Dr. Ruf Responds to a Gifted Underachievement Question

How a child who scored in the profoundly gifted range can underachieve in school.

Since I published my second book, a follow-up longitudinal look at the “where are they now?” range of gifted subjects who were in my first book nearly 20 years ago, I’ve started to invite readers of my posts to ask me questions. Unless I get way too busy for some reason, I will answer as many as possible either on the platform where it was asked, or here in Medium or other similar sites.

A Reader’s Question

Well, I got a question from a parent in Southwestern Australia this past week. Her profoundly gifted little girl was underachieving in school, had lots of friends, and yet simply wasn’t “looking” to the mother like the exceptionally and profoundly gifted children in my books (or anything else she as reading). The mother hasn’t read my new book yet but she has read many of my Medium stories and learned from several of them about personality types and gifted children’s school behaviors.

Often, it is the personality type preference of the child who is in the wrong environment for her ability but who easily makes friends and doesn’t want to work on her own. This happens to boys, too. So, I recommended she discover the personality type for her daughter to help me know how to answer…