THE CAUSES:

underachievers are made and not born. It is the child's choice to underachieve. We have to look at both sides of the education coin: the school and the home.

The pressure on children, especially at secondary school, to conform to the mediocre often has more influence than anything parents or teachers can say. Fortunately, negative peer pressure is usually a passing phase. As the pressure to succeed at the Higher School Certificate increases, so too does the realization that one way to a happy and successful future is to work hard to obtain a particular job or to gain a place at university or college.

Another cause of under achievement can be family background. There can be difficulties when some members of the family perceive a bright child is showing off.

If a child is frequently on the move, for one reason or another, it can mean that he is never in a school long enough for any talent to be recognized by himself or his teachers, let alone developed and nurtured. It's quite possible for people with the potential to do exceptionally well, to go through life without realizing that they have a gift which can, and should, be developed.

The major cause of under achievement among the talented is emotional disturbance between parent and child. Children like this are angry at the parents for some reason and vent their anger and frustration in many ways. They feel they must hurt their parents by failing at school and not allowing them to take pride in their achievements.

When conflict exists between the parents when one parent (often the father) is a stern perfectionist and the other tries to compensate for this, the child starts to achieve to please dad, but then feels pressure from mum which carries the message : 'You don't need to work so hard!'. The child becomes confused trying to please both parents.

Sometimes the family has unrealistic, perfectionist expectations and the child equates his/her own worth with doing well at school rather than simply being an individual.

There might be a negative relationship with a father who feels threatened by his son surpassing him and being more successful at school than he was.

Some parents are 'pushy' and try to relive their own lives through their children and force them along at too fast a pace, causing stress and unhappiness. Such pushy parents cannot accept that their children are only children. The child's only defense is to deliberately fail at school. A vicious circle like this can only be broken if the parents learn to understand what is happening.

The role model that a parent displays might not be acceptable to the child and lead to his being constantly embarrassed and having a poor self esteem.

Any of these problems is likely to create a poor self-image.

Fearing success so much, the child creates failure. Such a child prefers not to complete work rather than be awarded a grade that he or she feels will not reach the parents' expectations.

• Home origins of underachievement:

• The over welcome child

• Early illness

• Birth order (later, not first)

• Marital discord

• Conflicting parenting styles

• Kind mom/ogre dad

• Wonderful dad/ogre mom

• Dummy dad

• Mousy mom CHARACTERISTICS

All underachievers, whether dependent or dominant in their behaviour exhibit:

• Forgetfulness

• Disorganisation

• Carelessness and superficiality on tasks

• Non-academic interests

• Manipulation of relations with parents and teachers

• Loneliness and social withdrawal

• Personal

• Low self-concept, negative self-evaluation

• Social immaturity, unpopular with peers

• Choose companions who do not like school

• Feelings of rejection, helplessness, feeling victimized

• Hostile toward adult authority figures

• Low aspirations for future, career, less persistent and assertive

• Externalization of conflicts, problems

• School

• Lack of discipline in tasks, high distractibility

• Don‘t see connection between effort and achievement outcomes

• Few strong hobbies or interests

• Resistant to influence from teachers, parents

• Withdraw in classroom situations

• Lack of study skills,

• Weak academic motivation

• Leave schoolwork incomplete, nap during study times

• Perform well on synthesis tasks but not on tasks requiring precise, analytic processing

SUGGESTIONS:

It is essential to build the child's self-confidence and independence.

Encourage the child to see him or herself as a unique individual with a valuable contribution to make to family and society.

Never take away the thing or things that a child loves and succeeds in.

Don't lecture or nag a child. Reason is always preferable.

Don't pressure the child into doing something because you think it's a good idea.

Don't set artificial times for work to be done at all costs and make the child feel that you are being a martyr. This reinforces the idea of failure, not only at school but at home as well. Be more natural in your interest and enthusiasm.

Don't keep checking up on the child's progress. This seems to the child that her or she is irresponsible and not in control of life.

It also implies a damaging lack of trust.

Learn to Trust the Child's Judgment.

Get used to saying things which make it clear that the child's feelings are important and that you value his or her opinions.

Explain that it's all right to feel angry but that it must be expressed in acceptable ways. Your relationship with your child must be based on mutual respect.

It often helps an underachieving child to point out achievable goals for them. Put the goals in some priority order, but be flexible.

Guide, don't push.

Give underachievers the opportunity to work at their area of ability and make sure someone the child respects is available when help is needed. Isolation is a fine fertilizer for under achievement.

STRATEGIES

Single-sided interests

• Identify ―acceptable minimums for tasks

• Pick up pace of instruction

• Identify ―have to have‖ skills and focus on these

• Help child focus on their single-sided interests Claims of boredom

• Develop diagnostic- prescriptive instruction

• Compact the regular curriculum

• Use continuous progress for learning

• Fast paced content presentations

• Subject acceleration

• Find ―cause‖ of boredom

• Perfectionism

• Teach strategies for when to quit, how to match effort to tasks, setting goals, focusing on successes not failures, and separating self-concept from products

• Role model mistake making

• Peer Pressure to Underachieve

• Selectively encourage certain friendships

• Take interest in child‘s friends

• Encourage extra- curriculars

• Teach strategies for resisting peer pressure

• Lack of Organizational Skills

• Study habits training

• Strategies for developing work plans, priorities, balance, flexibility

• Provide consistent space and schedule for study at home

• Stress

• Teach time management techniques

• Relaxation exercises

• Exercise routines

• Socialization opportunities