OVER THE YEARS many parents have complained to me of their children needing remedial education, sometimes even in the first year of attending school.

Very often these children come from advantaged homes, where both parents have professional careers and strongly endorse the educational development of themselves and their children. These parents often follow up their complaint about their children's "slowness" with a telling comment".

I and you know he's very fearful and very timid".

From that observation I have gained an insight into the possible causes of these particular children's learning difficulties.

I asked parents how they responded to the child when she was doing her school homework or, indeed, learning any new task. Frequently, I heard that they shout, roar, hit, criticise, frown, show disappointment and are extremely pushy when teaching the child.

When parents dread mistakes and failures and are very conscious of how others view them, they are equally critical and punishing of themselves in their daily work, domestic and social lives. These parents do not see their children as separate beings but as extensions of themselves and any failure on a child's part is seen as a failure on their part.

Hence the pressure they put on themselves not to fail is extended to their children, particularly to their academic performance. The classic example of the phenomenon is the parent who is a perfectionist. Everything is spotlessly clean and perfectly placed in the home what are displaced are children and/or partner. Some spouses have said as much to me. "How thing are placed is more important than me or the children."

Perfectionism is an attempt to eliminate failure and, thereby, criticism and rejection. The effects of this on marriages and children's development can be devastating.

When parents are intolerant of and hostile to children's mistakes, failures and differing rate of learning, these responses are absolutely terrifying for children.

The prime need of children is to be loved. When love is withdrawn regularly through harshness, irritability, ridicule, disapproval, silent treatment and scoldings, children wisely develop ways to reduce the possibility of further hurt, humiliation and loss of love.

The threat in this case is failure, and one of the strongest protectors against failure is avoidance. With no effort, no failure no failure, no criticism and rejection.

It is just not safe for these children to take on the challenges of learning so they intelligently "drop out" of academic efforts. They often develop other "protectors" the most common and most powerful being fear and timidity. Fear and timidity are strengths that children employ to get their parents (and sometimes teachers) to treat them more gently.

After all, how do you approach a child or adult who is shy, timid and fearful? With caution, kid gloves, gently, I dare say!

Who is controlling whom? And you think your child is intellectually slow? Hardly!

However, until it becomes emotionally safe for these children to fail make mistakes and struggle with learning some concepts and skills, they will clearly and necessarily hold onto the protective strategies of avoidance, fear and timidity. These protectors are often maintained through childhood and into adulthood.

There are men and women I work with who come for help because they are taunted by others, including members of their family of origin, for being over cautious, timid and fearful. When I tell them that these behaviours are strengths, not weaknesses, they stare at me with jaundiced eyes.

HOWEVER, when I explore in what ways one or both parents responded to their learning efforts and failures, the response I get is "oh, my father (or mother) was hypercritical and sometimes physically violent".

I point out to them how ingenious they were when children to become over cautious, fearful and timid. In becoming over cautious, in doing things slowly and carefully, you reduce possibilities of making mistakes and offset rejection. In becoming fearful and timid you reduce the intensity of the rejection experiences.

I am very clear with these persons that I do not want them to let go of these protectors until they have come to have a sense of their own goodness, uniqueness and worth and until they become independent both of failure and success and of how others view them.

For example, all children's fears act as protectors. When children show fear of failure they are sub consciously driven into over working or avoidance in order to avoid failure and consequent rejection. The fear of failure also has the protective function of attempting to reduce parents' and teachers' unrealistic expectations.

However, fears in children have another wise function, and that is to alert parents, teachers and other significant adults to wake up to the threats posed and to heal the insecurity by loving the children for themselves, not for what they do.

Other typical fears children manifest are fear of change, fear of taking on a new challenge, fear of meeting adults known to the parents, fear of the dark, fear of being left alone, fear of being bullied, fear of teachers and fear of not being liked.

Ask yourself what is the protective function of each of these fears? What are the fears attempting to alert you to? Each fear will tend to mean something different for each child. You would be surprised when you talk kindly to children about their fears how they will let you know the threats to their security that are operating and the means they use to reduce these threats.

Be patient. Children will only talk openly about their fear when they are sure your love for them will not be withdrawn on hearing or witnessing behaviours that do not measure up to your expectations of yourself and of them.