When overempowerment yields underachievement—Strategies
to adjust
by Sylvia Rimm
A
t the 2006 National Association for Gifted Children conference in Charlotte, North
Carolina, I was honored to have the opportunity to give a keynote address. My
presentation was based on findings from my clinical experiences in preventing and
reversing underachievement of gifted children and my recent research with middle
school children. Because many parents are unable to attend our national meetings, I’d
like to share a summary of my presentation with you, emphasizing what I believe
parents can do to present overempowerment and underachievement in their own
gifted children.
Underachievement is Not a Mystery
There has been considerable research on the underachievement of gifted children and
there are many teaching, parenting, and mentoring strategies that have been proven
to be effective in helping to reverse underachievement and motivate gifted children.
Because underachievement is learned behavior, it can be unlearned. Underachieving is
a bad habit of avoiding effort, but habits can be changed, and motivation can be
fostered, taught, and encouraged. Despite the success of various approaches, it’s
important for parents to realize that it’s rarely easy to reverse underachievement,
because children, circumstances, families, and classroom environments are all
complex.
Classic Good Parenting
Classic studies of family environments that led children to high achievement involved
parents who were both responsive and demanding. In her research, for example,
Baumrind (see Figure 1) labeled this kind of appropriate parenting as authoritative
parenting, which she contrasted with authoritarian parenting, which she described as
non-responsible, but demanding, or permissive indulgent parenting that was
responsive, but not demanding (neither of which was as effective for fostering
children’s achievement in school). Most obviously permissive, unengaged parenting
also did not foster achievement. Classrooms that are responsive to children’s
intellectual, social, and emotional needs also
lead to high achievement. For gifted children, appropriately challenging curriculum is
an important component of responsiveness to academic needs.
The V of Love
The V of Love for raising and teaching children is a “commonsense” description that
fits well with the conception of authoritative parenting. Parents set the limiting walls
of the V, but increase power, freedom, choices, and responsibilities between the walls
of the V as children develop and mature. Thus young children are at the base of the V
and are given few choices, power, freedom, and responsibilities that match their small
size.
Childhood and adolescence can be relatively smooth if children are only gradually
empowered. If parents don’t expand the limiting walls of the V, children are overcontrolled and have little opportunity to become independently motivated.
Authoritarian parents don’t expand the walls of the V.
Parents of gifted children may easily fall into the trap of permissive indulgent
parenting as envisioned in an inverted V. The verbal precocity and adult-sounding
reasoning or very high IQ scores of high-ability students may tempt parents to
“adultize” them early and assume they are more capable of decision making than their
maturity allows. When the V is inverted, children are given power, choices, and
freedom too early and often make poor decisions that worry their parents. Parents,
too late, attempt to set limits for these powerful children. Ordinary limits cause them
to become angry, depressed, and rebellious because they feel powerless relative to
the power they experienced early. They are overempowered and have developed a
habit of complete control. Accustomed to making all their own decisions, these
powerful children resent parent or teachers who guide them differently from their
own preferences. They are offended by criticism, become defensive, argue only to
prove they are right, and underachieve to assert that teachers and parents are wrong.
The following letter from a mother of a profoundly gifted child provides an example of
an over-empowered, strong-willed child.
I have a seven-year-old daughter who is a major challenge for me. How do you deal
with an over-confident child who wants to change the world right now? I think my
daughter is profoundly gifted. I home schooled her until this year when she
requested that I put her in “regular” school like “normal kids,” so I did. She’s in
first grade, but could easily be in third or fourth grade The school just completed
an assessment, and I will get the results next month. My daughter feels she
shouldn't have to go to school or be home schooled, and she should just be left
alone to pursue her own ideas and inventions. She's very angry with me for “wasting
her time doing baby stuff” at school. She loves her friends and the social aspect of
school, but feels school is beneath her. Her teachers is a wonderful, certified
teachers of gifted, but my daughter has recently become disrespectful to her
because she caught her teacher making a mistake about something.
My daughter constantly begs me to convert our garage into a science lab so she can
do experiments to find a cure for cancer. She packed her suitcase and ran away
from home recently. She got to the end of the street before I convinced her to come
back. She said I didn’t understand and appreciate her desire to be a famous
scientist today—now—not in the future.
I’m very distressed about this and don’t know what to do. Have you seen these
types of kids before? What’s the best way to handle them and how do I handle her
anger with me?
The Pressures of Giftedness
A great problem for gifted children is that the very same pressure of giftedness can
lead to either high-achievement motivation or to underachievement. These opposite
expressions of similar life occurrences puzzle parents and teachers. Consider that
children with extraordinary vocabulary, unusual thinking, and rapidly developing skills
are often surrounded by adults who praise them or describe them to others with words
like perfect, brilliant, extraordinary, spectacular, genius, or the conviction that they
will sure cure cancer. Those innocent but extravagant descriptors set values and
expectations for children in the family and in the classroom.
For some children who have appropriate school and home environments, these words
will inspire them to set high goals and work hard toward those goals. They will lean to
enjoy the learning and discovery process as they mature. For other children, they will
internalize these goals as impossible pressures, be disappointed in themselves, fear
risking effort, and will invest considerable energy in protecting their fragile selfconcepts for fear that if they made an effort , it would only prove that they aren’t as
intelligent or extraordinary as people assumed. I refer to this second group of
underachieving children as “dethroned” children because their personalities and
behavior change so dramatically from a childhood where they were overpraised and
overempowered.
Dethronement
The most difficult hazard of overempowerment is “dethronement.” When another
sibling is born or if the overempowered child isn’t recognized as special in the
classroom, he or she may feel irrationally and extraordinarily rejected. Dethroned
children exhibit negativity, anger, aggressiveness, or
lead to high achievement. For gifted children, appropriately challenging curriculum is
an important component of responsiveness to academic needs.
The V of Love
The V of Love for raising and teaching children is a “commonsense” description that
fits well with the conception of authoritative parenting. Parents set the limiting walls
of the V, but increase power, freedom, choices, and responsibilities between the walls
of the V as children develop and mature. Thus young children are at the base of the V
and are given few choices, power, freedom, and responsibilities that match their small
size.
Childhood and adolescence can be relatively smooth if children are only gradually
empowered. If parents don’t expand the limiting walls of the V, children are overcontrolled and have little opportunity to become independently motivated.
Authoritarian parents don’t expand the walls of the V.
Parents of gifted children may easily fall into the trap of permissive indulgent
parenting as envisioned in an inverted V. The verbal precocity and adult-sounding
reasoning or very high IQ scores of high-ability students may tempt parents to
“adultize” them early and assume they are more capable of decision making than their
maturity allows. When the V is inverted, children are given power, choices, and
freedom too early and often make poor decisions that worry their parents. Parents,
too late, attempt to set limits for these powerful children. Ordinary limits cause them
to become angry, depressed, and rebellious because they feel powerless relative to
the power they experienced early. They are overempowered and have developed a
habit of complete control. Accustomed to making all their own decisions, these
powerful children resent parent or teachers who guide them differently from their
own preferences. They are offended by criticism, become defensive, argue only to
prove they are right, and underachieve to assert that teachers and parents are wrong.
The following letter from a mother of a profoundly gifted child provides an example of
an over-empowered, strong-willed child.
I have a seven-year-old daughter who is a major challenge for me. How do you deal
with an over-confident child who wants to change the world right now? I think my
daughter is profoundly gifted. I home schooled her until this year when she
requested that I put her in “regular” school like “normal kids,” so I did. She’s in
first grade, but could easily be in third or fourth grade The school just completed
an assessment, and I will get the results next month. My daughter feels she
shouldn't have to go to school or be home schooled, and she should just be left
alone to pursue her own ideas and inventions. She's very angry with me for “wasting
her time doing baby stuff” at school. She loves her friends and the social aspect of
school, but feels school is beneath her. Her teachers is a wonderful, certified
teachers of gifted, but my daughter has recently become disrespectful to her
because she caught her teacher making a mistake about something.
My daughter constantly begs me to convert our garage into a science lab so she can
do experiments to find a cure for cancer. She packed her suitcase and ran away
from home recently. She got to the end of the street before I convinced her to come
back. She said I didn’t understand and appreciate her desire to be a famous
scientist today—now—not in the future.
I’m very distressed about this and don’t know what to do. Have you seen these
types of kids before? What’s the best way to handle them and how do I handle her
anger with me?
The Pressures of Giftedness
A great problem for gifted children is that the very same pressure of giftedness can
lead to either high-achievement motivation or to underachievement. These opposite
expressions of similar life occurrences puzzle parents and teachers. Consider that
children with extraordinary vocabulary, unusual thinking, and rapidly developing skills
are often surrounded by adults who praise them or describe them to others with words
like perfect, brilliant, extraordinary, spectacular, genius, or the conviction that they
will sure cure cancer. Those innocent but extravagant descriptors set values and
expectations for children in the family and in the classroom.
Responsive
High +
Figure 1
Low—
++
Authoritative
+—
Authoritarian
+
Permissive Indulgent
—
Permissive Unengaged
High
+
Demanding
Low
—
Parenting
Styles for
Achievement
For some children who have appropriate school and home environments, these words
will inspire them to set high goals and work hard toward those goals. They will lean to
enjoy the learning and discovery process as they mature. For other children, they will
internalize these goals as impossible pressures, be disappointed in themselves, fear
risking effort, and will invest considerable energy in protecting their fragile self-
concepts for fear that if
they made an effort , it
would only prove that
they aren’t as intelligent
or extraordinary as
people assumed. I refer
to this second group of
underachieving children
as “dethroned” children
because their
personalities and
behavior change so
dramatically from a
childhood where they
were overpraised and
overempowered.
Dethronement
The most difficult hazard
of overempowerment is
“dethronement.” When
another sibling is born or
if the overempowered
child isn’t recognized as
special in the classroom,
he or she may feel
irrationally and
extraordinarily rejected.
Dethroned children
exhibit negativity, anger,
aggressiveness, or
sadness. They may
readily be labeled
depressed anxious, or
ADHD (Attention Deficit
Hyperactive Disorder).
Their personalities
change dramatically and
they may literally “shut
down” to learning.
Patrick’s Story
Patrick, a first “miracle” child born to a couple in their
late thirties, was a delightful, bright baby and toddler
and by age three was reading fluently. His parent
enrolled him in preschool, coincidentally, at about the
same time his brother was born. At first Patrick was
excited about going to school; however, whenever he was
expected to join in with other children for a group
activity, he resisted and remained alone. The teachers
permitted him time for adjustment, but then they
insisted that Patrick join the class. Patrick ran away from
school. The school officials asked his mother to take him
home on run-away days. Patrick ran away multiple times,
so the school asked that Patrick wait a year before
entering their school again because they believed him to
be immature. Patrick repeated the problem at a second
preschool and was dismissed again.
At home, Patrick did well with playmates and was very
kind and sweet to his baby brother. He continued to love
to play imaginatively and read and did math prodigiously.
His “dethronement” wasn’t obvious.
Patrick’s play evaluation session at Family Achievement
Clinic yielded the secret of his dethronement. He placed
his mom and dad and himself inside the playhouse as he
explained that his little brother could not come in and
must stay outside. When I suggested that Mom and Dad
would be sad without his brother, he sulked and said,
“That’s okay if they’re sad. I don’t care.”
When Patrick ran away from his summer camp, we
shortened his morning temporarily and explained that if
he had a bad day, he would be timed-out in his room at
home with his door closed. If he had a good day, he
earned a sticker and some special one-to-one time with
his mom or dad. He needed to experience only one
closed-door time-our before he realized that running
away would not bring his for-for parent attention. We
gradually lengthened his day at camp. In his mother’s
words, “I have my old Patrick back again.” The more
positive adjustment continued when Patrick enrolled in
his third preschool where his excellent skills were put to
use and social needs were met appropriately.
Dethroned children may
try to run their families, their teachers, and other students, and they may argue
incessantly to “outsmart” adults. Their parents often refer to them as “lawyers.”
Victory in an argument temporarily restores their throne. As these children trap adults
into the battles, parents and teachers find themselves losing their tempers. Teachers
and parents, offended by such powerful children, try to “put them in their places.”
Adults respond to these oppositional, offensive children with a big NO permanently
engraved on their foreheads. “Unfair,” the children argue, undaunted. They believe
that no one understands them and, indeed, few people do.
Dethronement may happen any time in life briefly, or it may become long lasting. It
truly seems like an
altered state and a
dramatic change in the
child. Read the stories
about Patrick and
Laura for examples of
dethronement at home
and at school.
Research on
Overempowerment
Figure 2
Reversing Underachievement Alliance
Ally with the child privately about motivations and
pressures.
Listen to what the child has to say.
Learn what the child is thinking.
Invite opportunities for recognition of child’s strengths.
In my survey of 5,400
Add challenging and interesting curriculum and activities.
middle grade children
for my recent book,
Nurture relationships with respectful and appropriate role
Growing Up Too Fast:
models.
The Rimm Report on
the Secret World of
Create specific consequences, firmly and reasonably, if
America’s Middle
child doesn’t meet expectations.
Schoolers, I found that
middle grade children
Emphasize effort, independence, realistic expectations,
today are growing up in
and ways strengths can be used to copy with problems.
environments more
similar to what their
parents experienced in
high school and beyond. The media have prematurely sexualized them. By third grade,
15% worried a lot about popularity with the opposite sex, and a similar percentage
worried that their parents didn’t understand them. In earlier generations, such worries
were reserved for adolescence. For third graders at that time, their priorities were
pleasing parents and teachers and playing with children of their own gender.
Popularity wasn’t even a word in their vocabulary. In our clinic, when young, gifted
children are tested and asked to pronounce the word condemn, the most frequent
mispronunciation is condom, and even small children have wished for “sexy” clothes.
In focus groups with gifted fifth through eighth graders, the children indicated they
believed they had already made an average of two thirds of the decisions in their
lives. When I asked if they thought their parents permitted them enough of their own
decision making, most were not contented. Among the fifth graders, more than half
(55%) were unsatisfied, and by eighth grade, 90% of the students believed they should
have more power. Here are examples of what they had to say:
My parents won’t listen to me. My dad thinks I should be treated differently just
because I’m a kid. It wasn't the same treatment as my parents.” (Fifth-grade boy)
“I think parents can help us make some decisions, but if we want to make them
ourselves, they should just accept that and let us do it.” (Seventh-grade girl)
“My parents trust my judgment. They might give me some ideas, but I make 90% of the
decisions. (Seventh-grade boy)
What Parents Can Do to Prevent Early Adolescence
In addition to raising children in responsive environments where parents set clear
limits as in the V of Love, there’s much that parents can do to help preserve a healthy
childhood. My research found that children with good family relationships, less screen
watching, and more involvement in interests and extracurricular activities were less
likely to be caught up in high-risk behaviors like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and
promiscuous sexual involvement. Youngsters who described their family relationships
as above average were also less likely to be quite as worried about being pretty and
popular. That isn’t to say they didn’t care about these peer issues, but family support
and engagement in positive activities were extremely helpful. Families who find time
to work, play, laugh, and talk together help preserve healthy childhoods. Of course,
you knew that already, but with such busy lives, many of us may need reminders.
Reversing Dethronement and Underachievement
In my book, Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades and What You Can Do about It, I
proposed a trifocal model in which parents and teachers together could select from
many approaches to reverse their children’s or students’ underachievement when it
has been caused by psychological dethronement. I’ve included other readings with
solutions at the end of this article. In Figure 2, I’ve also prepared a Reversing
Underachievement Alliance acrostic to summarize important steps to restoring a
dethroned child to achievement.
It is important to realize that sometimes the reversal of underachievement is almost
immediate, particularly among younger children. Other times, the reversal takes
extraordinary patience and seems like a “two steps forward, one step backward”
process. For many underachievers, reversing that powerless feeling of dethronement
results in intense and passionate achievement. It’s almost like “awakening a sleeping
giant.” For Patrick at age four, Mother described the change as having her old Patrick
back again; while for Laura, her success is not yet entirely clear. Adults who
retrospectively recall the reversal of their child’s underachievement often report as
pivotal a high-discipline requirement like the military (at peace), a mentor, a teacher,
or a partner who believed in them.
Resilience
Most parents tell me that they want happy, achieving lifestyles for their gifted
children. They hope their children will find careers that tap their talents and
interests, balanced with relationships that help them feel happy and fulfilled. Most
parents also understand that those goals are not easy to achieve. Successful gifted
children will face many struggles and failure experiences. Their ultimate success will
often depend on whether their lives have taught them resilience.
Dr Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and
author of the book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, discussed how difficult experiences
service to inoculate people and increase their resilience. Thus, small stresses children
learn to cope with “vaccinate” them to cope better with the larger stresses that life is
likely to deliver. If we, as parents, overindulge, overprotect, or overempower our
children, we may be withholding the vaccination that can lead them to resilience.
Parents, You Are Very Important to Your Children
No parent is perfect, and indeed, children remember their childhood differently from
how parents remember parenting them. The mistakes you believe you‘ve made may be
forgotten by your children, and what you believe were successful efforts may not even
be valued by them. In my interviews with hundreds of successful women, the women
recalled their parents’ messages and guidance, even as they remembered occasionally
protesting with rolled-back eyes during adolescence. In my clinical work with
underachievers, parents have returned to share stories of how their grown children
thanked them later for setting the very limits these children had rebelled against
during adolescence. As you parent your gifted children, consider that your
responsibility is not to be sure they’re happy every day and every hour, but to prepare
them for the resilience, achievement, and balance in relationships they will require to
launch happy adult lives. If you parent with foresight, their small unhappinesses may
vaccinate them with the resilience they’ll require. Here’s a final story to think about.
A Nerdy, Smart Boy
A long time ago, in the post-Sputnik years when gifted programming was new and was
targeted toward science and mathematics, we lived in northwestern, rural New
Jersey. My new husband was a graduate student working on his masters degree in dairy
genetics, and I had just graduated from college and was substitute teaching, hoping to
get a first real teaching job.
My only neighbors were my husband’s major professor, Bob Mather, his wife, Martha,
who was an elementary school teacher, and their two children, John and Janet. We
would visit back and forth, and Martha told me about the importance of the new
ability grouping for gifted children. Bob was interested in astronomy and had gotten a
telescope so that he and his middle school children could explore the star-studded sky
that only a rural area provides.
The children didn’t have many friends and spent a lot of time learning, working and
having fun with their family. I never heard the parents describe their children as
brilliant, extraordinary, or even gifted, although they did consider them smart. John,
particularly, seemed shy and definitely in the “nerd” category. In his later words he
was a “nerd” even before others had coined the word.
Astronomy became John’s love. John went to a public, rural school in a very small
school district and chose a small college, Swarthmore, because he considered it “to be
respectable to be a ‘nerd’ there.” He went on to do graduate work in astronomy at
the University of California, Berkeley. At a time when many college students were
busy being hippies or protesting, he graduated with a 4.0 average.
John took a job with NASA. That’s what post-Sputnik gifted education was all about—
no surprises there, but here’s the surprise! That shy, timid nerdy kid, John C. Mather,
was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the COBE (Cosmic
Background Explorer) satellite that helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe
and can be regarded as “the starting point for cosmology as a precision science” (in
the words of Mather and Boslough, in the 1998 book). Most parents can’t count on
raising their gifted children to Nobel Prize status. John’s parent didn’t expect to,
either. But perhaps if we can inspire our gifted children to become engaged in
interests, to work hard, and to be resilient enough to endure “nerdhood,” they, too,
may make meaningful contributions.
Recommended Reading
Baum, S., Renzulli, J., & Hebert, T. (1995). The prism metaphor: A new paradigm for reversing
underachievement. (CRS96310). Storrs, CT: The University of Connecticut. The National Research
Center on the Gifted and Talented.
Baumrind, D. (1966). Effects of authoritative control on child behavior. Child Development, 37, 887-907.
Baumrind, D. (1991). Parenting styles and adolescent development. In R. Lerner, A. Petersen, & J.
Brooks-Gunn (eds.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence. (pp. 746-758). New York: Garland.
Coil, C. (1992). Motivating underachievers: 172 strategies for success. Beavercreek, OH: Creative
Learning Consultants, Inc.
Reis, S., & McCoach, B. (2002). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we
know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc.
Rimm, S. (1995). Why bright kids get poor grades and what you can do about it. New York: Crown Trade
Paperbacks.
Rimm, S. (2005). Growing up too fast: The Rimm report on the secret world of America’s middle
schoolers. New York: Rodale.
Siegle, D. (2004). Understanding underachievement. Storrs, CT; University of Connecticut. The National
Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.
Siegle, D., Reis, S., McCoach, B., Mann., R., Green, M., & Schreiber, F. (2002). Intervention strategies for
improving academic achievement [CD]. Storrs, CT: The National Research Center on the Gifted and
Talented.
Mather, J. C., & Boslough, J. (1998, November). The very first light: The true inside story of the scientific
journey back to the dawn of the universe. Basic Books edition: ISBN 046501576X.
Sapolsky, R. (2004). Why zebras don’t get ulcers (3rd ed.). New York: Henry Holt.
Copyrighted material from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), 1707 L Street, NW, Suite
550, Washington, DC 20036. This material may not be reproduced without permission from NAGC. For
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