When Your Kids Struggle in School

Having a child struggle in school academically can be upsetting and challenging. I’m not an education expert but I can speak to how a parent feels. You want your child to be happy and successful. It’s just not always that easy. In fact, sometimes it’s insanely hard to figure out what the heck is going on in that little brain of theirs!

As a child, I attended only two elementary schools. As a parent, I’ve been involved with nine spanning three states. Each school, each teacher, and each child are the variables.

The only constant has been our home. I believe home is the lynch pin for what happens at school. Our support of and relationship with our children have a much greater impact on them than we realize.

There’s a saying: “Where the mama itches, the family scratches.” If homework and education is a priority for me, then it becomes a priority for the kids.

I’m laughing at that last statement. I didn’t say it wasn’t painful, messy, or frustrating. If you walked into our home at certain times, you  might hear, “Homework, chores, let’s go, and if the TV goes on one more time my head will rotate and pop right off so don’t even think about it.”

It’s also hard to hold a school accountable when life at home is out of balance and your family is running amuck. I know of what I speak!

Some of my kids have needed extra help, and mom and dad’s help just wasn’t enough. We couldn’t afford private tutoring, and while I have friends who have used private tutoring options and had great success, it was never an option for us.

Children with obvious learning disabilities often have a multitude of resources readily available. But what about the child who doesn’t quite qualify for programs but needs extra help? Two of our children struggled just enough to start falling behind academically and become frustrated, but didn’t qualify for any school or district funded programs. It was up to us to help them discover learning strategies to overcome those challenges. In some schools, we had excellent support from the teachers. In others, it was all on us.

I quickly learned that talking to other parents was really helpful.  I would describe what I was seeing and what the teacher was seeing in the classroom. With the support of other parents, I began identifying strategies for my kids to try out.

I also learned how important it was to talk to my kids’ teachers on a regular basis, either via email, phone calls, or conferences. (I’ve also had the worst case scenario where I didn’t feel the teacher was all that helpful. That’s a whole separate blog!)

When I started looking for outside resources it was overwhelming. With my first few children, my resources were limited as was my ability to find the right resources to meet their needs. Now I have, on several occasions, used the research help and tools Military OneSource offers. Just identifying my options and talking with someone helped me get a better perspective. I felt like I was getting a more robust overview of options to help my child instead of putting all my eggs in one basket.

Being able to brain storm with someone, about things as simple as where the kids did their homework, was also very helpful. What is the environment like where they do their homework? What are the resources available at the local school, the district, and state level? What resources are available on the installation, on the Internet?

I also have learned to use the Internet for good…not just social networking, games, and harassing my husband via email. Tutor.com is an online tutoring service free to active duty members, National Guard and Reserve members, and their dependents. You can find the link to Tutor.com for Military Families in the DoD MWR Library Resources section on Military OneSource.

Schools also often have web-based skill building or tutoring programs at no cost to their students. Kids want to be on the computer, so let them! They can practice reading comprehension and math facts.

All the resources out there aren’t going to help unless my kids have the time and space they need to do their school work. Sometimes, I needed to stop the crazy train we ride daily and assess our routine. I needed to figure out what at home wasn’t working out as well as it should. Here is the laundry list of questions I ask myself:

• What is our after school routine like?
• What time are they getting to bed?
• Is there a time and space set aside for homework?
• Are they over-scheduled?
• Do they get enough downtime?
• Are they watching too much TV, or spending too much time on video games or the computer?

When the answer to one of these questions doesn’t feel quite right, I need to figure out what’s going on and how to adjust. Many times it’s me. My days can get out of control and the family gets swept up in the chaos of Kelli. So I regroup and make adjustments allowing me to better manage the family.

Our kids are unique individuals. That means they learn and grow as unique individuals. We just need to take the time to learn what is going to work best for each of them.