The Peterson Proactive Developmental Attention model (PPDA) offers a framework for understanding and addressing social and emotional concerns of high-ability students. This manuscript focuses on the developmental component, with emphasis on academic underachievement, with explanations and guidance for applying the developmental aspect of the PPDA model in school programs for bright students, in counseling, and at home. This article explores how an emphasis on the development of underachievers, in contrast with underachievement, can engage them and the adults who are invested in them in mutual learning about life in the present -- for the sake of both present and future wellbeing.