5 Ways to Deal with Academic and Emotional Challenges

Academic stress, difficulty learning and concentrating, under-achievement, high-achievement, peer pressure, lack of attention from teachers, tricky relationship with friends, and bullying distress a number of students, adversely affecting their class room performance, and life at home, in peer relations and even neighbourhood.

It is imperative to recognize the early signs of academic and emotional challenges that the child might be facing, as if these concern go unaddressed, they might have a lasting impact on the child. For instance, a child who is bullied may undergo negative physical, emotional, academic, and mental health issues like depression, substance abuse, and decline in academic performance. 

Students who are struggle with spellings and writing are likely to underachieve throughout high school if the problem is not addressed on time. Also, because of the constant parental pressure to perform better in studies, and lack of adequate assistance, a child might never like books and school.

So, what are the ways to deal with academic and emotional challenges faced by students? Well, such children need support and right guidance to bounce back from daily school challenges. Here are some ways that the expert teachers of Doon International School, Chandigarh share to resolve these concerns:

Academic assistance: When a child is struggling with a particular subject, be it English, science or mathematics, it means he needs more to time to understand certain concepts that his peers find easy. In such a scenario, such a student is likely to benefit from extra classes or from the assistance of a tutor who will help the child cover areas he is weak in. A teacher may also overlook the under-performance of such a child (by not pin pointing his mistakes in front of his peers) for a while till his concepts become clear.

In case the student has a learning disability, which covers several areas like reasoning, spoken or written language, a special education plan can be formulated to address a child’s need. For student suffering from dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia, both teachers and parents can work in tandem to create a special plan so that the student can attain maximum benefit.

A student’s approach towards a subject area should also be monitored. If a student believes that science is their strength then he will see low score in one test as a temporary problem, but in case the child treats science as a weakness, he will see low score as reflection of his inability. A positive relationship with the teacher can steer the child in right direction.

Encourage extra-curricular participation: It is important to divert the mind of child from his weakness to his strengths. A student should be encouraged to participate in co-curricular and extra-cirricular activities to find out the areas in which he excels. Achievements act as great booster, and instill confidence in students to overcome shortcoming, weakness or obstacles. 

It is not only under achievers, but also high-achievers that face a lot of stress. Being put in the top-set means pressure to do well in all the subjects, and keep improving each year. Participation in sports and other activities is a great stress buster for them too. Also, research has proved that participation in sports decreases symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression.

To anyone who is struggling with school work, the child needs to be told, tests and exams are important but mental health comes first.

Teach time management: A child should be encouraged to create a proper schedule or time table to manage his academic activities, and particularly subjects that need more attention.

Talk out: If a parent notices that the child seems worried, quiet or reserve, talk to your child, and encourage her to speak her heart out about anything that is bothering her. A child needs to be assured that she always has a support system at home. If the child is bullied, she can tell her teacher or parents so that the issue is tackle at the earliest. Doon International School, Chandigarh always has ways to deal with such issues. 

Also, a student needs to be told that though school is a great place to make friends and socialize, but the student doesn’t have to do it at the cost of his happiness and peace, because dysfunctional friendship and bullying ruin school experience.  

Detach labels: A child may not get along with his classmates or teacher, and be labeled as trouble-maker or imperfect. Receiving inappropriate comments from peers and teacher adversely affects how a child feels, thus making the student emotionally weak. Instead of attaching labels on a student, the teachers should encourag the student to become a better person.

It is, especially, difficult for a child to go back to school and face his peer and teachers after being expelled, suspended or excluded.

Overlooking the shortcoming, a student should be told to learn from his mistakes. Learning from the past means that the child is aware of how he had responded to the stimulus and preparing himself to react in the right manner in case he lands up in the same situation again.

Students who are guided and are able to face daily school-based academic and emotional challenges are better armed to face workplace challenges in future.