Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Challenge requirement

I think I saw somewhere posted,and my apologies for not having the reference, about a challenge necessary for many gifted people to shine. I was just thinking about Barack Obama, reading a summary of his bio. He had such an unusual life and then his motivation kicked in during his college years and now he is probably going to be president.

And then I thought about Bill Clinton. He definitely had a weird childhood and his brilliance was challenged. Now Bill Gates and Paul Allen were just challenged by their interest in computers. But because they didn't have personal challenges, their motivation enabled them to start consulting to IBM in their high school years.

Reading something about DYS and that most of them were science geared, one was literature geared and she talked about the success path was less laid out for her, I am wondering if successful outcomes depends on 1) your type of intelligence, what motivates you; and then 2) if your path is challenge dependent.

Saw something where Hiliary is suppose to have an IQ fo 125. She had a very supportive path and was able to optimize her IQ. So you take a someone with an IQ of 150 and give them a supportive path and they can be Paul Allen or Bill Gates, though I heard Paul Allen's was estimated to be about 160.

This is a mish mash, but I needed to get out of the sun a bit and bored, so I thought I would start a thread on the challenge aspect.

Ren

If you re-read some of the posts on this board about how the adults grew up, everyone seems to have a "story"--a lot with substantial "challenge" or overcoming difficult childhoods. I always wonder whether the difficulties bring out resourcefulness. We want to pave a sunshine-y path for our kids (isn't that natural?), but did the bumps in our lives actually do us some service? Is that what makes us special? (I'm rambling, too). Though I'm not proud of it now, I remember going big name university thinking I was better than the other kids there because they were all rich and went to fancy prep schools and had stable families, while I had weathered something not so perfect (now I know that every has their issues).

Anyway, I really do think challenge is good, though it doesn't have to be unpleasant. We can raise the bar for our kids (and ourselves, though I haven't done that yet really) by goal-setting including trying new and different things. It can be athletic, a language, musical instrument, entering contests, etc. I try to develop goals with the boys' input, like taking an AP exam (at 13, a year after a summer institute), or the SAT/ACT testing, or taking fencing. I'm sure there are every day challenges of being younger than classmates in high poverty school. I'd like to protect them from traumas that could be considered challenges.

I think the one thing we can do for our kids is to allow them to follow their passions, even if they are not something we would choose for ourselves, to allow them to fall/fail sometimes and to teach them resilience.

When we look at great people (Everyones great is different) in history many had to overcome harsh conditions and challanges. Many took risks we would never dream of, risking entire fortunes, there familys, even their lives. Many have paid a huge price to achive there dreams. (Many also fail many times and get back up, some never get back up) I FWIW belive that overcomming challanges, and learning to take risks, can be helpful in any endevor our children move into. How much challange and risk, everyone one is different. It's hard to know where the lines need to be.