QUESTION: My son is 15 and has not been able to get through his 8th Std. He was detained in his 7th and now his school has told us that he will not be able to cope with the next class. He is very disturbed and so are we. We need help.

 ANSWER: Have you explored the possibilities of taking your son to a clinical psychologist to assess his academic abilities? Further, if he has certain Learning Problems you could put him through the National Open School stream which allows the student to do two examinations at a time within a span of 8 to 10 months with the subjects of his choice. There are schools that offer Open School syllabus in Bangalore. Of course there are no miracle cures for this kind of problem but you need to be patient and put him in the appropriate programme and not push him into the regular stream.

Srijaya Char