Smart children who don't try hard enough!

Most parents in Greece place special importance on their children's academic results. The majority of Greek parents have high expectations and low grades are often a reason for friction in families. A common complaint of parents is this: "Even though my child is exceptionally smart - the teacher agrees - he doesn't try hard enough, doesn't concentrate and lacks discipline", "If only my child would try a little bit more and weren't so lazy, her mind is always on playing, going out, flirting etc."

Parents clearly see that there is no problem with their child's intelligence and automatically blame the negative personal characteristics on other factors, such as irresponsibility, indifference, laziness, etc. They are angry with their child for not taking advantage of abilities and they maintain that "if he wanted to be a good student, he could be."

My position is clear: If the child could, then that child would be good at studies. Personally, I've never met a child who wasn't hurt and upset by failure to perform well at schoolwork, even though a majority of children manage to hide their negative feelings under a veil of indifference. Children learn to hide their weaknesses from a young age. I think that it is important for parents with children who are facing difficulties to understand that the indifference shown is nothing more than defence against accusations, advice and criticism received.

The reason why children may not go well has nothing to do with their intellect. It is possible that it may have nothing to do with the negative characteristics with parents rush to describe. The reason why some children don't do well at school may possible have to do with emotional problems that the children and their parents refuse to see. These type of problems...