         Vary the type of activities that she is doing.

·         Vary the way that material is presented.

·         Provide one on one instruction or small groups to introduce major concepts.

 Improving performance:

·         Provide extra time to complete assignments and tests.

·         Consider providing oral testing instead of or in addition to  written tests.

·         Remind the student to slow down.

·         Give extra weight to the content of an assignment when grading, and do not take off points for poor handwriting or minor spelling errors.

Protecting self esteem:

·         Avoid humiliating children who perform poorly in front of the other children.

·         Give positive feedback when she stays on task, pays attention or works hard at an assignment.

·         Find things that she has special interest or strength in and encourage her to do these activities.

Behavior and impulse control:

·         Provide special signals or cues when she is beginning to misbehave.

·         Give clear expectations of what behaviors are expected in the classroom.

·         Be consistent in your expectations and in the consequences for misbehavior