Before trying to solve your child’s problem, find out what kind of problem it is …

Few things are more frustrating than trying everything you know to help your child with a school problem and watching none of it work. You explain, encourage, remind, help, and perhaps finally get a little irritated, yet the problem is still sitting there. When that happens, understanding what is actually causing the difficulty can make all the difference in knowing how to help.

Parents have an interesting disadvantage when children bring problems home from school: they usually arrive somewhere in the middle of the story. Your child tells you what happened, but you were not in the classroom, on the playground, or sitting at the lunch table when it happened. Even your child may not understand why the situation became so difficult. Taking time to discover what is really going on gives you a much better chance of helping with the problem your child actually has.

As school gets underway, six types of problems are especially useful for parents to recognize. Knowing what to look for can make a confusing situation much easier to understand.

Skill problems
Sometimes a child is struggling because a needed skill has not been learned or developed well enough yet. That is a skill problem. The child may understand what is expected and genuinely want to succeed, but something required to get from “I know what I’m supposed to do” to “I can actually do it” is missing.

This often becomes visible when school asks more of a child than it did before. Imagine a student who begins missing assignments after moving from one classroom teacher to several teachers. The work itself is not too difficult. The problem appears when assignments have to be recorded in different classes, materials have to make it home, and several deadlines have to be managed at once. What looks like carelessness may turn out to be a child who has never developed a reliable way to organize more complex schoolwork.

Parents can get valuable information by asking a child to show them how something is being done. If the child cannot explain how assignments are tracked or has no workable way to begin a large project, the missing skill becomes much easier to see. That gives the parent something specific to teach and practice rather than repeatedly correcting the result.

Expectation problems
Children have expectations about school even when they have never said them aloud. An expectation problem occurs when a child is struggling because what was expected does not match what actually happened.

Suppose a child studies hard for a test and comes home furious about receiving a B. More studying may have produced a better grade, but the intensity of the reaction may have another source. During the conversation, the child says, “I studied for two hours. I should have gotten an A.” Now the expectation is visible: hard work was supposed to guarantee a particular result.

The same thing happens socially. A child may feel rejected when a close friend spends time with someone else because friendship was understood to mean always choosing each other first. Asking, “What did you think was going to happen?” can reveal the expectation behind the disappointment. Parents can then help the child decide whether that expectation was realistic and develop a more accurate way of understanding what happened.

Relationship problems
School is full of relationships, and trouble in one of them can change a child’s experience of an entire day. A relationship problem involves conflict, poor communication, rejection, mistreatment, or another difficulty between the child and someone at school.

Perhaps a child who normally enjoys a particular class suddenly wants nothing to do with it. The work has not become harder, but something happened with the teacher or another student. Until that comes out, conversations about grades, attitude, or effort are unlikely to reach the real concern.

Finding out who is involved and what has been happening gives parents a clearer picture of the help that is needed. Sometimes children need guidance in resolving a disagreement or communicating more effectively. Other situations, including bullying or persistent mistreatment, call for adult intervention. Understanding the relationship problem allows the response to fit what is actually happening.

Emotional-regulation problems
An emotional-regulation problem occurs when a child has difficulty managing a strong emotion and that emotion begins interfering with what happens at school. Anxiety can make thinking difficult, embarrassment can turn into anger, and frustration can become so intense that a child gives up or reacts in ways that create another problem.

A child who gives a wrong answer in class and hears several classmates laugh may come home angry and announce, “I’m never answering another question in that class.” The anger may make it easy to miss what happened first: the child was embarrassed and began thinking that everyone in the room now believed he was stupid. By the time he gets home, one embarrassing moment has affected the rest of his school day.

Because the parent was not there, the first job is to find out how the situation unfolded rather than trying to correct the reaction immediately. “Tell me what happened when you gave the wrong answer” can open the story. Then the parent can follow what happened in order: What did the other students do? What did the child think when they laughed? What did he feel? What did he do next? That conversation may reveal that embarrassment became anger after the child decided, “Everybody thinks I’m stupid,” and that the anger then led him to snap at his teacher and stop participating.

Now there are specific things a parent can help with. If the child says everybody thought he was stupid, ask how he knows that. Were all of the students laughing, or only a few? Does he believe another student is stupid whenever that student gives a wrong answer? Questions like these help the child examine the thought that intensified the emotion and see the situation more accurately. The parent can also address what happened afterward. Being embarrassed explains the anger, but it does not excuse disrespecting a teacher or taking the anger out on someone else. If the child behaved badly, deciding how to make that right becomes part of dealing with the problem.

The final part is preparing the child for another difficult moment at school. That preparation should fit what actually happened rather than asking the child to master some generic emotional technique. If classmates laughing is the problem, parent and child can decide beforehand what the child will do if it happens again, and then practice it at home. If anxiety causes a child to freeze during presentations, find out what is feared most and practice that difficulty. A child afraid of forgetting what to say can deliberately practice losing a place and finding it again. A child frightened by having everyone watching can practice first with one person and gradually add a larger audience. The parent is giving the child experience handling the situation before having to face it again at school.

Some emotional problems will need more than a parent can reasonably provide at home. When strong emotional reactions repeatedly interfere with learning, behavior, friendships, or the ability to attend or participate in school, talking with the teacher or school counselor can help parents understand what is happening during the school day. Persistent or severe difficulties may also warrant help from an appropriate professional.

Environmental problems
An environmental problem occurs when something in the school setting makes it harder for a child to learn, concentrate, participate, or behave successfully. The problem comes from conditions surrounding the child at school rather than from the academic task itself.

A child may struggle to concentrate in math every day even though the work is well within his ability. A little digging reveals that his seat is beside two friends who whisper, joke, and pull his attention away throughout the class. Another child may become overwhelmed in a classroom where there is constant movement and noise, yet work comfortably in a quieter class. A student who cannot see material clearly from the back of the room may begin missing information and falling behind even though understanding the material is not the problem.

Once a pattern appears, parents can ask what is different about the place where the problem occurs. Does it happen in every class or only one? Where is the child sitting? What is happening around the child when concentration is lost? Is there something about the classroom routine or physical setting that repeatedly creates difficulty? Those questions can help separate an environmental problem from a skill, behavior, or motivation problem.

When the school environment is contributing to the difficulty, parents can work with the teacher on a reasonable change. Moving a seat away from distracting friends may be enough. A child who is easily overwhelmed by activity may function better in a less distracting location in the room. A student who cannot clearly see instructional material may need a different seat. The purpose is to identify a specific condition that is interfering with the child at school and, when possible, change that condition so the child has a better opportunity to succeed.

Responsibility problems
A responsibility problem occurs when a child knows what is expected, has the ability to do it, and repeatedly fails to follow through. The pattern may involve unfinished assignments, ignored deadlines, poor preparation, or school responsibilities that are routinely neglected.

Parents can address this directly by deciding what the child will be responsible for and making that expectation specific. Instead of telling a child to “stay on top of schoolwork,” establish something that can actually be followed: homework is completed by 7:00, assignments are submitted before the deadline, or the backpack is packed before bed. The parent then checks whether the agreed responsibility was handled rather than repeatedly reminding the child throughout the day.

When the child does not follow through, use a consequence that is already understood and can be enforced consistently. If homework must be completed before gaming, unfinished homework means no gaming until it is done. If a child chooses not to study, the resulting grade is allowed to stand. If an assignment was ignored, the child contacts the teacher and finds out what can be done. The consequence stays connected to the neglected responsibility so the child experiences a clear relationship between the choice and its result.

If the behavior continues, increase supervision. Set one regular time each day to review the school portal, planner, or assignment list with the child. Have the child identify what is due, show what has been completed, and take care of anything that has been neglected. The parent checks and enforces the expectation; the child organizes and completes the work. Continue that level of oversight until the child is consistently following through, then gradually reduce it as the child demonstrates that the responsibility can be handled independently.

When the real problem becomes clear
When a child brings home a school problem, a few extra questions can be more useful than a quick solution. Parents can listen for where the difficulty actually begins and keep asking until the problem makes sense. Once it does, the response becomes much clearer because teaching a missing skill, helping with an overwhelming emotion, and holding a child responsible are very different kinds of help.

There is another reason those conversations matter. Children are watching how problems get handled. When parents make understanding the problem part of solving it, children gradually learn to do the same. Eventually, they can become better at recognizing what is going wrong and figuring out what to do about it — an ability that will serve them long after the particular class, grade, or school year has ended.

Scotty