Don't Worry If Your Teen Is NOT A Good Student!

I'm not sure how I found Christine Duvivier, as one click of the mouse leads to another. But I'm glad I did. Christine is an expert in helping parents and teens recognize a teenager's gifts, and in teaching them to achieve their highest potential. As Christine says, a teenager doesn't have to be a top student to be a future leader and achieve success in life. Christine has come into my life at a time when I need her most. I've been struggling to keep my teenager in the good-grade zone, and it's frustrating work, let me tell you! Christine's work has helped me to relax and understand that my job as a parent is not to be the Homework Police, but rather, to help my teenager develop her unique talents and gifts. And later, success will naturally follow.

Please welcome my Guest Blogger, Christine Duvivier . . .

Listen in the grocery store, the gym, or the PTA meeting and you’ll hear what I call “the vocal minority” – the parents whose kids are getting good grades. If your teen isn’t a top student, chances are good you’re not bragging in the bleachers. You’re in what I call “the silent majority,” since the majority of teens are not at the top of the class.

If you read the newspapers, magazines or parenting guides, you’ll get bleary-eyed reading about the importance of good grades, good test scores, good colleges. You’ll read about “the best and the brightest” – meaning kids at the top of the class or those who go on to ivy-league colleges. You’ll learn all the ways you should “motivate” your child to do better in school or how to tutor, adapt, mold and fix him to get better grades.

Does it ever just exhaust you? Do you ever get frustrated trying to figure it all out? Do you ever wonder, “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my child? Why can’t we get it together?” If you answered yes to any of those questions, I have two pieces of good news: You’re not alone and it doesn’t have to be this way.

When I studied the gifts and strengths of teens who are not top students, I discovered that the reason they don’t do well in school is not because there is something wrong with them. It’s just the opposite. The reason they don’t do well in school is because they have gifts and strengths that conflict with the way they are expected to learn. It’s what is right with them that causes the problems in school.

When I looked at what is needed in our future economy, I saw that teens in the bottom 80% of their classes have strengths and gifts that are perfectly-suited to the future economy —and to world, scientific, and business leadership. The only question is how we help them to avoid feeling defeated by the time they finish school and allow them to develop the gifts and strengths that will serve them well in life. As it stands now, we leave them largely to their own devices.

In the past, some have argued that this is fine because we need to be sure we do a good job with the top students -- and if that means letting the rest of the group muddle along, that’s the price we pay. Here is the astounding fact about this argument: I found that we are doing a disservice to top students, too.

When you look at how we, as a society, have structured our approach to education, we are breeding anxiety and depression in teens at all levels of the class. I am not talking about a problem with teachers or with schools. I am talking about the system we form together as parents, voters, government, media, leaders and educators. It’s more complex than I can explain here, but if you’d like to learn more you can get a copy of my study by registering at http://www.positiveleaders.com/.

Here’s the bottom line for you as a parent: Do not worry if your child is not doing well in school. Do worry (and get help) if your child is listless, disengaged, anxious or unhappy. Understand that poor performance in school means that your child’s gifts and strengths conflict with what is being asked of her. Talk with her about this. Help her to get involved in activities that bring out the best in her. Be sure she understands that she is gifted for life -- no matter how she does in school.

© Copyright Christine Duvivier 2007-2009 All Rights Reserved


Read more on The Myths of Education™, Motivation, Daydreaming and Creativity, Preventing Depression and other topics. If you’d like to hear about engaging your teen’s gifts, call-in to Positively Gifted, Christine Duvivier’s radio program, on Tuesday October 20 at noon EDT.

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Our First Big Storm!

Ever since we moved up to Northern California, my daughters and I have been looking forward to the first rainstorm. When you live in the land of perpetual sun, as we did in The OC, a little bad weather is like a holiday.

The first few months that we were here, it was VERY hot. Like 100-degrees-plus hot, with no rain in sight. But the locals kept telling us how awesome it would be when the seasons change.

Today, the weather definitely changed . . . for the worst. The good news is, we experienced our first rainstorm. The bad news is, it was a MONSTER of a storm. Heavy rains, the slanty kind, and hurricane-force winds, about 55 mph. I tried to get out of the car to retrieve my mail, but the wind blew me back in. No lie.

To give you an idea of how strong the winds were, look what they did to this tree:





My 12-year-old loved every minute of it. The first thing she did when she got home was put on her PJs (at 3:00 in the afternoon!) and make herself some hot chocolate. (That's my girl!)

That's about the same time that I realized my teenager was supposed to be at cross-country practice. Nah, she wouldn't have practice today, I thought. There's no way any coach in his right mind would let kids run in this weather. Sure, he had sent an e-mail early this morning to let parents know that if it was raining, they would still run. But this wasn't rain. This was practically a typhoon! Nah, she wouldn't be running today.

So I hopped in my car, braving the winds and rain, to go get her at the high school. She didn't have her phone. A punishment for a small infraction last night. I figured she'd just be waiting for me, since she couldn't call me, hopefully taking shelter somewhere. A few other cross-country parents were there to get their kids early, too, certain, like me, that practice had been cancelled.

But guess what? That damn coach made those kids run four miles in the pounding rain and hurricane-force winds! One of my daughters' friends, who was recovering from the flu (possibly of the Swine variety), was running in shorts and a tank top. Her mom was having a cow right there on the curb.

My teen ran by me in a soaked sweatshirt, her hoodie pulled way over her head. I gave her the most sympathetic look of concern I could muster. What agony, what torture she must be enduring! And then she smiled at me. Really smiled.

It was her first big rainstorm, and as she would tell me later, running in the rain is her new favorite thing.

Sun-Kissed

My teenager is now 16. She has grown up so fast. Like all parents, I look back and wonder how it happened so quickly, right under my nose. Although I can't pinpoint the exact moment when my little girl grew up, one summer, in particular, stands out. I wrote this a few years ago, but wanted to share it with you now, especially since my youngest daughter just turned 12, and is on the brink of undergoing the same, magical transformation into young womanhood:


I’m sure I speak for parents in every imaginable Census category when I shriek with
uncontainable joy: “Thank GOD, summer is over and the kids are back in school!” Remember that commercial for Staples where a father skips through the store throwing back-to-school supplies into a shopping cart, singing, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”? That’s precisely how we all feel, isn’t it?

Just think, for the next 10 months, the state of California will be watching our kids for us. That means we won’t have to scramble for childcare so that we can go to work every day. Or come up with creative diversions, like an eight-hour swim date at a friend’s house . . . so that we can go to work every day. Or fork out ridiculous amounts of money for Camp This and Camp That to keep our kids entertained . . . so that we can go to work every day.

By the way, did you know that you can attach the word “camp” to anything and it will sound really fun to kids? Time-Out Camp, No-TV Camp, Eat-Your-Vegetables Camp. I’ve enrolled my daughters in Clean-Up-Your-Room Camp. I like that it’s year-round.

Looking back on this summer, it was one of discovery. I took my daughters to Club Med in Florida where we discovered archery, trapeze, torrential rainstorms and White Chocolate Bread. My oldest daughter met other 12-year-olds from France, England and Canada and discovered a world much bigger than her own.

She now wants to pursue a career in international business.

As she looks toward her future, I reminisce fondly on her past – those pigtailed, bubbleblowing,
Play-Doh days when I was the center of her world. And she was mine. I was married then, a stay-at-home mom, and we had more time and disposable income to be silly and inseparable. But along came a sister, a divorce and my rebirth as a single mom. Life has pulled me in other necessary directions, away from her. Year after fleeting year.

This summer, while I was busy worrying about who would watch my daughters – so that I could go to work – somewhere under the California sun, my little girl grew up. She sprouted the most beautiful, long legs and now wears the same size shoe as me. (I guess I’ll have to start buying really ugly shoes.) Mother Nature also conspired in the transformation, slimming her down and padding her in all the right places. Now boys, and even grown men, are starting to look at her.

How did this happen? Where did my little girl go? Why wasn’t I watching? She picked an odd time to become a woman. Or,maybe the perfect one. Just as this tender rose is blossoming, my own bloom is fading. A yin and yang thing. Life in perpetual balance.

This summer, my daughter was kissed by the sun, by nature herself. Kisses of a different kind await my newly minted teenager in the summers ahead. Probably while I’m at work
. . . and not watching.

If anyone has seen a darling little girl, with curly, golden-blond hair, who likes to blow bubbles, please contact Lynn Armitage. I miss her.

Having A Bad Week!

This week isn't turning out to be a very good one for me. So far, I was bitten by a dog. (It was a small dog, but it still hurt.) I got a speeding ticket going 10 miles over the speed limit in a construction zone, which I guess is DOUBLE the fine! (If only I had remembered that question from Driver's Ed!) I lost one of my severely bruised toenails which were injured in a tennis match weeks ago.

And worst of all . .. my teenager turned 16.

Reluctantly, I signed her up for Driver's Training, as that was the first item on her Birthday Wish List. But I am secretly plotting against her start date. The way I figure it, I can hold her off until about December, and since the training is six months long, she will get her license in June sometime. July, if I can push it.

By then, hopefully, she will be A LOT more mature and I won't cringe when I hand over the car keys to her.

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