About Academic Difficulties
Teen Academic and School Stress Therapy in Santa Monica & Los Angeles
Academic pressure is one of the defining features of adolescence in Los Angeles and it can take a serious toll on a teenager’s mental health, self-esteem, and love of learning. When academic difficulties go beyond typical school stress and begin affecting a teenager’s mood, relationships, and sense of self, therapeutic support can make an important difference.
Dr. Sally Hackman, PhD, MFT, helps teenagers in Santa Monica and Los Angeles understand what is driving their school difficulties whether that is anxiety, depression, learning differences, perfectionism, family stress, or something else and develop the strategies and resilience to move forward.
Why a Capable Child Starts Falling Behind
Academic difficulty is a symptom, not a diagnosis. The same dropping grade can come from five different places, and each one needs a different response.
Anxiety About Getting It Wrong
Some children avoid work because failing at it feels unbearable. Not starting is safer than trying and falling short. From the outside this looks like laziness. From the inside it is fear.
Attention and Focus
A child who cannot hold attention long enough to finish a worksheet will look careless. Often they are working far harder than their classmates just to stay in the room.
An Undiagnosed Learning Difference
Dyslexia, dysgraphia and similar differences often go unnoticed in
bright children, who compensate well until the work gets harder.
Difficulties that appear around fourth grade, or at the move to middle
school, are worth looking at closely.
Low Mood and Loss of Interest
Depression in children rarely looks like sadness. It looks like not
caring about school, about friends, about things they used to enjoy.
Grades are often the first place it shows.
Why "Try Harder" Rarely Works
When a child is struggling, the instinct is to add more: more tutoring, more supervision, more consequences.
This helps when the gap is a skills gap. It does not help when the child is anxious, distracted, or low and it usually makes things worse, because it confirms what they already suspect, that everyone else finds this easy and there is something wrong with them.
The first question is not how to make a child work harder. It is what is stopping them from working at all.
How Therapy Helps
The early sessions are about working out which of the causes above is actually in play. That takes time with the child, and usually a separate conversation with parents about what school has said.
From there the work depends on what was found. A child who is anxious about performance needs different help from one who cannot concentrate. Sometimes the most useful outcome is a referral for educational testing, or to a specialist and Dr. Hackman will say so directly rather than continuing with therapy that will not address the cause.
Where the difficulty is emotional, the work is on confidence, tolerating mistakes, and rebuilding a sense that effort is worth it. For many children the most important shift is no longer believing they are the problem.
Key Points
Supporting Your Teen at School.
Empowering Resilience
Help your teen understand the emotional and psychological factors affecting their school performance and develop the tools to manage stress, regulate anxiety, and approach learning with more confidence.
Healing Space
A private, non-judgmental space where teenagers can be honest about what school feels like without the pressure to perform or the fear of disappointing parents or teachers.
Transformative Support
Dr. Hackman works with teens facing a wide range of academic challenges from performance anxiety and perfectionism to attention difficulties, motivation issues, and the impact of family stress on school functioning.
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU
Why a Capable Child Starts Falling Behind
Academic difficulty is a symptom, not a diagnosis. The same dropping grade can come from five different places, and each one needs a different response.
Anxiety About Getting It Wrong
Some children avoid work because failing at it feels unbearable. Not starting is safer than trying and falling short. From the outside this looks like laziness. From the inside it is fear.
Attention and Focus
A child who cannot hold attention long enough to finish a worksheet will look careless. Often they are working far harder than their classmates just to stay in the room.
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Years of Teen Therapy Experience
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Serving Santa Monica Continuously
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Confidential — Always
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First Session Free If You Don't Return
FAQ
Common Questions
A tutor helps when the gap is in knowledge content missed, a subject never properly understood. A therapist helps when the child could do the work but something is in the way: anxiety, low mood, attention, or something happening at home. If tutoring has been tried and the grades have not moved, the cause is probably not academic.
No. Educational and psychological testing is carried out by psychologists and educational specialists with specific training in assessment. Dr. Hackman can tell you when testing looks worthwhile and refer you to someone appropriate, then work alongside those findings.
Almost never. "I don't care" is usually the safest thing a child can say when caring has started to hurt. It protects them from having to admit they are struggling. Children who genuinely did not care would not be as upset as they usually are.
With your permission, yes. Dr. Hackman can speak to teachers or school counselors about what would help in the classroom, and can help you prepare for meetings about accommodations or assessment.
That is a related but different difficulty. School refusal is usually driven by anxiety about attending rather than about the work itself, and there is more detail on the school difficulties page.