What Should You Do if Your Child is Having Trouble in School?

by Ed Wilkens

Depending on family dynamics, you might become aware of any academic difficulties your child is experiencing over family dinner, while driving to soccer practice or in those quiet conversations just before bed. Or, you might be totally surprised to learn from your child's teacher or through a formal written progress report that things are not going as well as you had assumed. 

Regardless of how you discover the challenges, what you do next is crucial and it's all about communication and relationships. The essential players include you, your child and the teacher or teachers relevant to the challenge. Potential additional partners might include a counselor, coach or administrator depending on the specifics of the challenge.

If you find yourself in this situation, here are some next steps that you can take:

1. Hold positive assumptions

• Your child wants to do well.
• Your child's teachers care that he does well.
• Your child's teachers have the skills to meet her needs.
• When parents and teachers work together, anything is possible.

2. Talk with your child to try to understand his perspective and definition of the problem.

3. Convey caring, confidence and commitment to make things better.

4. Contact your child's teacher immediately. Do not wait for the school's official system to    kick into gear.

• Try to identify a primary contact person. Oftentimes schools are organized by teams or there may be a "teacher advisory" system of some sort.
• Request an initial conversation with your primary contact (best to avoid having to sit down with a large group of personnel) and explain your concerns, simply but as clearly and specifically as possible. 
• Include your child depending on her age and developmental readiness to participate.

 5. Prepare for the initial conversation by outlining your concerns. Consider bringing your brief, clear-written outline along to the meeting so you can refer to it.

• Carry your positive assumptions into the conversation. Avoid blame.
• If the teacher is the sole, relevant professional, talk through your concerns to see if there is a real need for further steps. If so, begin working on possible action steps keeping them clear, explicit and simple.
• If a group would better help achieve success, then request a meeting with that team (or a sufficient representation of the team. Again, unless you are sure to be comfortable, try to avoid sitting "across from" all seven of your child's teachers. That can be intimidating.)

6. Get it in writing. 

• Once a comfortable, focused, simple, clear set of strategies is identified it should be committed to writing so there is a record of the plan. (Note: This kind of plan might well be formalized in the school's "Education Support Team" structure, or even more so with what is known as a "504 Plan" and could, depending on the situation, lead to consideration of a "Special Education Evaluation.")

7. Inform yourself about the formal evaluation process if one is needed (you can find information about this online and from various advocacy groups). The plan should include:

• Efforts by parents as well as school personnel so there is deliberate mutual support (Remember: All things are possible).
• Details about how you all will measure progress and success.
• A realistic mechanism for simple, regular communications about progress.
• An explanation about the responsibilities everyone (including the student) has so that this is a team effort. This is especially important for your child if he/she has not attended the initial meetings with you.

 Here are some more tips and tricks to help you while you are going through this process with the school:

• If at any point you do not experience receptivity to your concerns, do not hesitate to turn to other school personnel, including other teachers, counselors, principal, nurse, etc. The goal is to have a sense of welcome and readiness to work together. 
• Keep notes at meetings and of other relevant conversations, including email exchanges just to have access to key points, decisions, actions planned. We all need reminders occasionally.
• It nearly goes without saying, but continue to use your "parent radar" to stay tuned in to how well your child is doing academically, but also socially and emotionally.
• Celebrate what does work, but don't wait long if your instinct suggests elements of the plan are not working as intended. Return to the drawing board.
• Do give folks, including your child, reasonable time to implement and respond to the plan.
• Thank everyone playing a role in the progress and success of your child.

 
Ed Wilkens served as a Vermont public school principal for 19 years across all grade levels pre-k through 12. He now works as Development Director for the Stern Center.