What Was Your Hardest Subject In School? What It Teaches Parents About Learning Struggles
Last Tuesday, I was folding clean soccer socks at the kitchen table, half a mug of cold hazelnut coffee sweating next to me, when my 7th grader Leo slammed his algebra workbook shut hard enough to make a granola crumb jump off the edge. “Mom,” he said, glowering at the cover, “what was your hardest subject in school?”
I paused, because I hadn’t thought about that question in decades. Everyone always says math, or French, or that one AP essay they still have nightmares about. But mine was 10th grade chemistry.
I still remember the chalk dust that coated every notebook page in that class, and how Mr. Hale wrote so fast his chalk would snap every third problem. I’d still be copying the first equation when he’d erased it to write the next. I got a C- on my first midterm, and I tucked it in the back of my textbook so my mom wouldn’t see. I stayed after school twice a week to re-copy notes from the kid who sat next to me, still couldn’t figure out why balancing equations never worked out for me. I thought I was just lazy. I thought I was one of those people who just wasn’t good at science. My mom got me a tutor, and the tutor made me do problem after problem after problem, but no one ever asked why I kept messing up. No one noticed I couldn’t hold all the numbers and rules in my head long enough to write them down. I dropped chemistry at the end of the year, never took another science class in college, even when I was curious about environmental work. The “I’m bad at hard science” label stuck, and it’s still there, if I’m honest.
Leo nodded, like he got it exactly. He pushed his workbook toward me and tapped the first unsolved problem. “That’s how I feel. I read the first line, get to the third, and forget what the first said. It’s like my brain dumps the info before I need it.” Leo has a documented working memory weakness; we got him tested a couple years back when he struggled to keep up with reading assignments, so we know exactly what that brain dump feels like.
That question of my hardest subject stuck with me all week, because it made me realize how often we still repeat the same mistake I grew up with. We hear our kid say a subject is impossible, and our first go-to is “just study more” or “you can do it if you try harder.” But most of the time, it’s not about effort. It’s about a small gap that no one’s bothered to fill, or a one-size-fits-all approach that just doesn’t fit your kid’s brain.
The first concrete change I made when Leo started hitting walls in middle school was this: when he says he can’t do a problem, I ask him to walk me through the last wrong one out loud, step by step. I don’t jump in to help him solve it at first. I just listen. Last month, that’s how we found out he was skipping writing down simple steps for order of operations because he thought writing “2 + 4 = 6” was baby work. He was trying to hold it all in his head, and half the time he lost a number before he got to the end. We got rid of the “no baby steps” rule, told him he could write every single part no matter how simple, and his quiz scores went up almost a full letter grade in three weeks.
Another small adjustment that made a huge difference: we asked his algebra teacher to post her blank class notes online before lecture, so Leo can print them out and just add annotations instead of copying every word from the board. That took two minutes for the teacher to do, it’s no extra work for anyone, and it cut his daily algebra homework time by 20 minutes. That’s the thing no one tells you about learning struggles: the fix is often tiny, not some huge expensive intervention or years of tutoring.
I also remind other parents that it’s okay if there’s no fix that makes your kid love the subject, or even make them good at it. I never got good at chemistry, and I turned out fine. I make a living as a graphic designer, I pay my taxes, I can follow a recipe, I don’t need to balance a chemical equation for anything. Leo doesn’t have to be a top algebra student to have a good life. If after middle school he wants to take the less intensive math track for high school, that’s fine by me. It’s not a failure to meet your kid where they are.
Leo pulled his workbook back toward him after a minute, grabbed the graph paper I keep in the junk drawer just for his step-by-step work, and started in on the problem. He messed up the first time, erased hard enough to tear a little hole in the page, tried again, and got it right. He pumped his fist once, then looked up and asked if we could get mint chocolate chip after he finishes three more problems. I said yes.
I folded the last sock and tossed it in the laundry basket, and thought about that C- midterm I hid so many years ago. It’s not that Leo will never have a hardest subject. He probably will, even with all the little adjustments we make. Some things just don’t click, no matter how hard you try. The difference is, he doesn’t have to carry around the idea that he’s bad at learning, or that his struggle means something’s wrong with him. We’re still figuring it out, some days are still more slammed workbooks than correct answers. But that’s okay. That’s enough, for now.
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