Underachievers are good, bright kids who appear to be just plain lazy. They let deadlines pass and claim they forgot when the work was due. They can pay attention to video games and television, but they lack motivation when it comes to things that are important like school. They lack motivation, and there is no pill that can cure this problem.

            According to Linnus Pecaut, Ph.D., author or Understanding and Influencing Student Motivation, underachievers lack the essential characteristics of successful people. They fail to start work in a timely manner. They fail to apply persistent effort until tasks are completed. They fail to turn in work on time and meet deadlines. They fail to work without constant supervision.  They also fail to demonstrate initiative.

            The key thing that underachievers need to develop is motivation. Counseling which develops motivation improves performance in subjects like math and science and English without ever discussing those subjects.  There are several mistakes that parents often make when trying to get an underachiever to work.

• Helping the student do the work or hiring a tutoring service. Students with high IQ scores and high achievement test scores don’t need tutoring, they need motivation.
• Explaining the value of an education to persuade the student to apply more effort.
• Bribing. This can generate a lot of initial enthusiasm, but it usually wears off quickly and grades can even make things worse. A child who is offered a go-cart if he makes straight As will shut down and make Fs if he believes that he might make one B, since straight As has been set as the only criteria for success.
• Grounding. There may be an initial improvement but there is no long term change. Again, grades may be even worse after a while.

            The first step in helping an underachiever is identifying which type of motivational problem the child is having. The four types of underachievers are : security seekers, recognition seekers, dependence seekers, and identity seekers. Each type of underachiever is experiencing a different type of motivational problem.

• Security seekers are manipulative and try to be in control. They are often focused on what is going on around them instead of what the teacher is saying.
• Recognition seekers will make A’s on some papers and F’s on others. There is an all or nothing pattern. A Recognition Seeker will refuse to apply effort if a teacher doesn’t appear to like him.
• Dependence seekers present an indifferent attitude. They deny responsibility for their grades and explain why teachers caused them to fail.
• Identity seekers are in a power struggle with authority figures. Each type requires a different approach both at home and in counseling.

            Dependence seekers are the largest group. They have habitually blamed others for their problems so long that they believe they are the helpless victims of  bad teachers and bad luck. A special counseling technique called unhooking projections is effective in correcting this, although it might have to be done hundreds of times. If an underachiever says that his mother never understands him, thereby projecting blame onto the mother, I unhook the projection by saying “So it is hard for you to communicate things to your mother.”

            Counseling can require months or even several years of  treatment, depending upon the duration and the severity of the underachievement. If a child has been underachieving for three years, it will probably take at least a year to correct his misperceptions and thinking errors.

            I teach parents to force underachievers to start evaluating their own performance. When your child shows you a paper, don’t give your child your own evaluation of the grade. Simply say “How do you feel about that?” Even if the child seems to evade the challenge to evaluate his own work, say something like “How you feel about your work is very important.” Then the child will start the process of thinking about what his standards and values really are. Sometimes an underachiever have been so focused on opposing every goal that the parent has set that the question of what his own goals are has never been considered.