I've seen Sylvia Rimm's work on underachievement mentioned several times here. I had a look at her website, and there seem to be a lot of different books, workbooks, cassettes, etc.

Does anyone have a recommendation? I'm thinking of purchasing the book (why smart kids get poor grades) or the work-book (causes and cures for underachievement, or something like that).

I took her short on-line quiz, and confirmed that I have a "dominant underachiever" on my hands in DS11 (which I pretty much knew, but didn't have a name for it).

She's got a fair number of research papers out there in cyberspace if you look. I'd take a look at some of that (including over at Hoagie's) and see how you like her style.

I've run across a lot of her work in my search through perfectionist literature.



HTH.

I like the book why smart kids get poor grades and would recommend it. It's information packed, but tends to have a 'blame the parents' slant which I think is probably very appropriate for 'regular bright' and 'regular gifted' - however, on page 274, she notes that even excellent parenting can still yield this problems if the classroom fit is so very poor.

So if you can hold in mind that irony while you read, I would say that lots of excellent information can be had. And you certianly don't want to make any innocent parenting mistakes, so it's nice to know what the common pitfalls are.

But please don't go on a self-blamathon while you read it. I know I did until page 274.

Even though I really enjoyed the depth of information in the book, and it told me what NOT to do, I didn't feel like it gave me the full picture of what TO do, once I got the school fit problem sorted out. For that I really liked 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo and Howard Glasser.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks Grinity and HK.

Grinity - I am a master at self-blame, so maybe I shouldn't read this book! Even the short "check lists" on her website started worrying me . . . does your child have a perfectionist parent (yes, me), was your child given too much attention in the first years (yes, from me), etc, etc.

I am looking more for what TO do.

I have the "Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook" (which has been probably the most helpful parenting book I've read yet, and even DH read large parts of it).

I know that a bad school fit and probably some 2E are the biggest issues. He will have complete neuropsych. testing at the end of the month, so I'm hoping the 2E becomes clearer.

For school I really don't have a good solution. I asked DS what he would like to learn at school. He said: biology, law and creative writing. Doesn't sound like grade 6.

Actually it does sound quite a bit like my son's summer camp, which starts in 7th grade, see:

http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/is/iscatalog.html

My son took a class in consitutional law his first trip there, and loved it! The point is that with a summer camp experience that really rocks their world, you can 'keep hope alive' throughout the school year.

(My son's 7th grade private school did biology also.)

Good luck with the testing and keep rocking the positive with 'Transforming!'

Love and More Love,
Grinity

So would you recommend this book to the parent of a 4.5 year old that is already showing signs of underachievement?

I definitely gave him too much attention, as he is the oldest by 4 years.

I think it's a very good book, IF you can modulate the self-blame trap.
Smiles,
Grinity

Thank you!

Ahh, I wish there was a summer camp like that in my area! I'm hoping for good things from grade 7, but we have to get through grade 6 next year. . .

Thanks for the luck -- I'm nervous about the testing. What we might find, what we might not find, how DS will react, if we will like the neuropsychologist etc. DH and I have an intake appointment on April 28. gulp.

There are summer camps like that through regional and university-based talent searches all over the country.

This listing might be helpful.

Thanks aculady, but I'm from Canada . . . I've been looking around in my area and haven't found anything good yet.

So true, and, in my opinion, worth every penny even if you have to travel. Best therapy out there as far as I am concerned.

Good luck with the testing next month. I know for us, having the test results really changed the game for everyone in the family and we are all so much happier and closer as a result of the enlightenment.

Agreed on the summer program experience, the ones we have done have been totally worth it for our kids AND have provided academic motivation in some cases. Our best experience has been with Davidson's THINK -- D16 went last summer and can't wait to go back this summer.

Thanks for the advice.

I guess I should start looking harder for academic summer camps. We'd be willing to travel, but don't think he'd be eligible for any of the US summer programs. I did see that international students could apply to CTY. Unfortunately his first language is French and although his English is functional, I'm sure he wouldn't qualify on an English test.


Any Canadians in the group with suggestions? I haven't found anything even closely equivalent to what I've seen posted here.

CTY asks that kids take the US college test, called the SAT. I don't know if SAT is given in French, but there is a section only with Math, and if your child qualifies in Math he can take Math and many Science classes. They would be in English, but I would give it a try anyway. About a third of the kids at my son's CTY site are from overseas, by my son's estimate.

First thing to do is to look at the College Board site and get the testing started.

(I've put my son on an airplane to go to camp at age 12. If you can afford it, it's fine.)

Enjoy,
Grinity

You guys are awesome. Thank you!

DS11 is more wordy than mathy, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do well enough on the math SAT.

CFK -- thanks so much for those links. We are close to both Ottawa and Montreal.

I had seen a number of the McGill camp listings, and in fact was going to sign him up for a camp on insects at the Biodome but it was full. I'll do this earlier next year!

I checked out the University of Ottawa site (which I had somehow missed in my web searching -- thanks so much for the link!), and they do have French camps.

So far we have three weeks of camp: a stop-motion animation film camp; a cartooning camp; and either the science camp at U of Ottawa or a naturalist camp that he did last summer and liked a lot (learned about mushrooms, etc and walked around provincial parks).

Feeling your Canadian pain out here on the east coast. If you do find anything, please let ME know!!

Kathleen'smum: In fact, there is a camp that I thought looked great in Nova Scotia! Its not really academic, but it looked like it would appeal to my DS11 and teach him some new skills, like programming in Gamemaker. Here's the site (sorry haven't figured out how to make a link in the reply window):

artechcamps.com

"Artech offers workshops and camps in �art-based� or �creative� technologies. These include robotics, animation, Claymation and video game creation. ... "

[quote=Verona]Thanks Grinity and HK.

Grinity - I am a master at self-blame, so maybe I shouldn't read this book! Even the short "check lists" on her website started worrying me . . . does your child have a perfectionist parent (yes, me), was your child given too much attention in the first years (yes, from me), etc, etc.

I am looking more for what TO do. quote]

I am half way thru the Rimms book on Why do smart kids get bad grades.

Something I took from the book that helped me is to Model appropriate behavior. I certainly needed this reminder.

Don't complain about your job, even if it's house work. Parent's attitude can be reflected in their children.

I have since been more ambitious around the house. When I complete a big job I expressed how I feel good about it.

I also try to model and praise organization and responsibility.

Teach it's ok to make mistakes and just fix them. Perfectionism can get in the way of good grades

Best of Luck

I haven't read through this whole thread, but remembered the search for Canadian summer camps when I stumbled upon this...

http://www.tcet.com/psa/

A.

Thanks annaliisa. This looks really interesting - if not for this summer, maybe for next. Do you know someone who has gone to this camp?

I've contacted the camp to see if DS is eligible, and if they can accomodate a mostly-French speaking student.

Thanks for this. I do need to remind myself to model a good attitude for my kids. I am very self-critical, and can be pretty critical of others too. I see this trait in my DS11, so I'm trying to be a better model for him. I will have a look at the Sylvia Rimm book some time soon when I'm feeling like I can read it without going on the "self-blamathon" that Grinity was talking about!