[School difficulties in adolescence]

Loss, failure and desertion are those words, which better describe the most frequent difficulties incurred by teenagers, and their relation to the school environment, and indicate, as well, the lack of connection between individual aspirations and school achievements obtained. Despite the likelihood of school difficulties throughout the entire educational career, from the kindergarten to the college, we are able to recognize certain specific "disturbances" which come out during the adolescence, basically relating to the school experiences. School failure, school desertion and school abandonment are, in fact, issues mainly discussed in coincidence with the beginning of the adolescent age and the attending of the high school. The aetiopathogenesis of school discomfort is mostly determined by more than only one factor: psychological, physical, cognitive and environmental aspects, all together, contribute in various ways, to the rise and persisting of the above described problems. Suggesting a univocal characterization of the adolescent with school difficulties, is indeed a hard task, since school failure is not an exclusive feature of only one kind of personality or the expression of only one type of conflict. Once identified the individuals more subject to risk, and the warning signs of actual uneasiness, it is important therefore to intervene timely and in different ways in order to avoid the worsening or the excessive extension of the school difficulties and of their frequent and serious consequences on the teenagers' individual and domestic well-being. Such type of prevention definitely belongs to the Adolescent Medicine, and must be developed on different levels, by involving not only the teenagers, but also their families, the school, and the whole social environment in which the teenagers live and with which they interact.