Hitting the Academic Wall
Your teen has always done well in school. All of a sudden their grades are dropping and none of the usual culprits seem to be playing a role: depression, bullying, socializing, etc. If this is happening it could mean that your teen has hit their academic wall.
Every teen is going to hit their academic wall at a different point; For some it will be middle school, others in sophomore year of high school and still others in college. If they have done well in school until this point meaning, they didn’t have to really study to get very good or decent grades, it is going to be a very big shock when they don’t do well. All of a sudden their old tricks don’t work and they actually have to study, ask a teacher a question and possibly get a tutor! This is normal. Two very common times this happens are freshman and junior years in high school.
This happens because although your teen may be struggling academically, they are still much smarter than they were in elementary school. Their brain has the capacity to learn more information and do more things with the information they learn. So the answers are going to be asked in more challenging ways. It is important to let your teen know that this hardly means they have become dumb, but that they may have to develop a new skill set to learn how to study for this new type of material.
The later your teen hits their academic wall the harder it may be to handle the fact that they have reached their natural ability limit. If it manifests as a failure this can be devastating to your teen’s ego and the way they think others view them, as smart. They can take it so personally they feel well, dumb. They can feel like a fake thinking they were never as smart as others said they were and this can ignite a depression that prevents them from doing well in courses they don’t even have a problem with.
Your teen should be challenged. This is how they get better at everything from sports to school work to their personal interactions with others. If this is going to break them, they are in for a big surprise in the real world because after all that is what life does; it challenges them to be their better selves, and this is what they become if it doesn’t break them down.
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