Joanna Fortune: My son has a mental block about Irish 

Pic: iStock

My 11-year-old has a mental block about studying Irish. He says it's too difficult and doesn't understand the grammar. I've tried to help him but he doesn't want to do the homework. Is there a way I could coax him to do even the bare minimum?

Have you spoken with his teacher and raised his difficulty with Irish? Learning languages can be especially challenging for some children for lots of reasons. Perhaps the teacher has observed him struggling and has some helpful suggestions or may be able to explore options for extra learning resource time to help get him beyond this block.