How To Deal With Under And Overachieving Kids

Author: William Jason

As a parent, it is safe to assume that you would do whatever it takes to have a bright future paved for your child. You might have done a lot of things to tap the potential of your kids and helping them to find their passion in the process. Enrolling them in sport, academic, music, or art classes are pretty much common cases. If your kids are able to balance things out in the process, good for you. But if they take it to the extreme, what are you going to do about it? Psychologists have indicated that at a young age, putting your kids in a competitive environment can make them look at everything as a game that they have to win. This may lead them to become overachievers. Alternatively, the level of competition might just be too intense for the child, that he or she loses confidence in the process, making them underachieve. The task for you, then, is to be able to keep the balance, as well as be able to respond to your children's specific needs, assuming that they fall under the underachiever or overachiever category.

The Underachiever

The most reasonable definition for people who belong under this category is one whose actual performance is not proportionate, or far below their potential. This might be a serious problem if it doesn't get detected early on as it may carry on to the latter stages of that child's life. There are a lot of reasons why kids fall under this category, with lack of interest, blaming other people for failures, lack of self-esteem, blaming oneself too much, and disorganization as the more common reasons why they are hindered from being able to reach their fullest potential. To this, constant reinforcement of how good you think they can be is extremely important. Be careful, however, as it might sound like you are faking sincerity in order to patronize them. Treat them ordinarily, but be sure to praise them for the little things that they do.

The overachiever

While there is nothing inherently wrong with getting perfect grades and being the best in different fields, the motivation behind the performance may be because of the overwhelming desire to impress people, and to project an I-can-do-it-all personality. This is bad because your child might see everyone as competitors waiting for his or her downfall. As an effect, this might affect your child's ability to understand and build genuine relationships with others. For this, you might want to spend more time with your child doing activities without any prizes at stake. Bond with them and tell them that it's okay to take a break from everything.

------
If this article helped you, you can find more like it at William's blog, BabyDollStroller.net. He is currently focusing on the very early pregnancy signs expectant parents need to look for.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_2171928_27.html

About the Author: