One of the most frustrating experiences that a parent can have is when their child is experiencing difficulty in school. Most parents don’t know what to do or know where to turn for help. The most obvious place for help would be to talk to the teachers at the school. However, many times the teachers don’t know what to do either. Part of the problem is that teachers are not extensively trained to deal with students who are struggling in school. It is a very complex problem and there are many reasons a student might struggle.

Blame is everywhere. Everybody is pointing fingers at somebody else as the person responsible for the failure. Parents sometimes blame the teachers or the school system. Teachers sometimes blame the parents or lack of family support or the lack of funding for adequate supplies and books. EVERYBODY blames the student. They accuse the student of not trying hard enough or of being lazy or of not caring. They often label the student with a learning disability and put him or her in a special class. Meanwhile, the student continues to struggle and the frustration level of all continues to grow.

Most solutions are aimed at changing behaviours or the environmental constraints of the student. We may ground them, or take away their TV privileges, or make them study longer, or monitor their schoolwork to make sure it is turned in. We sometimes change teachers or schools or have them do their homework in a different setting, or have them do homework at a different time. Most of the time, these attempts do not provide a long term solution. It produces a lot of policing on the part of the parent and a lot of bickering between the parent and student which results in hurt feelings and escalating frustration for both the student and parent.

Maybe it is time to look for solutions in a different place. Maybe the real answer for how to deal with a struggling student is in how the student perceives their role in school and learning. In my opinion, there are five significant areas within which problems in school originate.

They are: ATTITUDE ABOUT SCHOOL AND LEARNING, KNOWING HOW TO LEARN, MOTIVATION, LOOKING FOR POSITIVE INTENTION, and RESPONSE OF THE PARENT/TEACHER.

ATTITUDE: Make sure the student has an appropriate way to think ABOUT school and learning. The way a student thinks about school establishes whether or not school is meaningful. If school has no positive meaning, the student has no reason to excel. If school has a negative meaning, it becomes an incubator for behaviour problems. You can find out what their attitude is by getting an answer to the question "What is the meaning of school to you?"

If they say things like: "It has no meaning." or "I don’t know." or "I get to see my friends." or "I have to go." for example, then they will drift through school in a meaningless fashion. At best, they will have to force themselves to do the academic tasks

assigned to them. School will be no fun at all. If they say: "School is boring, I hate it." or "The teachers pick on me." or some variation of that, then school will be one behaviour problem after another.

If their answer is some variation of "It is where I get to go and learn new things." then learning and school will have a positive meaning and will be fun to them.

LEARNING: Make sure the student knows HOW to learn and do the academic tasks assigned to him or her. Our schools assume that students already know how to learn in the classroom and that they do not have to teach them learning strategies that actually engage the mind in learning in an appropriate way. Many students struggle because what they attempt to do DOES NOT WORK. Most "study skills" are simply activities that may or may not create learning in the mind. For example, two of the most common ways students are advised to learn spelling words are: 1. Write the spelling word down 5-10 times, and 2. Spell the word over and over in their mind until they remember it. Neither of these activities work very well and many students rebel at having to do the boring and repetitive tasks.

MOTIVATION: plays a crucial role in a student's engagement with school and their assigned tasks. When school and tasks align with what student values and considers important, they become motivated. These values, known as criteria, are the standards by which students evaluate and judge their behaviour. For example, if a student values learning, doing well, or being competent, and they know how to achieve those criteria, they will be motivated to participate in school. On the other hand, if students haven't yet connected their own values to school, they may lack motivation.

It's common for athletes to be motivated by sports because they value competition and being the best. However, they may not feel the same motivation in the classroom because they haven't found a way to be competitive or excel academically. The missing link may be that they have received coaching on how to excel in sports but not on how to learn effectively in the classroom.

In summary, when students understand how their values connect to their schoolwork and receive guidance on effective learning strategies, they are more likely to be motivated and engaged in their education.

INTENTION: Many times when a student starts to struggle in school, the parents or teachers start reacting to the student as though they were struggling on purpose. In other words, they assume negative intention behind the behaviours. They sometimes call the student lazy or unmotivated or uncaring. The perception of the student when these types of labels are used is that something is wrong with them. In order to protect their self-esteem, the student will either fight back in various ways or withdraw. In fact, the fight to save their self-esteem becomes the main issue rather than how to solve the school problem.