‘He’s so bright but he just won’t work’

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If he was ‘so bright’ then he’d know he needs to work to get results.

The ‘clever but won’t work’ thing is trotted about so many DC, but it’s self defeating. DC worry that if they did work hard but dont’t get Grade As, what then? So they don’t work, and keep the myth of their cleverness alive.

Meanwhile parents convince themselves their children are ‘very bright’ but [x excuse]. It all leads to poor mental health in teens as the myth and the outcome diverge.

AIBU?

YABVU. Being intelligent is not the same thing at all, as having maturity, good organisational skills, and/or the discipline not to procrastinate.
I have seen many people who were not as bright as others, excel, because they had those other skills. I am watching my own bright child struggle despite plenty of advice and support, precisely because they lack those other skills.

This is a real concern of mine.

His work books are often blank where he just hasn't done the work in class. And the teachers just say "we have a class of 30, we can't stand over one student and keep prompting them while trying to teach a lesson."

What support is there? Can you get anything similar to a special dispensation that gives allowances for a child with ADHD?

It's going to be galling knowing he's able to work at a level 8 or 9, but will only have a long list of "ungraded" to show an employer, and won't even get an interview.

Parents forever make excuses for their children.

One of my children has never had to work hard, real people person, confident, nailed studies, life, career etc etc. Everything just comes easy to him, pretty effortlessly.

Another probably is quite the opposite, he works SO hard but still can’t achieve what the eldest can without trying. He deserves it so much, but he just doesn’t seem to have the same ability/aptitude despite the drive and desire!

I kind of think that if you’re THAT clever you’ll always scrape by (perhaps a little later), no matter the surrounding issues, yes you won’t reach full potential but you’ll still ‘do well’.

Thank you. Exactly. OP is deluded. A small minority of children are really 'bright'. I don't know what the % is, but it's tiny. 5%?

This is a futile argument unless you establish what the definition of 'bright' is. I'd say it means 'fairly intelligent'. So yes, plenty of kids are, but nowhere near the 75% the OP suggested.

@Curiosity101, thank you, that's a really thoughtful and helpful post.

I think yes I'm worried he doesn't know how. DH was like this when I first knew him, had coasted to his straight-As at A-level without ever learning how to study then rather fell apart at uni.

Music is the hobby that has stuck the most for DS so far. But again there he is frustrating to watch. He's doing well but on a very small amount of practice or apparent effort. Watching I can see what a big difference a small amount of just wanting and trying to make things better would make. You can't make them want to.

If he had one thing that he cared about enough to really work at I think I would worry a lot less. Perhaps he just hasn't found 'his thing' yet. (I don't think obsessively watching youtube videos of people playing games counts does it?) But I hope he doesn't wait as long as DH did, because DH was really quite unhappy for a long time till he did.

@thirdfiddle this was me all my working life, always worked smart. If I could find a short cut I did. It was my little secret apart from telling one colleague who I totally adored and I would help her with short cuts.. I discovered a really great way to get two data bases to merge and let her know. I left that workplace sometime ago, she never did tell anyone and worked there for a few more years.

@InceyWinceySpidy This is why we sent DD to a private school. She's bright but unfocused (did turn out to be ADHD).

In a state school, where she would have muddled along in the middle of the class, they would have said she was fine. This is not their fault, they don't have the time and resources to deal with those who are not actively failing.

But in a private school, they knew she was not focussing and so not reaching her potential*, they were happy to work with a referral to a paediatrician and to get her lots of accommodations for her exams. Combined with medication, she shot up two grades in a term.

We tried private.

His "disruptive" behaviours at break and lunch, were not in keeping with the school. Essentially, parents paying a lot for their DC education, didn't want this sort of behaviour. There was one of us. And ten of them (with one ring leader) so the head says to phrase remove him, before we were asked to leave and he'd have an expulsion on his record.

I get it. He's a difficult child. And the school are a business at the end of the day, with all the hassle that comes with dealing with him, day in day out, I didn't have the effort to fight the school as well. Plus, if the rest of them were going to make it clear he wasn't wanted there, then the poor boy would have a rotten time anyway.

State it is. And he's failing massively.

Please remove. Not phrase remove.

I got told I was bright but didn't work hard enough when I was younger. I literally just couldn't organise myself to study - so I wasn't that bright really!

As an adult I often wonder if I have adhd and one of the things that made me wonder is I read an account of a lady who said she never feels in competition with other people; she's in competition with this idealised version of herself who would basically be awesome if she could just knuckle down and do stuff. That sums me up to a tee!

The thing is, nobody should ever tell a child that they’re ‘bright’ or ‘good at’ anything, because those definitions are pointless, sound like they are universal everlasting truths when they’re not, and lead to exactly this. In a different sort of child they lead to perfectionism and crippling anxiety because they don’t want to fall off the pedestal adults have put them on, and in another type again they lead to arrogance. All very ugly. I do wish we would all stop doing it.

They figure that out for themselves Chekov, you don't need to tell them.

I would say it needs to be acknowledged though, because the way to avoid the twin risks of perfectionism or arrogance is for them to set themselves/be set higher standards and challenges. I find the Spanish at school easy, so can I listen to Spanish radio, or read a novel? You're good a maths, have a go at this extension paper. Then they don't become perfectionist because they now have challenges they can't be perfect at; and they don't become arrogant because they can see things other people can do and they can't (yet).

I guess the problem with bright but not working kids is fundamentally that they're somehow setting themselves/being set low standards. Which could be drifting to a 7 when they could get a 9 with a little more effort, or drifting to a 9 rather than looking for challenge outside school syllabuses. Both fine in individual subjects, but if they do it across the board they're failing to learn study skills and that may trip them up further down the line.

Also the work hard/achieve/reward/find more challenge cycle is /fun/, they're missing out. I don't care if it's football or maths or playing the penny whistle, I'd really like DC to have that experience of working your hardest towards something and achieving it. Or indeed not achieving it but gaining other good experiences along the way.

I wish someone had told me I was bright as a kid and that I was capable of much more. I thought I was average. So I left school at 16.

You mean 'make sure they know they'll never be quite good enough'?

Because that's what you're doing there.

ADHD by all the statistics suggests it applies to 2-5% of the population. Child or adult.

So over 90% of the time it likely isn't the answer.

Summary: We believe the best data is for the UK is from the Lancet and NICE giving a childhood incidence rate of 5% and an adult incidence rate of 3-4%. That provides for a total estimate of 2.6million people in the UK with ADHD (708,000 children, 1,9m adults)

source: https://adhduk.co.uk/adhd-incidence/

I do not believe that 2.6million in the UK have a diagnosis of ADHD. 2.6million people is a lot of people. That suggests there are a lot of people with undiagnosed ADHD.

That's still 95% of the childhood population and 96-97% of the adult population who don't have ADHD isn't it?

So it's still hugely the case that ADHD effects very few people in the UK in comparison to those who don't?

In fact, that's the case worldwide, apart from the US who have elevated diagnostic rates of virtually any diagnosis.

That's why ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder and not just..commonly observed in the population.

So it's far more likely that any child or adult in the UK doesn't have ADHD than does?

Are you suggesting you have evidence to suggest the true diagnostic rate or rate of people who have ADHD is higher?

You should inform the authorities if that is the case based on your clinical studies.

The thing is, nobody should ever tell a child that they’re ‘bright’ or ‘good at’ anything, because those definitions are pointless.

It becomes pretty obvious to most children fairly early on that they are good at some things and not so good at others, and how bright they are compared with their peers. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses isn't pointless.

Yabu and quite ignorant as are some other replies.

Dc is really bright. They also have severe ADHD. Some kids simply can't work.

The key, I think, is to spark some kind of passion. Once a child has an interest and focus, they will knuckle down. For example, I was reading an obituary of the novelist Martin Amis. Until he was 16, he did virtually no work, and even got expelled from school for not turning up. Then, one day, his stepmother lent him a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and that was it. He was hooked. He crammed, got into Oxford, was awarded a first and never looked back. Stephen Fry said his life changed the day he watched an Oscar Wilde play on TV. I’m sure people who go on to be scientists have the same experience. They often trace their interest to a specific TV show (Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, for example, or Attenborough’s Blue Planet), or an interview they saw, or a family trip…etc.

If you have a bright but lazy child, they need a goal. Take them to the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery. Watch David Attenborough with them. Surround them with books. Hopefully, something will hook them. If they get into something (zoology, painting, poetry, engineering, whatever), the next step is to tell them they could pursue a career in it…but only if they get onto X or Y course. And to do that, they’ll need to pass their exams. We all work harder when there is a prize at the end of it.

You mean 'make sure they know they'll never be quite good enough'?

Quite the contrary, it's letting them know they ARE good enough. No bigger compliment than being given more advanced work. No bigger indication of confidence in your own abilities than taking on a more difficult challenge yourself.

Taking disability aside everyone can be called bright if we get information the right way and can process it and give output to people can so the 'test' us to quantify it

I find that word overused though, having the ability to get 100% on a class based test is pointless unless the test is completed, a simplified example

This

i try to focus on inputs rather than outputs.

in that trying your best and working hard at something is more important than the outcome.

so I praise practise rather than grades and scores

say my child works hard rather than is bright

I’ve come across lots of bright kids at school and they would say if I tried I would be bette than you. Never understood that - just a way to put someone down so they feel better.

Some people dont have to work to do well but they are missing a trick...if they really pushed themselves imagine what they can achieve.