<p>My daughter is a sophomore taking all honors classes. She gets A's & B's without studying or doing HW. She is capable of all A's if she tried a little. Next year, she plans on all honors with 2 AP classes. She is a strong willed, slightly depressed, gets overwhelmed easily type of kid. Her friends are mostly wonderful geeky boys because they are accepting of her. She loves to learn and will take outside classes on her own when there is an opportunity to do so. She cannot wait to get to college and says she wishes she can go now. But I am worried for next year and when she does get to college that she will continue not to work and eventually fail. She is really such a wonderful creative kid with so much potential but she only will work when she is interested in the subject. Has anyone had a child like this and did they finally get their act together?</p>
<p>Have you considered that she may have ADHD?</p>
<p>Well, she never was like this when she was younger. She doesn’t have the H part but possibly some ADD but I think this is caused by the computer, IPod and phone and the constant stimulation of it all. She is a huge reader. She reads more than anyone I know.</p>
<p>Maybe she fines the homework meaningless. Is she getting some Bs because she doent understand all material, or because she doesnt complete stuff? I think all you can do is make her understand the consequences of her actions (both in terms of college admission and finacial aid)</p>
<p>I hope you find a satisfactory solution to your question here. My friend is dealing with something similar in that her S will just not do his work, but is totally capable when he sits down to do it once it hits crisis mode. Difference is your D is naturally bright whereas my friend’s son has to work for it. The mom thinks he is just lazy, but I’m beginning to think there is more to it in his case. Good luck!</p>
<p>Good luck. I see it all of the time. Character, diligence, motivation eliminate many bright kids. By the time they join the ranks as adults, it very rarely matters if someone was once a precocious child. It’s what one DOES that counts.</p>
<p>We used to carpool with a very bright little girl who is now a wonderful young woman. She is leagues “brighter” than my son and the other guy who was in the car pool. She won kudos and awards and is well known as a talented young lady. Is at a highly selective private school. After freshman year, this young “hare” decided to take a break while the two young tortoises plodded along, unspectacular, hardly noticed. They are now all young adults, and the young man are solid, hard working and making good living wages, one of whom has made some real waves in a sport on up to the international level. The young lady is taking a hiatus from college until she figures out what she wants to do. I’m personally aware of a lot of the circumstances here, but this is an old and common story.</p>
<p>She’s young yet, and when she want to focus her attentions on a discipline, I have every confidence her great talents will shine out. When or if she will decide to do this, is totally up in the air. Life can be a big slide to the mean. Great for those on one side of it, disappointing for those on the other.</p>
<p>My kid was 'slacker" in high school. He was smart and breezed through school with A/B where he could easily been A student right along. He is just finished 3rd year of college and has 3.87 GPA. Loves College and strives for all A’s. We were pleasantly suprised at his drive and ambition. He says to his younger brother who is A H/S student. Don’t waste so much time studying in HS. Save it for college. I don’t support his theory but he is doing great at collegiate level. Your daughter sounds like gifted student. Don’t worry about her. Let her do her thing. She will be fine.</p>
<p>She sounds like me. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is that gifted kids are often not challenged appropriately in elementary school, so they don’t develop study habits. (Especially the ability to grind through a subject that may not particularly interest them. 
) Gifted kids are failed by schools in this regard more often than not. It annoys the hell out of me when I hear smug parents of kids who WERE appropriately challenged talking about how, despite, their brains, the gifted crashed and burned, as if this indicated a lack of character on their part. Guess what: your kid got the sustenance they needed. That kid didn’t. (Cpt, I am NOT talking about you.) It is not simply a matter of being assigned some extra worksheets: more of the same that isn’t working. Eventually, everyone hits a wall where they are not able to just pull out good grades because of natural talent.</p>
<p>In contrast to what others say, I <em>would</em> worry about her. Her options going forward will be limited if she continues to behave this way. In addition, depression is nothing to sneeze at. If she is depressed, please, please get her help NOW.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you how much I wished that someone, anyone had realized that everything was not hunky-dory with ME, and that I had been offered real support and counseling in HS. Instead, they mostly just yelled at me for being an underachiever. Not helpful.</p>
<p>What was formerly called ADD is now ADHD Predominantly Inattentive, they classify all ADHD cases with subgroups off of ADHD, rather than calling it ADD…</p>
<p>But that’s besides the point. As a high school junior recently diagnosed with ADHD-I this sounds exactly like my story. I have been repeatedly called intelligent, bright, etc. but I don’t do any homework, study, or anything. Luckily, I still have a 4.2 GPA, but I can only look in retrospect at how much I could have achieved had I been placed on the proper medication. </p>
<p>I have been told by my doctors that elementary school is when your average students will display signs of ADHD and begin to fall behind in class. In middle school, the kids who are fairly bright and have ADHD will begin to fall behind, and be diagnosed. Only at high school, college, and beyond will the very bright be diagnosed, if at all.</p>
<p>I wish luck to you and your daughter, for whatever the cause may be. Not saying any “slacking” story indicates ADHD, just bringing up the possibility. </p>
<p>(hint: if she says she CAN’T do the work rather than she WON’T that often signifies ADHD or some other disorder)</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses.
Consolation, she is being treated for depression and does see a therapist. He seems to think that she will be fine once she goes off to college and can be find people who are like her. He thinks that her “level of thinking” is far beyond typical HS kids so she has trouble relating. That is why she hangs out with the boys since she is not too interested in typical girly things. But I wanted to ask you how everything turned out for you and what would have been different if you had been treated?</p>
<p>Kudos to you for getting that therapy for her! Is it cognitive-behavioral therapy?
Could you praise her for working hard every time that she does? (“You are working really hard at that. You must be proud of yourself.”)
Could you encourage her to apply herself to a special project in an area that interests her, and then praise her for working hard at it? For example, if she is interested in science, encourage her to do a study and enter it in a science fair. If she is interested in writing, encourage her to write and submit it somewhere, etc. If she is interested in politics, encourage her to volunteer for a campaign and discuss the campaign strategy. The outcome is not as important as her hard work, and you can continually praise her for working hard. If she can feel some success after working hard in an area that interests her, it may translate into that work ethic spreading to other areas. Could you continually stimulate her intellectual development - for example, read a book and then discuss the ideas, read the newspaper or news magazine and discuss current events, then praise her for working so hard at analyzing everything. Good luck!</p>
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<p>So she takes on what she feels is manageable. I don’t see what the problem is with that. She balances workload and stress level.</p>
<p>Sounds like a person who might enjoy creative outlets (art, music, theater), btw, rather than more busywork. </p>
<p>And as I so frequently mention, does she get adequate exercise? Seems like that often gets left out of the equation entirely these days. That and adequate rest.</p>
<p>I agree with Sean. Apparently, the more high functioning/bright you are, the longer it takes to get an ADHD dx, as the work gets harder and you can’t compensate. I’m apparently borderline ADHD (inattentive type) and wasn’t diagnosed until grad school when I felt like I literally couldn’t stay on task for more than 10 minutes…not fun.</p>
<p>I was pretty much a slacker in HS - did my homework but often not until the last minute (I remember writing essays for AP US History the day they were due), but I got by just fine. I’m almost positive that my college GPA could have benefited from knowing that I had some attention issues though, because I slacked and would put off studying a lot.</p>
<p>You might want to ask her, as Sean said, what her attitude toward the slacking is. Can she just not sit down to do the work?</p>
<p>I will mention something else that should be obvious but rarely gets taken into consideration. In homeschooling circles we often start with what interests a child, what does this young person <em>like</em> doing. It’s amazing how into it the youngsters get and how well they’ll concentrate when it’s something they want to be doing. Perhaps often the problem in school is that kids see little connection between the tasks they’re working on and what they want to be doing now or in the future. There needs to be sense of purpose, meaning.</p>
<p>How many classes is she taking? Many h.s. that aren’t on ‘block’ will send a kid through 5 - 6 - 7 classes a day. If she is the kind of person who prefers to dig in on a subject, the constant arrival and departure (and let’s face it – after roll call and ‘settle-down, settle-down’ – the kids are lucky if they spent 30 minutes on a subject before they are off to something else) can really blow her concentration to the point where she starts thinking there’s something wrong with her. </p>
<p>Even if she doesn’t have some kind of attention issue, this constant ‘channel-switching’ could be hard on someone who just doesn’t like to operate that way. My daughter was very like yours – bright, easily overwhelmed, a bit of a perfectionist which meant if something wasn’t satisfying her she wouldn’t turn it in. It wasn’t until she went to a school that had 3 75-minute classes a day (instead of 6 40 min) that she started blooming – and even then it took a while to get acclimated. </p>
<p>Part of the problem can be found in the growing brain – it is <em>physically</em> hard for people under the age of about 20 to understand future consequences of present action or inaction. It just the way the adolescent mind works. Some kids’ brains develop this a little earlier but most simply don’t have the machinery in place yet…which is why they do a lot of goofy things! [The</a> Teen Brain: Behavior, Problem Solving, and Decision Making | American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry](<a href=“http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/the_teen_brain_behavior_problem_solving_and_decision_making]The”>http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/the_teen_brain_behavior_problem_solving_and_decision_making)</p>
<p>This is one reason why parents are always amazed by the change between their child at 16 and their child at 21 (provided all goes well). It isn’t going off to college, getting a job or joining the military that matures them so much as the natural growth of the brain. Those experiences help, of course, but they are not solely responsible. </p>
<p>So strive for patience, be an open ear, help her understand that not turning in a paper today can mean a poor grade later, etc., but expect things to improve slowly. I echo Deborah T. Making sure your D gets plenty of rest – esp. with the crazy way H.S. is scheduled! – eats well, and has quiet time/place to work without interruptions.</p>
<p>Maybe she SHOULD be in college now. Mine started college classes at 13, and at 16 (after what would have been 10th grade), she went off to college on the other coast, and did great! Maybe she has figured out that, for her, high school really IS a waste of time. Instead of assuming she has some kind of brain-based disease, you might listen to her therapist who tells you point-blank that her “level of thinking” is far beyond what he usually sees, and act accordingly.</p>
<p>To follow up on mini’s comments, is there by any chance a program like Running Start in your state, where students can start taking college classes junior year? Many teens here who are strong academically love it! Even if there’s no similar program, your daughter might be able to start getting her feet wet with a class or two at a local community college. It’s a different feel than being at the hs and can be an excellent option for some kids.</p>
<p>High school can be really tough for some students – the constant switching of classes, the heavy load of busy-work, peers with bad attitudes because they don’t want to be there either. This can be especially difficult for gifted kids. Some kids just don’t fit in to the typical high school. They aren’t happy or engaged, and that is reflected their work product and grades.</p>
<p>Luckily, there are options. There are programs that are designed to accelerate bright kids into college work a year or two before the typical age of entrance. Some high schools offer dual enrollment with a local college. Some colleges offer special programs for high school-aged kids within their regular programs. There is even a 4-year program that exclusively takes kids after sophomore or junior year of HS: [Bard</a> College at Simon’s Rock - The Early College](<a href=“http://www.simons-rock.edu/]Bard”>http://www.simons-rock.edu/). </p>
<p>A list of early-college entrance programs all around the country can be found [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_college_entrance_program]here[/url”>Early entrance to college - Wikipedia]here[/url</a>].
Many of these programs provide their early-entrance students with a social support network to help them adjust to college.</p>
<p>RRTMom, perhaps an early-college option might be appropriate for your daughter?</p>
<p>I fully agree wit Consolation, Mini, Deborah T, and mihcal1. My son started community college classes at 12 and stayed there until 18 (we have a really good CC). Some kids just need that!</p>
<p>Check out [Hoagies</a>’ Gifted: Analogy Anthology](<a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/analogies.htm]Hoagies”>analogies.htm) to see how an inadequate learning situation feels to a child. And [Hoagies</a>’ Gifted: Gifted Underachievement](<a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underachievement.htm]Hoagies”>Underachievement) to see books on the subject.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I also think it is worth having her evaluated for ADHD. My S who is graduating from HS next week was just diagnosed with executive function disorder. It explains the very high test scores and poor HW and paper grades. We used to think he was lazy and unorganized. He almost always did the work, but would: leave it at home, leave it in his locker and fail to go back and turn it in, go back to his locker after class to get it and then forget, etc. It drove us crazy. I could not let him go to college like that so when a few people mentioned EFD we had him tested. He tested as having a very high IQ and at the top of the charts in everything except “processing speed” or something like that. We were told that very smart kids often get overlooked as having ADHD because they are so smart. S has had 8 sessions with a therapist who just told me he does not feel S needs drugs but he does need practice with the techniques they are working on. Unfortunately school is over so we will have to wait til the fall til we see whether the therapy is working or not. Good luck</p>