Bright Minds, Poor Grades: Understanding and Motivating your Underachieving Child [Paperback]

Michael D. Whitley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2001

For any parent who has ever been told, "your child isn't performing up to his or her potential," this book has the answer. Renowned clinical psychologist Michael Whitley, Ph.D. offers a proven ten-step program to motivate underachieving children. This easy-to follow book identifies the six types of underachievers from the procrastinator to the hidden perfectionist to the con artist, and it presents the ten steps to help children succeed in school-and ultimately, in life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael D. Whitley, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Houston, Texas. His clinic specializes in motivational difficulties and behavior problems of children, adolescents, and adults.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade; First edition (July 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399527052
• ISBN-13: 978-0399527050
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide for parents, teachers, and counselors, August 19, 2003

By 

"hoopsandjazz" (Northeastern United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bright Minds, Poor Grades: Understanding and Motivating your Underachieving Child (Paperback)

I agree with many of the favorable and critical comments made in the previous reviews but I would like to fill in some gaps.

Whitley offers an excellent program for developing a consistently compassionate relationship with your underachiever. Addressing underachievement is difficult because it requires parents, teachers, and counselors to confront their behavior as well. But, Whitley does not blame parents. Ultimately, underachievers are responsible for themselves, and this is the key developmental lesson they have failed to learn. Whitley emphasizes underachievers' dependence on the very people who have tried to help them--their teachers, counselors, and, of course, parents--even as they yearn for independence. Underachievers fail because they haven't really learned how to be independent. As a result, tutors, grounding, bribing, rewarding, only reinforce, rather than resolve, underachievement. Underachievers have learned to depend on other people to help them complete their work, to turn in their assignments, to remember their assignments, and so on, to such a degree that they cannot even define their independence. This is why Whitley's program is effective. It requires parents to step back without becoming distant, to show their child they are willing to trust her, to allow her to state her own goals, and give her a chance to fulfill her goals on her own terms. If she cannot do so, then the parents will intervene and help her. Whitley's ten-step program is wise, practical, and compassionate.

Now, this is where the book's limitations become apparent. Whitley addresses parents whose kids "get it," who want to do well but can't function in a way that achieves the desired results. It's not for parents whose kids have gone beyond underachievement and into more troublesome behavior. The most difficult behavior problem addressed by Whitley is lying about schoolwork. (Contrary to the reviewer from Cheyenne below, Whitley does provide an effective way for dealing with this kind of behavior. It is time-consuming and may be nerve-wracking, but it can work.) Whitley's underachievers are basically good kids who are puzzling and may not receive that much attention from teachers and counselors because they don't place as much pressure on the school system and social institutions as more troubled young people.

In addition, Whitley addresses two character types, the socialite and the con artist, who are especially uninterested in school but he does not adequately address what to do with these kinds of kids. At least the other kids are interested in things that are related to learning; unless they are severely depressed, they have interests and hobbies that occupy their time and involve skills that may be usefully applied to academic work. Socialites and con artists just want to have a good time and get over; little else matters. For these kids, I recommend Gerald Graff's recently published Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind. It's geared for teachers but its message of using kids'(particularly adolescents) expertise in popular culture, socializing, getting over, as well as their innately critical sensibilities, to learn how to think and speak like their teachers, is instructive. If your child fits this description, read Graff's book and recommend it to his teachers for suggestions on integrating your child's interests in class and having that positive energy transfer to his school work.

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What every parent should know, July 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Bright Minds, Poor Grades: Understanding and Motivating your Underachieving Child (Paperback)

I picked up Dr. Whitley's book last summer (2001) and once I started reading, I could not put it down. I bought it and read it twice over the weekend. It was be best book I had ever read on kids, and believe me, I've read plenty. At that time, my daughter was in the 10th grade and was in trouble and making noises about droping out of school. It was uncanny reading Dr. Whitley's book, for what I had been going through with my daughter since the sixth grade was on every page, including all my mistakes and the misguided advice we had gotten to help her that usually only made things worse. I tried highlighting the useful information, but I wound up highlighting entire pages of this book. Before reading Dr. Whitley's book, I had tried everything else to help my daugher, from family and individual counseling to tutoring, rewards and punishments, supervision and just leaving her alone, to groundings, special education, various medications, and endless teacher conferences. I had read other books about kids and underachievement and adolescent troubles. Nothing worked, and in the meantime, while my daughters grades went from As in grade school to flunking four classes in her tenth grade year, her depression increased and I felt I was losing her; and just as importantly, the tensions between my wife and I were increasing. Dr. Whitley's approach made sense; it was clear, precise and sensible and offered hope.

I used his approach religiously. It was not magic, but I applied the ten steps he talks about. I gave up on groundings and punishments and took a positive approach he advises. My wife and I actually came together as we used his approach. I used the ten steps he advises over and over again until I actually dreamed about it. There are no instant miracles here, but the approach started working from the start of school last year onward. Using Dr. Whitley's approach, there were ups and downs, but my daugher began to redefine how she made decisions and learned to take control of her own behavior and motivate herself. By Christmas, her grades had improved markedly, but more importantly, her mood and self-esteem changed...she was proud of herself, of her independence, and that her success had become her idea, not mine or her mother's. By March last year, she had made the honor roll for the first time since the 5th grade and we had grown closer as a family. The lies, arguements and tensions were greatly reduced. And perhaps my greatest surprise, she changed her peer group on her own, which believe me, was a real blessing. We've continued working with this approach over the summer, and we are perhaps not through...but the changes in our family and in my daughter are more than I thought possible in the summer of last year.

This is a significant, important book for families, parents and children, and it delivers. Every parent and teacher should read this book and I wish it had been available to me years ago so that my daughter and I could have avoided all the pain and mistakes we went through all those years. Thank you Dr. Whitley for this book.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bright Minds, Poor Grades, April 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Bright minds, poor grades: Understanding and motivating underachieving children, a parent guide for developing the inner will to achieve (Paperback)

This is an excellent book for the parents of G/T students who are not bringing home the great grades they are capable of making. I have a 12 year old who tests in the 99 percentile on acheivement tests, is a Duke Tip student that received state recognition for his SAT scores as a 7th grader. His grades were C's, D's and F's. His teachers wanted him out of G/T classes but the Counselor and Principal realized that he would do worse in regular classes since G/T classes allow students to be more creative but-- this requires independence on the students part. His problems are with being independent and reponsible for his grades. This book has been amazing in helping us teach our child to be independent. Type A children are independent and competitive naturally. We must teach our Type B (but bright) children these skills. A must for parents everywhere who have bright kids with poor grades. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!