Struggling in School? How Parents Can Support a Teen Facing Academic Challenges?
Is your student struggling with academics? Are they feeling overwhelmed with missing assignments, projects, and midterms approaching? Is anxiety and fatigue making your teen hard to recognize?
As nature brings a chill this time of year, it is often a particularly stressful time for students. The American Institute of Stress reports that 75% of high school students and 50% of middle schoolers consistently feel stressed due to schoolwork. Whether it be due to the scheduling demands of extracurricular activities, social distractions, or challenging academic content, many students deal with anxiety as it relates to the nearing of the end of a semester. The honeymoon of the beginning of a new school year is long over, and the grind of mounting assignments, projects, and beginning the prep for the approaching midterm can mount to a sense of overwhelm. Many of us share our homes with nervous, cranky, and sleep-deprived teens- what can we do to help?
Start with physical needs.
Sleep
Is your teen getting enough sleep? Likely not! Sleep directly impacts mood, focus, and memory. Teens often enter a cycle where lack of sleep leads to inability to concentrate and focus on details, which leads to falling behind on tasks that require staying up late, and so on. This sleep rhythm is wildly ineffective! Set up sleep routines that make quality sleep a priority. One way you can do this is to have a no devices in bedroom policy, especially at night. This allows teens to have more space without screens, which will improve their sleep. As Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and adolescent expert, explains here, “Sleep is the glue that holds us together.” She personally explains that she has a no-phone bedroom policy for all her family members because she takes sleep so seriously.
Eating
How would you rate your teen’s eating habits? Teens are notorious for timing their morning routines to the minute so they can sleep as late as possible! They often skip breakfast, grab a coffee, and hit the ground running. (Hmmmm, maybe we are doing that too!) Although caffeine can feel oh so good for a quick pick-me-up, our, I mean their, orders are often LOADED with sugar and fat, which can be a tough combo when we are trying to concentrate, recall information, and focus. Is fast food a staple? Are we actually sitting down to a meal or consistently grabbing on the go? Establishing some healthy eating routines can help optimize our teens’ brain capacity and foster a better sense of overall well-being.
Exercise
It doesn’t have to be high impact or complicated! It doesn’t require a gym or a court, or a field. They don’t even need to be “athletic”, they just need to MOVE! Encourage your teen to get up and move their body. Walk the dog, take a lap around the neighborhood, or do a physical activity together that promotes movement and fresh air when possible, which has been studied and found to have a significant impact on mental health.
Looking for ways to make getting active more appealing for your pre-teen/teen? Check this out for more on the benefits and ideas to help motivate your teen.
Support them in organizing their time
Create a weekly plan.
Sunday Scaries are real! Often, they are scary because we have LOTS of tasks floating around in our heads, and each time one passes through, we get a pit in our stomachs, dreading it or wondering how and when we are going to attack it. We get overwhelmed and decide to think about it later, avoiding it until it requires immediate action, and BAM! Cue the panic! Sound familiar?
One effective way to manage time is to teach your teen to plan. Sit with a calendar (they can write in “old school” or use their phone) and map out their week. What is due and when? Tests? Study times? Games? Practices? Family events or outings? Be sure you plan quality sleep, healthy meals/snacks, and exercise. These habits require intention, and putting them on the calendar makes them a priority rather than an afterthought. Put them all down. It creates a framework and allows us to organize what we can predict so that we can account for the things that inevitably show up that we didn’t expect.
Offer emotional support
As parents, we want to support our kids. We want to know what they are feeling and help them navigate the complexities of the teen landscape. One of the best ways to offer support is to listen. Really listen! Without constructing a response, resisting the urge to fix it, and just being with them in the moment they are experiencing. Frustration, anxiety, fear, embarrassment, and disappointment are common human emotions and ones that we all need to be able to define, sit with, and ultimately move through. A great question to ask is “How can I support you?” or “Do you need my help or just need me to listen?” They aren’t cooked yet! They are still growing an emotional vocabulary and learning to regulate their emotional experience. They will get it wrong sometimes (we get it wrong sometimes!) Be patient with them and with yourself.
Sometimes additional support is needed. Creating new habits and breaking old, unhealthy ones is work. Change can be complicated and sometimes bring more stress into the family for a time. Don’t be afraid to seek support. An outside voice is often very effective with teens. My own kids would relay something profound they had learned from another adult in their lives and commit to it, and I would be left wondering why they hadn't heard me the 1000 times I said the same thing! Who knows why, but things often just land differently when spoken by someone else.
Ready to Support Your Teen Through Academic Stress?
If your teen is overwhelmed and you’re not sure how to help, we’re here to walk with you. Family therapy and teen counseling can help your child build emotional resilience, develop executive functioning skills, and feel more supported at home and school.
Take the first step today:
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation
Meet with a caring teen or family therapist
Start seeing your teen gain confidence, clarity, and momentum
You're not alone, and your teen doesn’t have to be either.
Other Services Offered at Sparrow Counseling
At Sparrow Counseling we offer in-person and online therapy in the state of Alabama. In addition to teen counseling, our team specializes in pre-engagement and premarital counseling, couples intensives, family therapy, co-parenting counseling, blended family counseling, discernment counseling, and more in Birmingham, Alabama. Learn more by checking out our FAQs and Blog!
Written by Sha Wortman, LPC, a therapist with more than 20 years of experience supporting teens, pre-teens, and their families through seasons of anxiety, overwhelm, and transition. Sha creates a calm, safe space where young people can breathe, open up, and learn skills for confidence, emotional regulation, and long-term wellbeing. Her work blends clinical expertise with real-life understanding of what today’s teens truly need.