In some situations, I feel like I was being too "nice". The struggling student still continued to struggle because of lack of effort, and failed the class anyway.

At the midterm, I give a progress report to each student in the class. For those students who are performing below average, I set up individual meeting times to try and dissect why they are not performing well in class. In some cases, this has developed rapport with struggling students, but has "back fired" in other cases.