How to Find the Right Kind of Help for Your Struggling Child

When you see your child struggling socially or academically in school, it is important to seek out the right kind of guidance. A local child psychologist offers how to find plan road map to success for your child.

October is often when parents seek help for a struggling child because by this time, teachers and parents are becoming aware of a child’s academic, social, and emotional struggles. It is important to seek help promptly in order to avoid a child falling even further behind in the challenging area.

It can be confusing to try to figure the exact problem(s) affecting your child’s success because in some situations different underlying concerns can produce similar academic or emotional responses. It is important to find the true underlying cause of your child’s struggles as soon as possible so you can provide the best intervention promptly. Therefore, I offer you a roadmap so that you will know which steps to take based upon the observed difficulties.

Concern 1
Your child has more trouble than others in at least some of the following areas, affecting him at school, socially, and at home: difficulty paying attention, concentrating, focusing, or controlling his impulses; he makes careless mistakes, seems not to listen, has trouble following through, fidgets/squirms, can’t wait his turn, and interrupts others. He is likely also struggling academically.

The Next Step
Your child may have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD is often over- and misdiagnosed, because there are other types of diagnoses that can look like ADHD on the surface (for example, an anxious or depressed child may have trouble concentrating, a child with a learning disability will struggle academically). Therefore, a thorough evaluation by both a child psychologist and a child psychiatrist is important in order to determine your child’s true diagnosis. The evaluation should include an interview with you, your child, and your child’s teacher, and a diagnosis should not be based solely on an observation of your child in the doctor’s office. You may get several recommendations to support your child and you should be sure to understand all of them thoroughly before proceeding.