How parents can guide failing students toward success

We probably should have seen it coming. Maybe we did and just hoped somehow it wouldn't really happen. Or maybe we tried our best to get them back on track, but just couldn't find a way. However we got here, we're staring at the end of the school year, and it is clear that our children are going to fail.

Usually after third quarter reports are out, counseling centers such as ours begin to get calls from parents concerned about the state of their children's academic performance. Most parents are pretty realistic. They are not looking for quick fixes. Nor are they wanting to lay total responsibility for their children's struggles on the children themselves, or the schools, or whomever else might prove to be easy targets. More often than not they are just looking for some way to help their kids out of a tough spot.

We could - and do when families come in for counseling around school failure - spend a good deal of time talking about the many reasons children struggle to learn. Such reasons can be biogenetic, environmental, interpersonal and psychological. Often, it can take the cooperation of educational specialists, social workers, family therapists and even physicians to sort out exactly what is contributing to a child's difficulties and what needs to be done about it. All children are different. There is no one common reason for, or solution to, school failure.

There is, however, a common approach we parents can take to the failure itself. Failure is, surprisingly, one of the most powerful learning experiences life has to offer. And it is up to us as parents to make sure our children learn as much as they can from their failures in school.

We need to avoid at all costs implying that school failure means children are stupid, lazy, slow, worthless or destined for future failure in school, work or other environments. Believe me, no matter how much children may pretend they are not bothered by school failure, it is an incredibly humiliating experience. How many of us adults still can remember in painful detail the test or course or grade we flunked, even if it happened decades ago. Measuring and comparing performance is built into our education system. Administrators do it. Teachers do it. The kids on the playground do it. Our children already have all too many reminders that they are "failures" before they even begin to deal with their parents' response.

Parents, then, need to make sure children learn the "positive" lessons that can come out of failure. Tailoring our efforts to fit the ages of our children, we need to teach them that:

• Failure in school doesn't mean they are stupid, lazy, etc.

• We are proud of them despite their school struggles. We need to find a way to praise them for the efforts we do see them making in school and in other parts of their lives.

• Failure is a normal part of life. What's the old saying, "the only way not to fail is not to try?" That's not a bad idea for any of us to keep in mind.

• There is help. Educators, counselors and parents all want them to do as well as they can. And we will do whatever we can - short of doing it for them. For younger children, we will need to take the lead in getting them the help they need.

• They have to do their part. This idea must be carefully tailored to the age of our children. "Doing their part" for second-graders may simply mean obeying the rules at school and sitting down with Mom or Dad each night to do extra work suggested by the teacher. "Doing their part" for seniors in high school usually means taking primary responsibility for their academic performance - asking for special help when needed, monitoring their own use of time, keeping track of their progress (or lack of it).

• And for such older "semi adult" children, we also must allow them to experience the consequences of their failures. A friend of mine recently shared with me his response to his 16-year-old daughter's announcement that she didn't care whether she got bad grades as she was dropping out of school anyway. Rather than hitting the roof, he calmly explained that she was certainly old enough to make such decisions for herself - as long as she was willing to accept responsibility for the consequences. In this case, that meant either moving into a place of her own or paying room and board. Dropping out of school must mean she had decided she was an adult, he explained to her, so she needed to start being responsible like an adult. Perhaps not surprisingly, his daughter is still in school.

Again each of the above must be custom fit to the age and particular problems of each child. A "cookie cutter" approach to people's problems never works. We can, however, use these ideas to give us a guide for our response as parents to our children's school failure.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."