When a Tutor Needs to Tell a Parent: This Approach Isn't Working

Sometimes the most important thing a tutor can do for a child is stop delivering exactly what the parent asked for.

Parents hire a private tutor for a reason. They may want more written work, phonics practice, maths exercises, desk-based concentration or faster academic progress. Naturally, they expect the tutor to work towards those goals.

But what happens when, after several lessons, the tutor begins to see something the parent cannot see from outside the lesson? The child is not responding — not because the child cannot learn, and not because the tutor is not trying, but because the way the child is being asked to learn is getting in the way of the learning itself.

That is when tutoring becomes about much more than delivering a lesson. It becomes about professional judgement. And sometimes, it requires a difficult conversation with a parent.

“But I Want Them to Sit and Learn”

This conversation arises particularly often in tutoring for preschoolers, Early Years and younger primary children. A parent may understandably want their child sitting at a table, completing worksheets, practising handwriting or getting used to formal academic work.

From an adult perspective, desk work looks like learning. Play may not. But for some children, insisting on desk-based learning too early — or for too long — can produce exactly the opposite of the result everyone wants.

The tutor may begin noticing avoidance. The child suddenly needs the bathroom when an activity appears. They negotiate, leave the table, become silly, refuse, say “I can't,” repeatedly ask when the lesson will finish, or become upset before the lesson has properly begun. Sometimes the child complies but retains remarkably little of what was taught.

Those behaviours are information. A skilled home tutor should not only ask, “How do I make this child comply?” They should also ask, “What is this child's behaviour telling me about how they are currently able and willing to learn?”

The Parent's Goal May Be Right — While the Method Is Wrong

Suppose a parent wants their four-year-old to recognise numbers to 10. That is the goal. The parent may ask the tutor to achieve it using flashcards and table activities. That is the method. Those are not the same thing.

If the tutor discovers that the child disengages after five minutes at the table but becomes animated, communicative and attentive when movement and play are introduced, the tutor does not necessarily need to abandon the parent's goal. They may need to change the route used to reach it.

Instead of asking “What number is this?” ten times at a desk, we might hide numbered cards around the room and go on a number hunt. We might build five blocks, feed seven pretend apples to a toy animal, jump three times, park toy cars in numbered spaces, count dinosaurs or sort objects.

The academic objective has not disappeared. In fact, it may finally have become accessible to the child. Play-based learning is not the absence of learning. When appropriately planned, the play is the vehicle through which the learning happens.

When the Tutor Starts Seeing a Pattern

One difficult lesson is not enough to completely redesign a child's programme. Children have bad days. They get tired, hungry or overwhelmed, and they may need time to adjust to a new tutor.

That is why observation matters. During the first few days or weeks of home tutoring, a good tutor should be looking for patterns: when does the child engage naturally? What causes them to withdraw? How long can they sustain attention? Do they respond better to verbal instruction, visuals, movement, demonstration or hands-on activities? What happens when something becomes difficult? What motivates them to try again?

Over time, a picture begins to emerge. Occasionally that picture tells us something uncomfortable: the programme the adults imagined for this child is not the programme this child currently needs.

The Serious Conversation With the Parent

It can be tempting for a tutor to simply continue. The parent is paying. The parent asked for desk work. The tutor can provide desk work. Everyone avoids an uncomfortable conversation.

But that is not necessarily good tutoring. One of the greatest advantages of working with a private tutor in Dubai — or anywhere else — is that one-to-one teaching does not have to look identical for every learner. Private tuition gives us the opportunity to observe, adapt and respond.

I completely understand the outcome you're hoping for, and I agree that we should continue working towards it. However, after spending these past few weeks with your child, I've noticed that the current approach isn't bringing out their best learning. When we work mainly at the table, I'm seeing much less engagement and retention. When I introduce movement, play and hands-on activities, I'm seeing significantly more participation and understanding. I'd therefore like us to change the approach while keeping the learning goals.

That conversation is not saying, “You're wrong.” It is saying, “I've observed your child closely, and I think there may be a better way to get us where you want them to go.”

A Tutor Shouldn't Be Afraid to Disagree Respectfully

Parents know their children in ways tutors never will. Tutors see children in a different context. Both perspectives matter.

A parent's wishes should therefore be taken seriously, but professional tutoring should not become an exercise in agreeing with every request regardless of what is happening in front of the tutor. If something is not working, we need to be able to say so respectfully, specifically and with evidence.

Instead of saying, “Your child doesn't like worksheets,” a tutor might say, “During the last four lessons, I've noticed that after approximately ten minutes of written work, participation drops significantly. When I teach the same concept using objects and movement, your child stays engaged for longer and answers more independently.”

Now we are not debating opinions. We are discussing observations. And the tutor should come to that conversation with an alternative — not simply a criticism.

Changing the Approach Does Not Mean Lowering Expectations

A child-centred approach does not mean allowing the child to dictate everything that happens. It does not mean abandoning structure, avoiding anything difficult or expecting less.

Sometimes we need to change the way we challenge the child. For one learner, success may mean completing a 20-minute written activity. For another, the better starting point may be three five-minute table activities between movement-based tasks, gradually increasing the child's capacity for focused work.

Meeting a child where they are is not the same as leaving them there. We meet them there so that we can help them move forward.

When the Child's Willingness to Learn Has to Matter

Sometimes adults become so focused on what a child should achieve that nobody notices what is happening to the child's relationship with learning. The child starts saying, “I hate maths,” “I can't read,” “I'm bad at this,” or “I don't want tutoring.”

That matters. Children cannot simply avoid every task they dislike; learning requires effort, perseverance and sometimes frustration. But there is an enormous difference between helping a child work through productive difficulty and repeatedly placing them in a learning situation in which they have effectively stopped participating.

When a tutor sees the latter happening consistently, it is time to reconsider the approach. The goal is not simply to get through today's worksheet. We are trying to build a learner.

What Good Home Tutoring Should Look Like

Whether a family is looking for home tutors in Dubai, online tuition or another form of individual academic support, personalised tutoring should mean more than changing the difficulty of a worksheet.

Personalisation means asking: Who is this child? How do they respond? What gives them confidence? Where does resistance begin? What can they already do independently? What support allows them to succeed? What should we gradually remove as their confidence grows? And what teaching approach gives them the best opportunity to make meaningful progress?

The answers may change. A strategy that works beautifully at age four may not be appropriate at age seven. A child who initially requires movement and play may gradually become perfectly comfortable completing structured desk activities. That evolution is exactly why tutors need to keep observing rather than simply following a fixed programme.

Parents and Tutors Are Supposed to Be on the Same Side

The serious conversation should never become parent versus tutor. The question is not “Who is right?” The question is “What is helping this child learn?”

At Simone's Tutoring, we believe one-to-one tutoring works best when the relationship between the parent, tutor and child is collaborative. Parents bring invaluable knowledge about their child and what happens outside lessons. Tutors bring educational experience and lesson observations. And the child brings something equally important: their response.

Sometimes the Professional Thing to Say Is: “We Need to Change Course”

A good tutor should not promise that every parental request will work simply because it has been requested. Sometimes professional responsibility means saying: “I've tried this approach. I've observed your child carefully. I don't believe continuing in exactly the same way is going to produce the result we're all hoping for.”

Then comes the more important sentence: “Here's what I recommend we try instead.”

That is not failure. That is exactly what personalised tutoring is supposed to do: observe, understand, adapt and try again.

Because ultimately, the measure of a successful tutoring programme is not whether the child completed the activities the adults originally imagined. It is whether the child is learning, progressing, developing confidence and gradually becoming more capable of doing things they could not do before.

Sometimes that means sitting at a desk. Sometimes it means getting onto the floor with blocks, numbers, story cards and toy animals. And sometimes the greatest value a tutor can give a family is having the courage to say: “I think your child is showing us that there is a better way.”

Looking for Personalised Tutoring in Dubai?

At Simone's Tutoring, our approach begins with the individual child — not a one-size-fits-all lesson format. Whether a learner benefits from structured academic support, home tutoring, one-to-one tuition, play-based learning or a carefully balanced combination, the goal is to understand how they learn and create an approach that helps them make meaningful progress.

If you're looking for a private tutor in Dubai, visit Simone's Tutoring to discuss your child's learning needs.