04/19/2002

High School Underachiever

Q: I have a 10th grader who is a classic underachiever.

In elementary school he was tested and shown to have a large discrepancy between what he was capable of doing and what he was actually doing. He was put into a group tutorial program as a student with a Learning Disability. The program was set up, literally, in a closet. My input was largely ignored because the consensus was that my older son was gifted and I couldn't accept the fact that my younger son was not.

When he was in middle school he was told he would have to drop out of the band to continue the tutorial. At this point, I did intervene. I decided it was time to focus on his strengths and removed him from the LD program. My son responded by getting straight A's through the remainder of middle school.

He then requested to be put into honor's English in high school. In ninth grade his work started to slip. He did very little work at home but was able to maintain A's and B's. This year he is bringing home C's. I know this child is capable of anything he puts his mind to. He is very bright. He told me that he doesn't want to devote time to his subjects just to get good grades. His English teacher does not like him. She finds him disagreeable and stubborn and has said as much.

My son will have this teacher again next year, because he has requested to be put in Advanced Placement English (against this teacher's recommendation). She finally gave in to him because she realizes he will get C's whether he's placed in the lowest English class or the highest. And that is true!

What can I do? Where do I begin? My friends disagree with the English teacher and dislike her. But blaming the teacher is not my way of doing things. This is life. Learning to deal with the situation is part of growing up. Learning to communicate with people you may not agree with is as important a lesson as learning proper English. I would appreciate your input.

A: You are a perceptive mother. You already know that the key actor in this drama is your son. He has learned from experience how much effort he needs to expend to get the grades he decides he wants. The choices he makes about this are his.

Both you and your son's teachers can provide external consequences to chide, prod, cajole and inspire him, but that won't necessarily bring the results you hope for. Students excel for a variety of reasons. Maybe the best person to turn to in this situation is your son himself. After all, he will be faced with choices about personal excellence whether he has good teaching or bad.

One thing you can do is talk with your son about the ways you tap motivation and effort in yourself and suggest that his father do the same thing. Kids learn a lot from their parents and other important adults in their lives. Personal stories from others take the heat off and draw the focus away from the child, making it more palatable to draw lessons from them.

Another way you can be supportive is to encourage your son to actively pursue his greatest non-academic interests, as long as those interests are ones you see as potentially constructive. Through his achievements he'll gain in confidence and, possibly, decide to excel in other endeavors, too. (Success breeds success).

I applaud you for not getting into the teacher blaming frame of mind. The more responsibility your son takes for the outcome of his studies, the more bragging rights he will have when he turns on the after-burners.

Don't rule out a return to tutorial help. Is it possible that your son needs extra support with his studies now that he's taking honors classes? Talk with him about this. The high school might offer a course in study skills that lots of students are taking (if not wanting to be pulled out of a class is an issue for him).

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Links:

Parent-to-parent network: Discussion of underachieving teens http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/teens/underachiever.html

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Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.