ADVICE COLUMN · 2026
My school-age child is struggling academically—where do we start?
Column by Aria
MAY 2026
A letter from a family
Dear Aria:
My child is already school-age and behind in reading, math and academics. We are focusing a lot on tutoring and academic skills right now so he can be successful in school. Teachers say they are trying, but homework melts down every night and we are not sure whether this is typical, a learning difference, or something else. We do not want to panic, but we are also not sure what we should do. We want to save time and energy for him to work on those areas for now rather than spending more time in therapies. We also do not like ABA and it has not been successful for us in the past – we are unsure whether it still makes sense to pursue developmental, social or behavioral support when academics seems more urgent right now?Aria responds
Many parents reach this point – especially once their child becomes school-age and academic expectations from school begin increasing, along with the very natural hopes, dreams and emotional investment parents carry in wanting to see their child feel successful, confident, included, independent and able to thrive in a school environment alongside other children.
For many families, this can become an especially emotional stage because when children first entered early intervention, ABA, therapies, or developmental programs years earlier, parents were often holding onto the hope or expectation that after “completing” these services for a period of time, their child would eventually transition successfully into school and no longer require significant psychological, behavioral, developmental, or therapeutic support. When academic struggles, emotional difficulties, behavioral challenges, learning problems, or school concerns continue into the school years despite years of effort, many families can begin to feel as though time itself is slipping away – and may start placing all of their hope, urgency and energy into academics, searching for the path that will finally help their child become successful, capable, and able to move forward alongside the rest of the world.
When children are behind in reading, writing, math, completing schoolwork, following classroom instruction, keeping up with grade-level expectations, or overall school performance – it is very natural for families to feel increasing pressure to focus heavily on tutoring and academic support in hopes of helping their child catch up and become more successful in school as quickly as possible. Parents may also feel they need to carefully protect their child’s limited time, energy, and emotional bandwidth, especially if previous therapy experiences felt stressful, exhausting, emotionally difficult, unhelpful or disconnected from what their child actually needed. In some cases, families may even feel that prior therapeutic experiences were overwhelming or distressing enough that they become hesitant to place their child back into related therapies or environments again.
At the same time, one of the most important questions to consider is whether the child has first developed the underlying foundational skills that make higher-level academic learning possible in the first place.
From a developmental perspective, children typically build academic skills such as reading, writing, math, problem-solving, classroom participation, and independent learning through earlier foundational capacities involving social engagement, attention, communication, emotional regulation, flexibility, imitation, shared interaction, motivation, and the ability to participate meaningfully in relationships and learning experiences. These developmental foundations often support how successfully children are later able to access, tolerate, retain, and generalize higher-level academic learning within school environments.
Sometimes families understandably assume that because a child is older, has attended school for years, or has already received ABA, tutoring or therapies in the past, those foundational areas must already be present. However, this is not always the case. A child may technically have been physically present in classroom environments and attended school for years, moved through grade levels or while still struggling significantly with the developmental foundations needed to fully access, tolerate, retain, generalize or meaningfully benefit from academic instruction.
This does not mean academics are unimportant. Reading comprehension, written expression, mathematics, educational achievement and long-term school success absolutely matter. However, in many cases, developmental, behavioral, communication, emotional, executive functioning and learning-readiness support are not “taking time away” from academics – they are helping build the underlying capacities that make academics more possible, sustainable, meaningful and generalizable over time.
Many children begin making stronger academic progress once they are better able to feel emotionally safe, connected, understood, confident in themselves, and capable of meaningfully participating in relationships, friendships, classrooms, and everyday learning experiences. Very often, academic growth begins accelerating not simply when more academic pressure is added, but when the child gradually develops the underlying ability to engage with the world, tolerate challenges, build relationships, communicate needs, regulate emotions, and experience learning as something possible rather than overwhelming.
It is also important to recognize that not all developmental or behavioral support looks the same. Many families who had difficult past experiences with ABA are often reacting to approaches that felt overly rigid, compliance-focused, disconnected from the child’s emotional needs, not individualized appropriately or centered around goals and expectations that felt far too limited for what the child may actually have been capable of learning over time. Some families leave feeling discouraged because the focus remained on narrowly defined or overly simplified goals while higher-level communication, emotional, social, adaptive, academic, independence, or real-world developmental capacities were never meaningfully targeted or believed possible in the first place.
Developmental and behavioral support should not simply be about “getting behaviors under control”. At its best, the goal is to help children build meaningful skills, feel emotionally safe and connected, feel understood and begin believing they are capable of more than they imagined – including in school and academics themselves. And this should happen not just inside the therapy room, but across the everyday moments and environments (including school) that ultimately shape a child’s life.
Ty's, yours. Take care.
- Aria
This column offers general, educational guidance. It is not individualized medical, psychological, diagnostic, educational, or legal advice.
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