Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Highly gifted vs prodigy...how to tell the differe

Ha! That's ironic.

Must not be focused.

Or just not that into our incorrigible tendency to indulge in fascinating (well, to us) tangents?

Agreed. I'd argue that many composers probably fell into the same kind of qualitative category.

Nurturing a prodigy seems to be a lot like forcing a bonsai.

It's a pretty ugly process that (sometimes) results in something astonishing, but the saying about breaking eggs to make omelettes also seems pretty insightful here.

I've been trying to puzzle this out myself about ds8 and others.

1. There seems to have been a lot of studies on musical prodigies. As others have mentioned, it seems many musical prodigies have working memories in the 99% but not necessarily have a high IQ. These studies seem to always focus on classically trained musical prodigies - perhaps highly sequential, auditory, and highly structured-minded individuals. Lyrics are not usually involved with classical musicians so they might not need visual skills in the same way Picasso would have (also a prodigy).

Marvin Hamlisch (Chorus Line) was a musical child prodigy. He went to the Juillard School at 6.5/7 yrs old - youngest ever. Elton John is considered a musical child prodigy too. He spends about 20 minutes on composing a song, perhaps a little longer if it's a special or exceptional song like with Princess Diana's funeral - which is a rare gift.

Compare classically trained musical prodigies to some rather famous rock musicians and the discussion gets interesting. The Beatles, Clapton, and many others are considered geniuses (and it's hard to argue otherwise), yet they weren't prodigies. Even John Lennon wasn't a prodigy; he was 14/15 yrs old when he started to play the guitar - later for songwriting. Yet by all accounts, he was a creative, musical, songwriting genius.

2. STEM and other prodigies. Taylor Wilson, Terence Tao, and Jacob Barnett (who isn't on the wiki list - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies) are perhaps good examples of prodigies. They performed at an exceptional level before age 10/11. Tao and Barnett were attending college courses at 8/9 yrs old.

Wilson has been at Davidson Academy; Barnett has been at Indiana University.

Interestingly, neither Newton, Einstein, or Hawking were considered prodigies or identified as such. I knew someone who was the director of a high energy lab of a university and worked at the CERN (long before I briefly knew him) and he wasn't considered/identified as hg or a prodigy; I asked his widow about a month or so ago. Still trying to get my head around that one.

3. Ronan Farrow - Mia and Woody's (though it might be Sinatra's). He went to Simon's Bard College at 11 yrs old - youngest ever - before going to Yale Law. I'm curious to know/hear about his early years and before going to college sans Woody.

I guess I still think of a prodigy as someone with a truly exceptional skill in one area--sort of different from PG, although you certainly could be PG AND a prodigy, and surely many (though not all) prodigies are.


Do you think prodigies must be forced or tortured, or otherwise emotionally stunted? I don't know if I agree. Surely some are. All? I don't know. (I want to read that Far From the Tree book, which I think discusses how some prodigies were definitely bonsais and some might not have been being nurtured enough.)

My thinking about prodigy has become both broader and more muddled now that I have had a bit of experience with having a very young child with unusual talent. (Giftedness is not the same. Both of my kids are gifted, and received and continue to receive some attention for that, but I find myself increasingly confused about how to handle obvious high-end talent in a competitive arena in a young child. It looks easy until it's your kid.)

As to the case of someone like Einstein, Newton, etc--we have to keep in mind that we don't have the ability to necessarily recognize and nurture extreme talent in young people at all times and places in history. We know about these cases like Terence Tao because his parents were successful in getting him where he needed to be at a young age, but that doesn't mean there aren't other Tao-like kids out there who are just not having that educational experience. They may yet grow up to do amazing things.

UM, I say that because of the very nature of having a CHILD working/competing/interacting alongside highly accomplished adults is... well...

I think that there probably are some inescapably unhealthy things associated with that-- namely, what interactions/activities must be sacrificed in order to accommodate the TIME to a singular pursuit at such a young age. Those sacrifices are almost certainly not all benign, and we all have just 24 hours in each day.

At some point, you wind up sacrificing essential development-- and beyond that, yeah, it's Bonsai treatment, whether it's child-led or not.

It may be the reason why there is such a fuzzy (IME) line between prodigy and savant. If you nurture that singular talent, at what cost elsewhere? KWIM?

It's the central theme in Searching for Bobby Fisher... which, yeah, it's old, but it's also a really great parable for any parent of a high-end talented child, or even just an HG+ one. What it doesn't address is what to do when your CHILD is the one leading, and when you as a parent are uncomfortable allowing your child to deliberately squelch development in order to maximize the development of the exceptionality.

I guess I see even prodigies as children first, and their talents second. They don't always know what is best for them long-term, but then again, parents don't have a crystal ball, either. You can't be both a musical prodigy and have a "normal" childhood. Something has to give, and either way there are probably going to be regrets down the road.

Hi, Nebraskamom ~ For what's it worth … my DD, since around age 3 or so, could also play by ear instantly … my DS at that age, also had that ability. My other son, could hear a piece by Mozart or whoever, and pick out all the instruments. He was younger than one. He also had calendar ability, almost like a savant would. Fast forward …. DS16 lost his calendar ability and doesn't even remember ever doing it in the first place. First chair violin, state pianist, gifted athlete, and great at math. He works very hard in these areas, and it doesn't come naturally. Now that my daughter is 8, she is composing piano songs daily. Writing, singing, and playing comes naturally for her. She is extremely passionate about about her music and her talent wins awards, but is she a prodigy? No. DS13 still has the ability to play by ear and is a very good pianist, but would rather do other things. He's not obsessed with it as he was when he was younger. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that when they were younger, they all had talent in areas that may have looked like something "special" to a non-giftie. To us, it was no big deal. They were just doing what they loved at that certain time

Perhaps prodigies are defined differently in different fields, but in music I think the convention is someone who performs at a level that gifted adults can reach but not world-class. For example, a 10-year-old who can play piano as well as a reasonably good piano teacher, but not as well as a world-class performer. In this sense I think Tao is not a prodigy (when he was 10 he probably wasn't as good as a decent math professor). But nonetheless he was one of the best of his generation at that time so maybe he is. A small number of 8-, 9- or 10-year-old chess players are rated higher than very advanced adult players and these are probably prodigies. But really these are semantics in a sense. A parent needs to nurture the kid as best as possible no matter what label fits.

Andrew Solomon's chapter on music prodigies, though, has very detailed account of how the music prodigies are brought up. Some are forced, but many are not. Many do love playing instruments hours a day. And some didn't even need to practice like crazy to achieve the "prodigy" status (for example, Joshua Bell). Some parents pushed the kids; other simply gave them what they asked for. Of those children who were pushed by their parents, some resent it and have major issues with their parents even after they grow up; others felt grateful that their parents did push them. So it comes in all varieties, as should be expected.