When Your Teenager Struggles at School

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It can be distressing to see your child struggle at school. You want to do something useful, and sitting down beside them to help with homework can seem the obvious place to start. But before you take on biology or chemistry, find out what kind of help they need.

If their grades have fallen, ask what has happened before assuming you know the reason. Start with your teenager’s account of school: what is going well, what they would like to change and where they would welcome support. Then consider these five ways to help.

1. Help them learn how to study

Before asking for more hours of studying, look together at how they spend that time. In a review of ten learning techniques, psychologist John Dunlosky and colleagues found strong evidence for practicing recall and spreading study sessions over time. Students benefited less consistently from rereading and highlighting.

To practice recall, students attempt an answer from memory, then consult the material to check it and identify what to review. By returning to a subject across several days, they can remember more over time. Ask the teacher to demonstrate these methods using current coursework; you can help make time for practice.

2. Work the system for your child

In a study of roughly 6,400 teenagers, Laurence Steinberg and colleagues found that parental involvement in school life was associated with academic improvement over the following year. That involvement included attending school events, helping choose courses, keeping up with school progress and helping with homework when asked.

You can put this into practice by talking with teachers and involving your teenager in those conversations. Ask what support is available, agree on the next steps and follow up. Help your teenager and the teacher work together on the subject, while you support the arrangements at home. You do not have to become their math or language teacher to help them get the support they need.

3. Find people they can learn with

Ask whether your teenager would enjoy studying with someone. They may appreciate a partner for practicing a language while preferring to write alone. Let them help decide what would be useful.

Through school clubs and activities, they can also pursue interests with others. Look beyond the subjects being graded: your teenager can enjoy school through making music, playing a sport or learning something they chose themselves.

4. Build their day around sleep

Make sleep the hub when you help organize your teenager’s day. Sleep researcher Mary Carskadon has documented how adolescents tend to become sleepy later as they mature, without needing less sleep.

Start with when they must get up, then plan for enough sleep. If they regularly finish homework or activities late, look together at what you can reschedule or reduce. Speak with teachers if you need to discuss the workload. Plan for rest from the outset, rather than expecting your teenager to sleep only after finishing everything else.

5. Protect time to concentrate

When Larry Rosen and colleagues observed 263 students studying at home, students averaged less than six minutes on task before switching, often to texting or social media.

Agree on a study period when your teenager will turn off notifications and check messages afterward. They can close unrelated tabs while keeping the technology needed for the assignment. Consider how you and others at home can avoid interrupting them, too.

Begin with one change your teenager wants to try, then arrange to talk again about how it went.

Carol Dweck’s distinction between a fixed and a growth mindset is about whether we believe we can develop our abilities. With effective strategies, teaching and practice, your teenager can learn things they cannot do yet—and discover interests they have yet to imagine.

“You never know how good you can be at something until you approach it with passion, dedication and persistence.”

— Carol Dweck, Stanford interview

For practical support with learning, motivation and growing independence, explore Gottman Parenting: Teen Success—Cultivating Purpose and Achievement. You may find an approach that fits the challenges your family is facing.