3 mistakes we make with our underachieving child

As parents, we can help them become high achievers, as well as promote underachievement. Let me tell you about Mila, a parent of an underachiever.

Meet Mila

Mila’s second child, Tom, is a bright 10-year-old who doesn’t like school. He can concentrate for hours on something when he is interested in it. But when it comes to schoolwork, Tom loses interest after a few minutes in most subjects, hands in incomplete schoolwork, and chooses the easy way out whenever he can. Every time he starts a new hobby, he gives up the minute it starts to get challenging.

Her main concern is that Tom is unhappy in school. When she tried to speak with his teacher about the situation, the teacher said: “I understand, but there’s nothing I can do about it at the moment”. She hopes things will get better once he moves to secondary school.

Mila tries to help Tom with his schoolwork when she has the time, but she can’t help feeling disappointed with his low grades because she knows how much potential he has. Her husband thinks she is overreacting and that school is not that important either way.

Tom has a mismatch between his potential and achievement. In other words, he is underachieving. He is only one example of many kids who have natural gifts but have difficulty developing them into actual skills and talents.

Our role in the child’s achievement

The three components that can promote underachievement are the student (the “why should I bother” student and the “better safe than sorry” student), the adult (parents, teachers, or other people in the child’s life), and the learning environment (school being too easy, or too hard).

In this post, we will focus on the parent’s role in promoting achievement or underachievement.

How can we affect our child’s achievements?

1. Sending conflicting messages

This is especially relevant for children living with both parents, or with a fair amount of interaction with both parents. In general, kids who receive conflicting messages from parents may find reasons not to achieve.

Our child may hear different opinions on the importance of school. If, for example, she hears stories from her father that he was a “bad student” and “look how I managed to succeed in life”, she might conclude that school is irrelevant to real life. Later on, it can be used as an excuse for not producing her best work in school and for giving up when things get challenging.

It is not only about making sure the messages are not conflicting. It is also about observing the verbal messages we send. What we say has a great effect on our child’s achievements, especially when the child is in primary school. If we tell our child that extracurricular activities are more important than schoolwork, that gives a clear signal about the importance of schoolwork.

What we do is sometimes even more valuable than what we say. It doesn’t matter how much we tell them “it’s okay to make mistakes because that’s the way to improve” if we get angry or give up when we make mistakes ourselves.

The way we talk to our children and what we say to them becomes their inner voice.

2. Encouraging independence

One of my favourite sentences from the Montessori education approach is: “Help as little as possible and as much as necessary”. I say this sentence to myself many times when I rush to help my daughter. I often see that when I wait a few moments, she solves it by herself.

For underachievers, being dependent on the adults around them is usually due to fear of failure. When we sit next to our children to help them with their homework, they will ask everything they can and be afraid of making mistakes. But if they do their homework alone and only ask us a question when needed, they have the space to try it alone.

On the contrary, giving too much space and not asking at all about schoolwork can make our children feel like we don’t care about their achievements. We can help them when they ask for help and gradually take a step back once we see they are doing it alone. Instead of sitting with our children to do their schoolwork, we can show them we trust them and occasionally show interest.

3. Setting unrealistic expectations

Expectations that are too high or too low may be problematic for underachievers because they can provide an excuse for giving up when things get challenging. This is not only their self-expectation but also our expectation of them to achieve.

We sometimes try to motivate our children by pointing out biographies of highly successful people. Saying unrealistic statements like “you are as wonderful as Picasso” and “you’ll make it to Harvard” can exaggerate their disappointment about their own poor performance. The other way around can also be problematic: expecting them to get a low grade can implicitly discourage our children from reaching their potential.

Instead, we can let our child know that we expect gradual improvement, not sudden leaps, and acknowledge the small attempts the child is making.

Coming back to Mila

Mila is one example of a parent with a child who feels unhappy and unfulfilled in school. Talking with her partner about conflicting messages, stepping away when Tom is doing his homework, and setting realistic expectations can already make a huge difference in her child’s achievements.

We can start by observing, without judgment, our own behaviour. Is there something we think might contribute to our child’s underachievement? So for the question “can we affect our children’s achievements?” the answer is yes, and we actually play a big part in it.

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