Is Your Underachiever Lazy, Dumb, or Unappreciated?

Note: This is Part 1 of a series on Appreciating Underachievers.

Word count for this article: 693.* Reading time: 3 Minutes.

Under-Achieving or Under-Appreciated?
If your teen is in the bottom 80% of the class, you may have been told – or thought– that she is “an underachiever” (a polite way of saying lazy or dumb). Underachiever compared to what? Compared to the narrowly-defined measures of school performance or compared to the abilities that will help her to thrive in life?

In my opinion, your child is not under-achieving. I think your child is under-appreciated.
Chances are your child has gifts – and chances are that one or more of them conflicts with school as we do it now. It’s not what your child lacks that is causing the problem. It’s what your child HAS – that we adults have not learned to appreciate (See Appreciating Beauty in The Bottom 80™ video for more on this).

We’ve inherited education recipes—designed for the Henry Ford generation—that are linear, verbal, competitive, and left-brained and we’ve put them in a pressure-cooker for our teens. When a child has gifts that are at odds with this model, the child is labeled a problem. For example, Jonathan is a superb athlete with the gift of grace. He slows things down in his mind’s eye, remains unruffled in edgy situations, and uses humor to defuse tension in a group. This gift will help him thrive in life, but it gets him labeled as a “slow processor” in the classroom.

Turning Down the Heat
The real world increasingly values non-linear, non-verbal, collaborative, right-brain abilities, but most adults have grown up learning that these are not essential to a great education or career – and don’t truly value them in our kids (I’ve written about this before). Parents and teachers tell me they want to value their teens’ gifts and strengths, but too often they feel they must focus on getting the child to fit into the school mold.

Recently, one father asked, “What can I do right now, Christine—while my daughter is still stuck in the pressure cooker?” My answer to this father and others? Turn down the heat. Reduce your focus on school performance (I’ve written about this here and here) and give yourself a perspective that makes you feel good about what she has.

A great way to do this is to appreciate your child’s natural gifts and strengths. Sounds too simple, I know, but it’s actually quite powerful.

You may be thinking, “I already do that. What else have you got?”

If you are in the ½ % who are truly gifted at appreciating your child’s gifts without worrying about his “shortcomings,” you can skip the rest (and I’d love to hear from you!). For the other 99.5%, here are some thoughts for you.

No Ifs and Buts
To truly appreciate, you have to focus, solely, on the terrific aspects of your child. This is the crucial point: you focus on what’s good in your child without the “but” or “if only” that usually follows, as in, “she’s so creative… but I worry about her getting into college…” or “he’s so persistent… if only he would apply that to his school work…”

We’re going to start with you. Even though you may be feeling that you appreciate your child more than anyone else, this is still the best place to start because you will have a ripple effect. In future articles I’ll talk about getting others to appreciate your child as much as you do and also developing your child’s gifts.

For now, take 3 minutes every day for the next 7 days and write “what I appreciate in ______[child's name]” on the top of a page. Then spend the 3 minutes in pure appreciation – thinking only about your child’s good qualities.

If you’d like to jump-start your thinking with my list of gifts, click the link below:
Get my Teen Gifts List Here

If you’d like to assess your child’s character strengths, have him or her take the Brief Strengths Questionnaire on http://www.authentichappiness.com/.

After you write your appreciations on Day 7, take another 3 minutes and answer this question: “What am I noticing in my child that makes me feel great?” I’d love to hear your answers if you are inclined to share them (Christine AT PositiveLeaders.com). ∞

Next in the series: The 5 Best Reasons to Appreciate the Worst Underachievers

New: Parents and teens often dread the college admissions process, but it doesn’t need to create anxiety and family stress. In fact, it can even be great fun! In response to parent requests, Dr. Michael Thompson (co-auther of “Raising Cain”) and Christine Duvivier will offer “De-stress the College Process” on September 19 in Boston. For more information, email info@positiveleaders.com or go to www.positiveleaders.com

* Thanks to writing expert Daphne Gray-Grant for showing me the value of telling readers how much time to allow for reading the article.

This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. The original article was authored by Christine Duvivier on July 9, 2009, and can be seen here.

Guitar Hero or High School? One Family's Choice

Blake Peebles is a high school sophomore who wakes up at noon, does a few hours of school work, and then practices Guitar Hero for 10 hours.  Are his parents crazy? 

Maybe they are, but consider this: since replacing eight hours of high school each day with three hours of home-school and tutors, Blake now tests at

 a 12^th-grade level, he socializes more often and has more friends, according to an article in the May issue of American Way Magazine.  He is also absorbed in mastering computer gaming, one of the fastest growing fields in our economy.

It was not an easy decision for his parents to let Blake leave high school and it continues to be a hard choice.  They are attacked by critics —most of whom they’ve never met.  If the Peebles had taken the expected path and insisted that their son stay in school, no one would be giving them flack – even if their son was bored, depressed or learning less.  Many would tell them they were doing the right thing.

Yet, today Blake is 

absorbed for most of his waking hours in something 

that creates flow for him – 

a path to well-being that the majority of high school students do not achieve in class, accrding to Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi.  Not only that, but Blake has rid himself of the stress he felt in a public high school that was not designed to bring out the best in him.   He is learning, he is engaged in flow, and he is happy.

I give the Peebles credit for their courage.  There are many parents and educators thinking about reducing pressure in high school, but the critical issue is not just to reduce high school work, but to increase teens' engagement, or flow. The Peebles listened to their child’s needs and they were willing to take a risk in the hope of improving his well-being.  Their choice is not one that many would make, but it has proven to be a good one for Blake.