• the beginnings of underachievement in many young people occur in elementary school—some students may underachieve as a direct result of an inappropriate, unchallenging, and/or unmotivating curriculum

• underachievement appears to be periodic and episodic, occurring in some years and not others and in some classes, but not others.

• parental issues may interact with the behaviors of some underachievers

• positive peer groups can play a major role in keeping underachievement from occurring in their closest friends

• busier adolescents who are involved in clubs, extracurricular activities, sports, and religious activities are less likely to underachieve in school

• helping gifted students develop regular patterns of work and practice seems to be very beneficial. Music, dance and art lessons, and regular time for homework and reading can be very helpful for developing positive self-regulation strategies.

• caring adult in school can help reverse the process of underachievement. This adult may be a counselor, a coach or an academic content teacher.

• one type of intervention will be effective for the full range of underachieving gifted students. A continuum of strategies and services is necessary if we are to systematically address this problem and interventions must match the problems or reasons that led to student underachievement in the first place.

Some gifted students possess better self-regulated learning strategies than their peers. Gifted students may have done very well in school without using good self-regulation strategies as well. If learning is easy, less effort, organization and other self-regulated activities are expended.

Compared with low achieving students, high achievers set more specific learning goals, use a variety of learning strategies, self-monitor more often, and adapt their efforts. It is important that students learn to use multiple self-regulatory learning skills rather than single strategies. They must also learn that their goals and their choice of self-regulation strategies have to be adjusted regularly as they experience different content areas and different teachers.

Self-regulation practices for parents:

• Encourage and promote your students' interests and passions.

• Help students to see beyond the immediate activity to the long-term outcomes. Parents and educators may wish to share how they use various skills learned in school.

• Help students to set short and long-term academic goals. Talk with them about possible goals. Remember, goals that adults value may have little meaning to children.

• Encourage students to pursue excellence, rather than perfection. Gifted students should not be expected, or expect, to complete every task, in every area, with 100% accuracy.

• Help students plan tasks. This serves two functions. First, it develops a mindset that the task is doable. Young people are often reluctant to begin a task because they are unsure how to begin.

• Help students set realistic expectations. Learning occurs best when new material cannot be mastered without assistance, but can be mastered with minor direction.

• Encourage meta-cognitive talk: https://childmind.org/article/how-metacognition-can-help-kids/

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Allow your child to experience failure within a safe environment – be there to support the learning and the struggle

Compliment the effort and process of thinking involved in completing a task – not the product or outcome

Let your child know that you understand his/her desire to do well and recognize his/her fear of goofing up/failing

Help teach time management and organizational skills (use of calendars, breaking large projects into smaller tasks)

Concentrate praise on child’s efforts and be sincere – do not praise every single thing the child does

Avoid criticism and focus more on what your child learned during the process

Do not do tasks for your children – this conveys the message that they are incompetent and creates overly-dependent children

Teach your child ways to manage stress and anxiety: exercise, breathing techniques, meditation, good eating habits, laughter

Help them set realistic and attainable goals

Model self-acceptance of mistakes – we all make them and when you model how to react to making mistakes, the children will follow your lead!