3 Possible Reasons Your Teen Is Struggling in School and What You Can Do

The high school years are commonly a tumultuous and challenging time for teenagers. At this point in their lives, most teens are facing intense pressure from various sources—whether it’s to maintain good grades, keep up an active social life, excel at their co-curricular activities or a combination of these. Many are also contemplating big questions or making weighty decisions for the first time, such as those pertaining to their personal identity or their future life path.

Whether they go to a local school or an international high school in Singapore, some or all of the above-mentioned challenges will beset any teenager. As a parent, it’s always good to be proactive about supporting your teen through their struggles and helping them tackle these in a constructive way. This article explores three common reasons a teenager may face a hard time in school and offers some helpful tips about what concerned parents can do to help.

They Have Gaps in Their Knowledge

The consecutive nature of conventional education means that the material students learn each year is meant to build upon skills or knowledge they’ve acquired in the years prior. This setup poses a problem for students who have forgotten content they learned previously or were never taught certain kinds of material. Unfortunately, however, many teachers don’t have the time and resources to ascertain that all their students have the required core knowledge to help them get through their classes. Hence, students with knowledge gaps often fall behind in their classes—which can lead in turn to feelings of inadequacy and even resentment toward school.

Addressing knowledge gaps begins with helping your teen get an honest sense of where they are in their understanding of a particular subject. Ask them to explain concepts they’re learning in class to you, and encourage them to do their own supplementary research into challenging topics. Parents and students who desire a more focused, specialised approach, meanwhile, can also consider private tuition. In such a setup, a one-on-one tutor can help assess your child’s learning status and enable them to approach difficult material with confidence. You may also look into supplementary tuition offered by some schools in Singapore, like this foundational academic English program developed by an international American school, to help your teen strengthen their footing in areas where they need improvement.

They Feel Stressed and Overwhelmed

Stress is one of the most ubiquitous problems young people all over the world struggle with. It’s also a highly complex problem, stemming from not one but multiple potent sources. Common sources of stress for teenagers, for instance, include parental and self-expectation, academic demands, future-related anxiety and social and interpersonal pressures, among others. At worst, unchecked levels of stress can contribute to the development and exacerbation of mental health problems in the youth, such as depression and anxiety.

It’s impossible to fully free your child from stress, but as a parent, you can and should be an active part of their support system when it comes to stress management. You can start, for instance, by reflecting upon whether any speech or behaviours you exhibit might unintentionally be damaging to your child’s mental well-being, such as:

• Nagging
• Comparing them to friends, classmates, or siblings
• Overemphasising the importance of getting high grades in school
• Undervaluing their other hobbies and interests
• Coercing them into studying or doing schoolwork
• Signing them up for additional classes, programmes, or activities without their permission

Such behaviours will not only aggravate your teen’s stress but also actively damage your relationship. Instead, work to cultivate an emotionally safe, trusting home environment. Provide a compassionate and non-judgmental listening ear when they open up to you about problems, and assure them that you can work together to pursue constructive solutions. Acknowledge and affirm your teen’s hard work over whatever results they’re able to achieve, whether academically or in extracurricular activities. Feeling accepted, valued, and supported at home will strengthen your teen’s mental resilience and make them better able to cope with stress on the whole. 

They May Be Being Bullied

Dealing with bullying at school is a common interpersonal problem among teenagers and one that can have severe social, emotional and mental consequences if not properly addressed. Bullying takes many forms—such as name-calling, social isolation, physical abuse and others—but cases of bullying can also be difficult to address. Affected teens, for instance, might be reluctant to go to parents or teachers for help for fear of further harassment. Emotions can also run high when the time comes for the parents of the involved parties to discuss the incident with school authorities. 

The most constructive way to navigate cases of bullying is to assist your teen with reporting the incident to a teacher they can trust and asking this teacher to help devise an appropriate intervention. First help your child gather as much concrete information as possible about incidents of bullying they’ve experienced. Gently encourage them to recount at their own pace how, when, and where their conflicts with the other student have unfolded. Once you’ve consolidated this information, you and your child can then decide together how and when to approach a teacher for assistance. It’s helpful to discuss, for instance, whether they would want you to be present for the initial conversation or if they prefer to do it alone. You can also emphasise your teen’s right to ask that their teacher to keep the matter private.

It’s normal for your teen to face some ups and downs at school as they go through this naturally difficult time in their lives. A nurturing home environment and adequate parental guidance, however, will ensure that they go through their high school experience as healthily and happily as possible. With your help, tackling these many challenges can be a constructive experience that will, in turn, equip them with the social and intellectual skills to succeed in adulthood.