When families of underachieving students are compared to families with achieving students, certain characteristics emerge. In the families with underachieving students there is:
- Generally poor family morale
- Family disruption caused by death or divorce
- Parental overprotectiveness
- Authoritarian parenting style
- Excessive permissiveness
- Inconsistencies between parents
- Competition between siblings
These family problems are found across all socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural levels.
Underachievement Taught by Schools
Certain personal and classroom conditions seem to create problems for gifted students and may initiate or accelerate underachieving behavior patterns.
- Teachers lack of respect for differences in individual students
- Competitive classroom climate
- Emphasis on outside evaluation
- Teacher inflexibility and rigidity
- Exaggerated attention to errors and failures
- Authoritarian style
- Unrewarding curriculum
- Peer pressure (geek syndrome)
While it may seem difficult to reverse a long-standing pattern of underachievement, Rimm (1995) has developed strategies that have proven successful in case after case. She proposed that the treatment of underachievement involves the collaboration of school and family in the implementation of six steps of her TRIFOCAL Model, which includes:
- Assessment
- Communication
- Changing Expectations
- Role Model Identification
- Correction of Deficiencies
- Modifications of Reinforcements
Step 1: Assessment
This involves assessing the student in collaboration with the school psychologist, teachers, and parents. Assessments should take the form of individualized intelligence, achievement, and creativity testing. Parent and student interviews should also be included to help identify patterns of underachievement that may inadvertently be reinforced at home and school.Step 2: Communication
The content of the communication between the parents and teachers should include a discussion of the assessment results as well as formal and informal evaluations of the student’s expression of dependence or dominance. It’s particularly important to understand the current functions of the underachievement behavior so that it is not continually reinforced at home and school.Step 3: Changing The Expectation Of Important Others
Changing parent and teacher expectations can be done through a thorough understanding of the strengths noted in the assessments. Changing self and peer expectation can be accomplished through individual and group counseling as well as in the classroom setting. It is critical that the underachiever hear from parents and teachers that they honestly believe in him/her and his/her ability to achieve. Changing the expectations of siblings is also critical. In rare cases, it may be best to change the school of the underachiever if this change in peer and teacher expectations cannot be accomplished.Step 4: Role Model Identification
Finding a nurturing role model, tutor, mentor, companion, teacher, counselor, scout leader, etc. of the same gender as the underachiever, who is open, willing to give time, and has a sense of positive accomplishment, is one of the most powerful tools to reversing a pattern of underachievement. Research by Emerick (1992) on students who reversed their underachievement found that they often attributed the reversal to a person who was an inspiration in their lives.Step 5: Correcting Skill Deficiencies
There are almost always some skill deficits resulting from the underachievers’ inattention in class, poor work, and study habits. However, because of their giftedness, the deficits can be overcome quickly with the right tutor.Step 6: Modifying Reinforcements At Home And School
Step 1 helped to identify the functions of the underachievement. This awareness helps to change the setting of long-term and short-term goals to ensure immediate small successes for the underachiever both at home and at school. The reinforcement of these newfound successes should replace these behaviors and begin a more productive pattern of achievement for the student.
Parents and teachers MAY sometimes be part of the cause for underachievement in gifted students. Regardless, working together they are definitely part of the solution in helping gifted students reverse their underachieving behavior.
Summary
Underachievement in gifted students is a great loss to the students, the schools, the families, and to society at large. Patterns of underachievement behavior are caused by a variety of circumstances. However, it is also possible to reverse the cycle of underachievement. Teachers who recognize and confront the problem of underachievement can make the difference between the creation of a stellar student transitioning to a future where his or her gifts will be recognized and appreciated, and a student with great potential who drops out of school.