October 09, 2026

Dr Vanessa von Auer, Clinical Psychologists & Founder explains why struggling at school is not always about ability — and when “let’s give it time” may no longer be enough.

Parents are often told to wait.

“He’ll catch up.”

“She’s just shy.”

“He’ll make friends eventually.”

“He’s bright. He simply needs to apply himself.”

Sometimes that advice is absolutely right. Children develop at different rates, and not every difficult term needs an assessment, intervention and three specialists arriving before breakfast. But there is also a point where “let’s wait and see” stops being reassuring and becomes a way of postponing a problem.

When I speak with parents who are worried about their child, one of the first questions I ask is surprisingly simple:

Is your child happy at school?

Not just: Are they passing? Not: Are they behaving? And not even: Are they managing to complete the work?

Do they feel reasonably successful? Do they have a sense of belonging? Do they believe there is a place for them within the school community? Because a child who is persistently unhappy, disconnected or feeling that they simply do not fit may be telling us something important long before a report card does.

Look for patterns, not one difficult week

Every child has bad days. A friendship goes wrong. Maths is impossible. The teacher corrects them in front of the class. Someone else gets picked for the football team. Their best friend suddenly has a new best friend.

That is childhood.

What matters more is when difficulties become a pattern.

• repeatedly says they hate school;
• becomes anxious on Sunday evenings;
• develops frequent headaches or stomach aches before school;
• consistently struggles to complete age-appropriate work;
• appears significantly behind classmates;
• needs hours of support for homework that should take much less time;
• has ongoing difficulty making or maintaining friendships;
• becomes increasingly irritable or aggressive;
• avoids activities they previously enjoyed;
• regularly describes themselves as “stupid”, “bad” or “useless”;
• or seems to have lost confidence altogether.

No single sign tells us that a child definitely needs formal learning support. But several signs occurring repeatedly deserve curiosity.

“They’re just a slow learner”

Sometimes children genuinely do develop more slowly in a particular area and eventually catch up. The important aspect here is whether the gap is closing, staying stable or widening.

If a child was slightly behind in reading a year ago but is now considerably further behind their peers, simply waiting another year may not be the most useful plan. The same applies socially.

Parents may hear: “She’ll make friends eventually.” Hopefully she will. But if a child persistently struggles to join groups, misunderstands social situations, experiences repeated friendship breakdowns or says they have nobody to play with, it deserves attention.

We do not need to panic. But, we do need to listen.

Behaviour may be telling us something

One of the phrases I use most often is:

Behaviour is communication.

Children do not always have the language or insight to say:

“This classroom moves too quickly for me.”

“I am embarrassed because everybody else understands the work.”

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”

“I’m lonely.”

“I am trying incredibly hard to hold myself together.”

Instead, we may see refusal. Anger. Avoidance. Shutting down. Aggression. Constant trips to the toilet. Or a child who has suddenly become the class clown because making everyone laugh feels far safer than letting them see that you do not understand the lesson. Unfortunately, adults sometimes move very quickly to labels.

“Lazy. Naughty. Defiant. Unmotivated. Not trying.”

Those words may describe what the behaviour looks like, but they rarely tell us why it is happening.

A more helpful question is: What is making this situation so difficult for this child?

That does not mean removing boundaries. A student can need support and still be expected to behave safely and respectfully. Understanding behaviour and maintaining expectations are not opposites. Good education does both.

Pay attention to how your child talks about themselves

This is particularly important.

“Reading is hard.”

“I’m bad at reading.”

“I’m stupid.”

That type of self-talk is very telling – a learning difficulty has started becoming an identity. The same thing can happen socially: “I didn’t have anyone to play with today” becomes “Nobody likes me.” Repeated experiences of failure can slowly shape the way children understand themselves. And once the belief becomes “There is something wrong with me”, we are dealing with more than academics.

That is why I believe children should not need to fail repeatedly before adults decide they deserve additional support.

Quiet students can struggle too

Not every child who needs support is disruptive. Some students become exceptionally good at disappearing inside a classroom. They copy from the board. They follow what everyone else is doing. They nod at appropriate moments. They avoid asking questions. They may even produce acceptable grades because parents provide substantial support at home.

From the school’s perspective, everything looks fine. At home, the child spends three hours completing 30 minutes of homework. Being quiet is not the same as coping. And being physically present in a lesson is not necessarily the same as meaningfully accessing it.

Support does not automatically mean a diagnosis

Parents sometimes hesitate to ask for help because they are worried that their child will immediately acquire a label. Good support can be much broader than that.

• additional literacy or numeracy teaching;
• visual instructions;
• smaller-group teaching;
• modified or differentiated work;
• organisational support;
• additional processing time;
• social-skills support;
• classroom accommodations;
• explicit teaching of strategies;
• or an educational or psychological assessment if there is genuine uncertainty.

Sometimes a child needs a diagnosis. Sometimes they need more specialised teaching. Sometimes they need both. And sometimes what they need most is for adults to stop interpreting difficulty as lack of effort.

Ask whether your child can participate meaningfully

A useful question for parents is:

Can my child meaningfully participate in what is happening at school?

A student may sit through every lesson yet understand very little. They may copy an entire page from the board beautifully without understanding what any of it means. They may be completing work that is consistently pitched too far above their level. Or, occasionally, so far below it that they become completely disengaged.

Education should involve more than occupying a chair from 9am to 3pm. The child needs access to the learning.

Challenge is good. Chronic overwhelm is not.

Children need challenge. They need to experience frustration. They need opportunities to persevere. We do them no favours by removing every difficult experience from their lives.

But there is an important difference between productive struggle and chronic overwhelm.

Productive struggle says: “This is difficult, but I think I can get there with help.”

Chronic overwhelm says: “No matter what I do, I fail.”

One builds resilience. The other can slowly dismantle confidence.

Redefining success

Parents naturally have dreams for their children. Sometimes very impressive dreams.

“I want him to become a lawyer.”

Wonderful.

But before we plan the law degree, we need to make sure he can learn, communicate, manage relationships, regulate emotions, recover from setbacks and advocate for himself. These are not consolation prizes. In fact, they are the foundations on which later achievement is built.

At IIS, we talk about Redefining Success. That does not mean lowering expectations. It means understanding that progress may look different for different children. For one student, success may be achieving an A. For another, completing a task independently. For another, asking for help instead of walking out. For another, making one genuine friend. For another, learning how to regulate frustration before it becomes aggression.

All of those are meaningful.

So when should you seek help?

There is rarely one dramatic moment. Look for patterns. Is your child persistently unhappy? Do they feel that they do not belong? Are academic gaps growing? Are behavioural difficulties becoming more frequent? Are friendships consistently difficult? Are they using most of their energy simply to survive the school day? Are they beginning to describe themselves as stupid, lazy, naughty or incapable?

If the answer increasingly feels like yes, it may be time to explore support. That does not mean something has gone terribly wrong. It may simply mean the question needs to change.

Instead of asking: “Why can’t my child cope like everybody else?”

Try: “What does my child need in order to learn and thrive?”

Sometimes the answer is more practice. Sometimes more support. And sometimes:

Not every child needs more pressure. Sometimes they need a different environment.

Thinking your child may need more learning support?

The IIS Admissions Team can talk with you about your child’s strengths, current school experience and the kind of educational environment that may suit them best. Sometimes the first step is simply understanding the child in front of us — rather than trying harder to turn them into somebody else.

Image source: A child writing in a notebook with an adult seated beside her.