Topic Studies

Underachievement Book Study

I am a lifelong learner and constantly reading to learn more about how to meet the unique needs of gifted children.  Currently, I am reading When Gifted Students Underachieve: What You Can Do About It by Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D. and I thought I would share some of the information with you. 

Underachievement is when there is a discrepency between a child’s performance and the child’s actual ability.

Some Underachiever Characteristics:

-disorganized  -dawdlers  -lose assignments, books, etc. -forget homework –poor to nonexistent study skills 

–rushing on assignments  -not completing assignments   -concerned about being 1^st  –unable to complete what they begin

*As you can see, there are many types of underachievers.  Some underachievers rush through their work, while others go so slowly that they are unable to meet deadlines.

Sylvia Rimm’s Laws for Achievement from When Gifted Students Underachieve: What You Can Do About It by Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D.

1. Children are more likely to be achievers if their parents join together to give the same clear and positive messages about school effort and expectations.
2. Children can learn appropriate behaviors more easily if they have effective models to imitate.
3. Communication about a child between adults (referential speaking) within the child’s hearing dramatically affects children’s behaviors and self-perception.
4. Overreaction by parents to children’s successes and failures leads them to feel either intense pressure to succeed, or despair and discouragement in dealing with failure.
5. Children feel more tension when they are worrying about their work than when they are doing that work.
6. Children develop self-confidence though struggle.
7. Deprivation and excess frequently exhibit the same symptoms.
8. Children develop confidence and an internal sense of control if power is given to them in gradually increasing increments as they show maturity and responsibility.
9.  Children become oppositional if one adult allies with them against a parent or a teacher, making them more powerful than an adult.
10. Adults should avoid confrontations with children unless they are sure they can control outcomes.
11. Children will become achievers only if they learn to function in competition.
12. Children will continue to achieve if they usually see the relationship between the learning process and its outcomes. 

For more information:

When Gifted Students Underachieve: What You Can Do About It by Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D.

Motivating Underachievers by Carolyn Coil

Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades and What You Can Do About It by Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D.

http://www.sylviarimm.com