When children struggle in school, the most common advice they hear is to try harder. But a new book, Your Child Learns Differently, Now What? The Truth for Parents, challenges that familiar refrain, arguing that effort alone is not enough if a child lacks the underlying cognitive skills needed to learn effectively.
Written by Roger Stark, CEO of BrainWare Learning Company, and Betsy Hill, the company's President and COO, the book is aimed at parents of struggling learners, students with uneven academic performance, and children whose school experience is marked by frustration, anxiety, homework battles, or declining confidence. The authors urge parents to look beyond surface-level explanations and ask a more useful question: Does this child have the learning foundation needed to succeed?
Stark and Hill explain that learning depends on cognitive skills such as attention, memory, processing speed, executive functions, auditory processing, and visual processing. These skills enable students to understand, remember, and apply information. When these skills are weak or uneven, a student may put in effort and still fall short. In such cases, telling the child to try harder can increase frustration without addressing the real barrier.
The book highlights a common scenario: a child works hard, spends extra time, receives help, yet still struggles to keep up. Another child may understand ideas in conversation but freeze when asked to read, write, remember facts, or organize steps on paper. In both cases, the issue may not be willingness but rather the child being asked to perform academic tasks without the cognitive foundation those tasks require.
Your Child Learns Differently, Now What? offers a five-step framework that helps parents move from pressure and frustration toward understanding, skill-building, and guided support. The book does not reject effort, but it argues that effort must be supported by the right learning tools, guidance, and understanding.
A key message of the book is that confidence is closely tied to learning. When children are repeatedly told to work harder but still see no results, they may begin to believe they are not smart or capable. Stark and Hill encourage parents to view confidence as part of the learning process, not a bonus. Children are more likely to persist when they experience progress and understand that their struggles have an explanation.
The book also raises questions about temporary workarounds. Accommodations and support are important, but the authors argue that parents should ask whether those supports are helping a child build stronger learning capacity over time. The distinction matters for families who want more than short-term relief—they want their child to become a more confident, independent learner.
Your Child Learns Differently, Now What? The Truth for Parents is published by Seabiscuit Press and available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook. It is positioned as a parent guide for families ready to move beyond the simple instruction to 'try harder.' The message is practical and direct: struggling students often need more than pressure; they need parents and educators to understand how they learn, where the barriers are, and what kind of support can help them build the skills to succeed.
