Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Boring topic > low effort = low grade

What does a parent do when their gifted child is bored or disinterested in an assignment, or objects to a question either philosophically or by definition, and puts in low effort or leaves the answer blank.

DS given Olympics assignment in Enrichment class. Easy essay questions an adult would ace by embellishing or creating a good answer. One question was to talk about your Olympic hero. Why is he/she your hero, tell us about him or her. Well, my son (told me although he likes the Games very much he doesn't consider them heroes, so he left the question blank. Well he did this for 2 out of the 10 questions, and scored an 80.

Another assignment was about a quick paperback novel Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. He read it superfast and considered the story ok but not that interesting. The Enrichment class went on with it, analyzing a chapter at a time, for weeks. Finally culminated in a novel test and he scored in the high 80s, clearly due to his disinterest.

He had made Principal's List first 2 quarters, but this quarter did not because final grade in this class was in low 90s.

How do parents teach gifted children the importance of effort and care in all school projects, even if they're easy or uninteresting. Do you start to talk about importance of grades for college, or talk about the intrinsic value of the results of hard work? Or both? What works and what backfires?

He is 10 years old, 6th grade. Thank you!

My son's also 10, and we've had this issue on an off. We've explained that school isn't ALWAYS exciting and interesting. It just isn't. You sometimes have to suck it up and do things that are boring. Slacking off is only going to result in spending MORE time on the boring crap, so get it overwith and put in enough effort to move on to the next thing.

This is assuming your kid is at the appropriate grade level, of course.

My daughter's school doesn't have a Principal's List but knowing other kids would be making the list would be motivation enough for her. Maybe pointing out who made the list and your son knowing he may be smarter than some of those kids would do the trick.

Not much that you CAN do when they choose to leave things blank in protest.

One thing which has helped my daughter to play the game is to acknowledge that it is merely a GAME-- that is, when you're not learning anything either way, it's already intellectually dishonest on some level (for you personally), and therefore, it's okay to just jump through the hoop.

But as a parent, I also have to respect my daughter's decision to protest-- as long as she has thought through the consequences reasonably well, I mean, and has concluded that she's willing to pay them.

She's never been anyone's trained circus poodle, and sometimes she needs to flex that.

This is something I've thought about a lot, but I have a different starting point and perhaps a different set of assumptions to you.

My DS10 is (as I was) conscientious to a fault. When someone in authority tells him to jump he's more likely to ask "how high?" than "why?", and he risks attaching disproportionate importance to things that are formally assessed, whether or not they matter.

So about a year ago, when DS's school started handing out "effort grades" I wrote him a long letter about effort. It said things like:

- Parents (and teachers) often say that they want children to try their best at all times. That's nonsense. Nobody can do that. If you take that as your ideal, either you collapse, or, more likely, you get very good at fooling yourself that you're trying your best when you're not.

- It's really important to notice how much effort you're putting into something and be honest with yourself about it.

- Putting lots of effort in and getting poor results happens, and may be a sign that you should seek help; putting in little effort and getting good results happens too, and may be a sign that you'd learn more doing something harder.

- You have a choice about where you put your effort. Your choice has consequences. Sometimes, when you're a child, your choice will be limited by others - but we'll try to leave you some choice.

- Learn to think explicitly about what the consequences are. What will happen if you don't put maximum effort into something? Does that thing matter to you?

In particular, in the circumstance you describe, I'd be making sure he understood the "rules of the game" - how he got lower marks than he could have done because he didn't choose to engage with the question in the way the marker was prepared to award marks for. I would be contradicting any tendency to see this as a moral failing.

I think it is an important skill for life. I love my career and about 75 to 80 percent of what I do I really enjoy and is fascinating. The other 20 percent or so is boring crap. I tell my daughter that you are judged more harshly on the 20% than the 80%. Everyone wants to do the interesting stuff the way you do the boring stuff often defines your work ethic. I think this falls under buck up buttercup:).

ha, HK posts about the "game" aspect while I was typing my reply mentioning the same :-)

I remember studying (actually, not studying) Geology in middle school. That was one of the only quarters I didn't make the honor roll. In fact, I got a D. It was worth it. I did get a stern talking to from my dad though. This is what he said:

"You're going to get an A next quarter, right?"

I assured him I would, and I did. That was the end of it.

My kids aren't of the age to be writing essays yet, but I have discussed the topic with some co-workers, and I am convinced that the best thing to do is lie. If you get an essay question about "Of Mice and Men" then write about your cousin who is mentally challenged. If you are supposed to write about an olympic hero and your teacher wont be fact checking it, then make one up. Make him/her the type of hero you would have. For most essay questions there are kids who can relate it better to their own lives than others based on their family and experiences. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good essay.

First, DD11 can take a week to decide her own opinion on things like this - so I have told her that 1) her teacher doesn't have the right to her innermost thoughts and feelings, and 2) all she needs to do is put down any defensible answer and defend it. This has helped quite a bit on opinion questions.

Second, talking about grades and the future has backfired for us - so we keep it concrete and immediate. She must complete any assignment she brings home; no leaving half of the questions blank! Until it's done, there just isn't time for other things she would like to spend her time on. The school has dangled advanced math for next year in front of her as a carrot, and she has a personal goal of getting into it, so she puts effort into math so that she can meet those requirements. Sometimes I do have to remind her that she has her own reasons for doing the extra math (which she still doesn't find interesting), but it's her choice whether she wants the reward next year - I don't care.

DD does not like seeing truly wretched work with her name on it, so if she does the work, it's usually good enough for the teacher. I stay out of any quality discussion. The more I get involved, the more she just refuses to do the work - and we had enough of that in elementary school.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly content for her to get Bs in middle school. I see this as a time for her to act independently and see the consequences with minimal risk, so she will be self-motivated to get the higher grades in high school when it matters. If your philosophy or situation is different, your response will be also.

I would encourage my DS to take a stand if he doesn't believe in the validity of the question. I'd tell him skipping a question is a cop-out, communicate effectively and well your disdain; if you don't believe olympic athletes are heroes, then write about that and why and give examples of actual heroes or if you don't believe in heroes, then great role models or similar.

If he thought a book was weak and dull, I'd say write about that and defend his point of view and contrast it with stronger literature. I also say bored can be counter-attacked... if something is repetitive, then analyze it, picture making it more engaging, automating it, develop skills in split attention, focus on enhancing your performance, etc. If the classroom topic and discussion is dull, contemplate fellow students, what they know, what is engaging them, etc.

I really wish I had a good answer to this question. I would solve 3/4 of my son's problems with school. This was my DS15's biggest problem in school in 6th grade. My son HATES the term "favorite", or who is your Hero? Or other questions that imply a passion for a topic he is uninterested in. In my son's gifted class for homework he had to answer 3 questions like this a week, about a page of writing for each.

What I have tried to do is explain to my son that this is an assignments to improve your writing skills and help you think analytically. I have also explained that sometimes (depends on the teacher) you can answer these questions with humor, or fantasy, or explain why he doesn't like the topic. Half the time teacher only grade on completion for these things. I have tried explaining, over & over to just pick something a topic that you can say something. The teacher is NOT going to care or even know if this subject/item is really something that you love or hate. This has not been an easy lesson and we are still working on it.

As to how I teach my child that all school projects are important? I've required my son to finish assignments even if the teacher would not take them late. (When I know about them.) I have shown him mathematically, how one zero grade affects his overall grades. And as my son in now in H.S. how his grades will affect his future. Honestly, as a freshman in H.S. he still has difficult with this and I would love some better solutions.

Thanks for everyone who shared their experiences. Bluemagic, my son doesn't do well with these "favorite" type questions too, when they imply everyone enjoys the topic enough to even have a favorite within it. He tends to have strong opinions about most subjects. Perhaps this is why he can't imagine or pretend he has a favorite to write about, and gets uncomfortable or annoyed when asked to.

Our boys sound similar. Sorry I can't help you more. Maturity has helped a bit but honestly we are still struggling. One of his biggest problems this year has been all essays in his H.S. are IN CLASS to be written from prompt to end result in 1 hr 20 min. He can't figure out what to say fast enough and never gets to finish the essays. That and he still doesn't complete worksheets completely particularly if the thinks they are boring.