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The Smart Underachieving Child

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The Smart Underachieving Child:

Empowering Strategies to Help Them Aim Higher
by Michele Ranard, M.Ed.
740 words

We want our children to feel excited about learning and willing to confront challenging material. We want them to have an endless supply of resilience to persevere and succeed at school and in their relationships. We want them to achieve greatness in their education and adulthood, yet many of our bright students are underachieving.

1. Explore Attitude

Author of Empowering Underachievers (2006) Peter Spevak says attitude, not ability is the issue. “Underachievers “intellectually understand what they need to do, but their attitude is ‘so what?’” They work below their potential and waste opportunities. Underachieving kids tend to blame lousy teachers, crowded classrooms, impaired parenting, and irrelevant homework. Why? Spevak names emotional detachment and the shirking of personal responsibility.

In contrast, motivated students exhibit positive attitudes, work close to their potential, seek new opportunities, and “act age-appropriately responsible without being prodded.” He identifies three abilities motivated students possess:

*Persist through completion.

*Work within time limits.

*Function independently.

How can we nurture these qualities to help kids aim higher?

2. Increase Personal Drive

Educator Janine Walker Caffrey has thoroughly examined personal drive. Since a lack of personal drive is often at work for underachievers, she shares ideas for developing “drive” to achieve, dream, and create unique independent lives (Drive, 2008):

Ability to finish things. Drive provides you follow through to get things done. A driven person focuses on the goal and is always working to move closer toward it.

Determination to have healthy lifelong relationships. A balanced person who has drive will want to make all the parts of his life work well together.

Finds fulfillment in work. A driven person finds joy in work because he has a sense of purpose.

Usually earns more money. If you have drive, you will generally want more out of life and understand the hard work that is required to get these things.

Can deal with uncertainty and change. Driven people understand the normal ups and downs of life. They are able to work through difficulties and crises because they understand that things will get better. Work, persistence, and goal orientation make this possible.

3. Improve Parenting Habits

Dr. Sylvia Rimm has articulated these laws of achievement in Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades and What You Can Do About it (2008):

*Children need effective models and are more likely to be achievers if parents join together to deliver the same clear and positive message about school effort and expectations.

*What you say about a child within their hearing dramatically affects that child’s behavior and self-perceptions.

*Children feel more tension when they are worrying about their work than when they are doing the work.

*Children develop self-confidence through struggle.

*Children will become achievers only if they learn to function in competition.

4. Build Resilience

For children prone to underachieve, resilience is often in short supply. According to Building Resilience in Children and Teens (Ginsburg, 2011), resilience is rising above difficult circumstances “while moving forward with optimism and confidence even in the midst of adversity.”

Resilience allows us to see challenges as opportunities and believe we will ultimately be strengthened from them. It is not engaging in self-doubt, catastrophic thinking, or a mindset of victimization. Ginsburg’s 7 crucial C’s of resilience include:

(1) Competence: a set of skills allowing them to test their judgments, make responsible choices, and face difficult situations.

(2) Confidence: gained by demonstrating their competence in real situations.

(3) Connection: with people who believe or love them unconditionally, producing strong values and feelings of safety.

(4) Character: a fundamental sense of right and wrong to ensure they are prepared to make wise choices, contribute to the world, and become stable adults.

(5) Contribution: the importance of personal contribution and a sense of purpose.

(6) Coping: learning to cope effectively with stress better prepares them to overcome life’s challenges.

(7) Control: a realization they can control the outcomes of their decisions and actions.

5. See the Connection to Well-Being

Positive psychology pioneer Martin Seligman paints a picture of the pursuit of well-being and healthy achievement in Flourish (2012):

“People who live the achieving life often are often absorbed in what they do, they often pursue pleasure avidly and they feel positive emotion (however evanescent) when they win, and they may win in the service of something larger (“God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure” says the actor portraying the real life Olympic runner Eric Liddle in the film Chariots of Fire).

Michele Ranard has a husband, two children, and a master’s in counseling.

Resources:

Caffrey, Janine Walker. Drive: 9 Ways to Motivate Your Kids to Achieve. Da Capo, 2008.

Ginsburg, Kenneth R. Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings. American Academy of Pediatrics, 2011.

Rimm, Sylvia. Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades And What You Can Do About It: A Six-Step Program for Parents and Teachers. Great Potential, 2008.

Seligman, Martin. Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Free Press, 2012.

Spevak, Peter and Maryann Karinch. Empowering Underachievers: New Strategies to Guide Kids (8-18) to Personal Excellence. New Horizon Press, 2006.

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