Poor Progress in School

Abstract

Before being labeled “stupid” or “lazy,” the child who does poorly in school deserves a complete physical examination, an individualized intelligence test, a reading evaluation, and an investigation of his family's and teachers' attitudes toward him. A study of 50 children who progressed poorly in school showed that the chief difficulties were parental attitudes of over- coercion or oversubmission, or both, and the child's resistance to parents' and teachers' excessive insistence that he perform better.

The author suggests a rational approach to this problem and cites results achieved by this method.