Parents want their children to succeed—emotionally, mentally, academically. But what happens when your student, who used to love school, made good grades, and performed well at everything, starts to fall apart? What causes this breakdown in a student’s mindset? How did your once high-achieving honor roll student suddenly turn into one who just doesn’t care anymore and is now suffering academically?

The disintegrating student: Struggling but smart, falling apart, and how to turn It around is a book to read when your child starts preschool. A student can begin to experience disintegration—academically, mentally, and emotionally—as early as elementary school. The sooner you address potential causes of disintegration, the better your chance of preventing a future breakdown.

This book is a great resource for parents because it:

• Defines a disintegrating student
• Explains adolescent brain development
• Describes influences that contribute to student disintegration
• Gives practical advice for keeping your student from disintegrating

A note to parents

Author Jeannine Jannot asked high school students what they wished their parents understood better. They told her about being compared to other students, their mental health issues, how hard school is, and how much they really do care. This book will help explain the developing minds of students so parents can understand them better and then use the author’s tips and encouragement to help their children avoid becoming disintegrating students.

Who is the disintegrating student?

The typical high-achieving student is one who excels academically, may be a gifted student, and does not need to prepare a lot for tests. This student may suddenly experience a cycle of disintegration. They start to struggle academically and become anxious, their grades decline, the work piles up, their anxiety increases, and ultimately, they break down. Sometimes this is referred to as “gifted kid burnout.”

What causes a student to break down?

Jannot defines what she calls a rigor tipping point. This happens when a student can no longer manage the heavy load of more difficult schoolwork. They lack the skills and habits that can help them deal with the stress this causes.

Jannot believes that in order for parents to be able to help their students, they must first understand the various influences leading to this point.

1. Developmental Influences

For a baby, it’s all about learning by touching, seeing, and tasting. Then a toddler learns how to do things without your help, and may go through a strong-willed stage. As your child progresses into adolescence, they display concrete thinking and responsible behaviors. They then become egocentric as teenagers. They are more emotional and begin to think hypothetically.

Watch this video with your teen to help them understand the development of their brains.

It will help them see that their emotional reactions, while sometimes shocking, are a natural part of their brains maturing. Jannot says it is important for your teen to realize this is a temporary challenge, not a flaw in their character.

2. Individual influences

Both external and internal pressures contribute to disintegration: lack of sleep, a negative mindset and inner monologue, procrastination, lack of motivation, and social and academic pressures.

Most kids don’t get enough sleep, which causes mood swings, anxiety, and aggressive behavior. Lack of sleep keeps a teen’s brain from absorbing and retaining information. Disintegrating students, who often study late into the night, are putting bits of information into a tired brain. During a test the next morning, they cannot retrieve the information they were trying to absorb just hours before.

A student with a growth mindset embraces opportunities because they see a potential to learn, but a student who struggles with a fixed mindset feels they will eventually reach the height of their abilities. When faced with difficulties, they deal with low self-esteem and anxiety because they feel they can’t measure up to the standards surrounding them.

The students with an inner voice pushing them towards perfection are most susceptible to disintegrating. Their inner monologue says, “Anything less than an A is a failure.”

Many students procrastinate. They think, “This task is impossible, so I’ll put it off until later.” Then they think, “The more I keep putting it off, the more impossible it will be.” It’s not laziness for a disintegrating student but fear. By the time they start the work, they are running on adrenaline, trying to produce quality work under pressure.

From early childhood, most kids are taught to behave according to a reward system, with gold stars and trophies. The internal motivators lessen over time when they get an allowance for doing their chores and win awards for achievements. An important part of the learning process is the experience of learning, not just an external reward.

Teens want to be included in their peer groups, sometimes doing things they normally wouldn’t in order to avoid being excluded. When faced with social pressure, their emotional side reacts instead of their logical side, and they can make a poor decision.

The disintegrating students are those under intense academic pressure because of unrealistic expectations and comparisons. Teens have to out-perform, out-study, and out-impress to get accepted in the “best” college, or else they feel unsuccessful.

3. Cultural influences

In the virtual world, teens may have hundreds of friends and followers, but they struggle to make any real connections. The author says social media “has become a specialized social experience that serves a purpose but cannot fill our profoundly important need for social connection.”

Since the 1980s, there has been a change in the norm of parenting. Instead of letting their kids play freely, parents now arrange supervised playdates. Children no longer have to figure things out among themselves because a parent is right there to take control.

During this same time, the idea surfaced that a child’s self-esteem is a key factor in their ability to succeed in life. Self-esteem is an important part of development; however, the emphasis on “everyone gets a trophy” has actually caused children to feel the opposite of self-esteem. They understand that being rewarded for just showing up but not actually succeeding is a conflict.

“Adulting” is the young adult new go-to word. Teens don’t see being an adult as who they become, but rather something they can choose to do or not do. They feel their maturing responsibilities are removing them from the safety of their childhood. When this is coupled with the changes in parenting norms, teens don’t see a reason for growing up because so many things have been done for them for most of their lives. When teenagers no longer want to “adult,” they revert to adolescent behaviors. This type of mindset is hindering their ability to develop the skill of independent decision-making, which can be a contributing factor in a breakdown.

Jannot explains how the focus in education has shifted from the process of learning to the product of learning. The policies in education impose unreasonable standards on students. This contributes to disintegration by making them “come to believe that the problem lies with them, not the educational system.”

4. Parental influences

How often we thought we were doing the right thing but saw in hindsight that our actions had not worked as well as intended.

Sometimes parents’ responses and reactions have negative outcomes.

Good intentions

There is a correlation between praise for academic performance and self-esteem. If a student is consistently told they are “perfect” but do something wrong, they cannot accept this. Jannot suggests praising for efforts instead of results so the student is recognized for trying and not criticized for failing.

We will do just about anything to protect our kids from harm, but trying to prevent or always fixing problems keeps your child from developing the skills needed to problem-solve. Let your child come up with their own solutions to challenges they face.

Many parents today feel that stress in a child’s life is a bad thing and should be avoided. According to Jannot, if students can see stress as a challenge, they can learn to act smarter when under pressure instead of choking.

Adolescents need help and support, and Jannot says “Our job {as parents} is to help them learn to help themselves.” If you’re always bailing them out, you are not letting them deal with the consequences of their behavior, which Jannot says is “what helps them become independent and responsible.”

Being consistently indulged or given all they want can be harmful to a child. If they begin to suffer academically, they may not understand how to improve because things have been handed to them. Saying no can help them appreciate things more when you say yes.

Power struggles and parenting styles

It’s a good idea to look at your parenting style to better manage these years and help you maintain a healthy relationship with your pre-teen. Parenting styles include authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Which one are you?

• Authoritarian: “My way or the highway”-very strict structure
• Authoritative: “What did you do? How can you make a better choice?”-structure with validation
• Permissive: “Let’s be best friends!”-great warmth but little structure

Don’t think it is ever too late to adjust your parenting style.

The author is very encouraging and provides practical advice to help you in this.

• Consistency, structure, and love: Children of every age need consistent rules that provide them with structure. Unconditional love may seem obvious in a parent-child relationship, but there are cases where parents give love only when their child behaves, which is detrimental to both a child’s self-esteem and confidence.
• Life skills, responsibility, and expectations: A student who is struggling academically may not have basic success skills. Most children who are expected to help with chores (or family responsibilities) mature better. A young child who does small tasks is able to handle larger tasks as they get older, especially in academics.
• Building trust and improving communication: The process of growing into an adolescent is an amazing transformation; the author calls it “miraculous.” As your child matures, trust is important to your relationship. Jannot lists various ways in which you can develop this trust and improve communication with your child, including empathy, active listening, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

Tips to help you help your child

The final chapter of The disintegrating student has 77 tips to help your child succeed. It’s packed with practical and useful ideas for organization, study skills, stress management, and more. Jannot provides great starting points and offers ways for parents to begin making real, positive changes for their children, whatever their age.

Conclusion

Jeannine Jannot’s book The disintegrating student is insightful, resourceful, and full of positivity and hope. It’s written for parents with children of every age, especially gifted kids, and addresses the many stages of development a child goes through. Focusing on reasons for disintegration and providing practical advice on avoiding it, Jannot gives parents a valuable tool for guiding their students through the challenging years of growth.

The disintegrating student: Struggling but smart, falling apart, and how to turn It around

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Top takeaways

• The disintegrating student's challenges can ultimately break them down.
• A child's disintegration is influenced by parenting methods, culture, brain development, and individual pressures.
• Parents can start to make real, positive changes for their kids to thrive.

You need this if...

• Your gifted child has suddenly hit a wall academically.
• You want your teen to remain engaged and productive.
• Some of your students are struggling in school.