Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Outliers, Tiger Moms, and Nature

I feel like my nurture is giving him the tools he can use do whatever his nature starves for. � �All parents juggle meeting their kids need now with storing stuff for them later. �(think money for carnivals vs college savings). �So now we got to juggle when we want to ration out this educational information, why? �Right now, if there was no future to think of, I would know that offering a pre-school education is fine. �But there is a future and it's heading this way, and it makes me doubt encouraging,., what am I doing? �I'm teaching arithmetic to a three year old? "What's he going to learn in kindergarten if he knows his abc's?" �A neighbor asks. �Keep teaching him as long as he wants to keep learning, the hubby says. �Meanwhile he memorized nursery rhymes he's found online and traces cursive worksheets because he thinks it looks nice. �He asked me for the one at walmart but I bought a better one online.

I've got a strong confidence in his nature. �*It allows me to allow others to teach him things I don't believe are right.* �Mainly my own oversensitivity makes me cringe when well meaning friends, family, or neighbors teach him things the way they were taught and that I don't believe are sensible. �I really think about it, bite my tongue, and only state my thoughts when it's my turn to be relevant. �I believe in him too much to convince him that I don't like what somebody else thinks or says. �To me this is because I believe in his pg nature to find his own conclusions over time. �I save my parenting for the mundane, (use a normal voice, if its not yours dont touch it, don't break stuff) not for ruling his internal world. �Or at least I fight to.
that's my thoughts on nature vs nurture. �I don't really quiestion weither (sp. Ugh) nature vs nurture defines academic giftedness as much as I question if the gifted should be nurtured differently. �I made a post or two a while back saying how I would raise a gifted kid differently depending on LOG. �One of my items was I would teach them morality less, trusting them more to innately find it. �I just realized why I would feel that way. �If someone told something to a child that I felt was one-sided, misleading, or useless and that child had a lower LOG I would be compelled to speak up immediately with other pov(s) for them to weigh and judge. �A child with a higher LOG will store the idea on a back burner for years and file it away and encounter and weigh the other pov's eventually anyway. �The lower log kid may never put the pov's together in the same light for evaluation.

Well what do you know? �I had that inclination to treat the kids differently for years, and while writing this post I thought of the reason why. �I wasn't even looking for a justification, someone just asked "what do you think?"

ETA: My boy doesn't say please every time he asks for something. �I like the way ds does use please. �He uses it sparingly to indicate that he realizes he's asking a huge favor. �He wasn't taught that it's a magic word. He uses it �to mean the depth of his request, to express his meaning, not as a word with any kind of power. �A family member is now teaching him, "I won't listen to you if you don't say please. �And change your voice like this... (immitating a cuter baby voice)". �I over-react internally to these hughe life-changing issues. �I'm comforted by the fact that everybody can teach him everything they believe and in the end he'll come out with his very own unique beliefs. �I certainly ended up putting my own twist on everything I was ever taught.

This has been a really fun discussion. I am in the US and rarely see much evidence that there is a societal tendency to believe anything can be achieved with effort. I see much more myth of the kind Dweck argues against (as does Chua in her references to Western parents) that you either have it or you don't and there isn't much place for practice or memorization or hard work because your IQ test at 3 labeled you gifted and that *cannot* be taken away. A kid is either talented in baseball and math, or not. Most threads, even on this board, illustrate the belief that one is or is not gifted and that gifted folks think differently and need different education. There is not that much discussion about whether that can meaningfully be measured, whether a measurement at 3 or 5 or 9 or 15 still applies at 30 or 40.

One thing I like about Gladwell is that he brings into the discussion many things that impact opportunities that are usually left out -- like whether one's parents are paying enough attention to know a teenager is slipping out at night to program computers, whether one's talents would be appreciated in a particular time period, how whether one was born in January or July impacts hockey skills later. Each of these fortuitous or non-fortuitous events has repercussions for future development. If you know more math than most entering K and adults praise your math ability and you get moved to GT math for more enrichment and end up doing more math, that becomes a huge advantage eventually. The initial advantage might have been talent, might have been hothousing, might have been being in a school with a teacher who isn't afraid of math. Each advantage can lead to others but in a seamless way so the steps aren't seen. Without reading Gladwell, I doubt many hockey parents would attribute their children's hockey success to month of birth. Similarly, I think many successful musicians believe in their talent when many, many people would have similar levels of success with similar levels of work.

I agree with St Pauli on this one! I can see teachers shaking their heads in amazement at the audacity of suggesting that a whole year of math be skipped! In elementary school, the prerequisite for 6th grade math is 5th grade math. When I argue that my child should skip 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math, they look at me like I'm crazy. I agree that you can't teach advanced chemistry to folks without algebra, but taking an algebra class and passing it guarantees no great achievement in algebra. There are kids who teach themselves high level algebra (and trig and biology and chemistry and Latin and . . . . . ) and they truly *don't* need a prerequisite for a class. So how do you handle them? Can placement tests offset the prerequisite? What about a kid who hasn't had algebra at all but is smart enough to figure it as it comes up?

Back to the skipping issue, I love some of these thoughts (masks the fever but doesn't kill the germ!) and am glad that it has worked for many people. For my kids, skipping grades and subject acceleration cannot address the primary issues which are pace and repetition and depth. Even a higher grade starts with review and more review and then teaches every topic many times and spirals back to make sure they have it and reviews for tests to make sure they have it. Then there's a vacation and more review because the kids presumably forgot everything during the holiday. After a two-year math skip, instruction was great for about two months and then all the same problems came back. I suppose you could argue to skip and skip some more (and one child has done that), but there are many social considerations for radical skips and early college. If it's only one subject, there are major logistical issues in transportation and being in multiple school levels. If a kid is 9 and ready for algebra or calculus, who is available to teach? Not teachers in an elementary school. If a kid is 9 and ready for 10th grade work in all subjects, there is the issue of how to find a school willing to do radical acceleration and how to protect a child in an environment with high school kids. Some people manage to do that well, but it's not easy. And, even with radical skips in place, the work may not be difficult or appropriate, just higher level.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread, and have been pondering the nature v nurture thing since we realized dd was gifted. I come from a 'line' of EG+ people on my father's side, though I have only recently discovered this. I was brought up by my bright (but maybe MG at most), mentally ill mother, who had no input in to my schooling. As I've mentioned elsewhere here some time ago, school for me was 'away from home', rather than somewhere to learn. I never felt smart, only different. I often found things very easy, but spent so much of my time trying to cope with life (I don't mean that in a 'woe is me' sense, I have a wonderful life now), put in so little effort and had so little support academically or otherwise that I was only ever an average student. I got in to a mid level university, dropped out because I was bored and went to work (where I always excelled, much to my own surprise and frankly, disbelief) and people would always comment on how bright I was, which honestly shocked me.

When I had my dd and found out about giftedness, it was like a whole part of who I was was brought out from under wraps. Discovering giftedness and the social and emotional aspects of it was wonderful - it was me! But it was also disappointing. When I speak to other parents of gifted kids - who were high achievers themselves at school, who are formally educated and work in professional fields - I realize how much knowledge passed me by, that I suspect I will never be able to pick up. When I read other posts by people using the appropriate term for particular maths functions, for example, I realize there is a whole vocabulary that goes with education that I don't have. I suspect I don't present as particularly bright to those who are well educated. This is where I suspect nurture comes in to it.

I eventually went back to study with great success and will do more. But I do feel that that lack of general education and the vocabulary that goes with it (and I don't mean the vocabulary of someone well read, I mean the jargon of education), along with the lack of early networks tertiary study provides can have a profound effect on someone's capacity to identify and access their potential if they are unknowingly gifted and/or unsupported. Though I am proof that it needn't be the end of opportunity.

What I do have is an intense understanding of life and people (which I suspect is why my lack of success at school didn't translate to a lack of success at work) - perhaps I got a different kind of 'education' caring for my mum and myself. A different result from a different kind of 'nurture'. I think this goes back to the post above where someone referred to their child's gifted nature. I guess from my point of view nurture gives you access (or not) to meeting a particular potential depending on the focus of that nurture, but it doesn't change that intrinsic giftedness and how that makes an individual tick.

In the case of my eg/pg daughter, I clearly see the benefits to her of being supported in her learning. When I see her challenged by something and what she can achieve when she's supported to work through that - and the other side; bored and in need of stimulation - it makes me very conscious of how much difference that support would have made to me. But I'm very much a middle of the road, moderation is everything kind of person, so no tiger mother for me

I found all the tiger mom uprising fascinating, especially since I was raised by tiger parents, with dad being the more pressure laying of the two. My intent before DS was to try to find a middle ground between my upbringing and the laid back approach of my DH's upbringing. He is as bright and successful as I am and I would describe us both as MG maybe EG but not PG but where my sib is like us, his are not. So I was always railing against the nuture vs nature. My parents were of the philosophy that you just can trust nature. We had such battles in high school because I felt we weren't trusted to be responsible for our own education. And to me that is the core of the Amy Chua phenomenon, there is a line, of offering opportunities and requiring practice, of fulfilling responsibilities - it's over that line - where the problems, especially the rebellion starts. I was infuriated that I was treated with so little respect that I couldn't do sports be ause it might affect my grades and my chances to get into a good college. The result was even after getting into my excellent college, and grad school, I'm not a joiner. But on some level I want to be, so nurture created the desired behaviors but they have unit ended consequences.

Fast forward to having DS5 and I am faced with how to create the upbringing I wanted rather than what I had or what DH had, I fully planned to take what in liked about my childhood and ditch the rest but then I got DS and his nature had no respect for what ever nuture approach I wanted to take!!! I'm not talking about approaches to discipline but rather his learning needs. My first few posts here are filled with guilt over missing his exponential growth all the while expecting him to be quite bright. His insatiable need for information sets him apart. There is nothing I can do to change that and I don't want to, but when those needs were not being met he was frustrated, he didn't know at 3 that he was desperate for information and neither did I, all I knew is that he was crazed for tv which I didn't want him to watch, started bringing hom books by the bucketful and he forgets we have a tv.

My DF a teacher hates the focus on gifted even though her DC is quite bright and now in a special program, she is completely focused on working hard. I get that but I believe as someone said earlier - no amount of hard work is going to get you over the hump of innate understanding at certain levels. I believe we have innate skills and predispositions, that we aren't blank slates. But I also believe that many are short changed by not having their needs or circumstances met because due to context and environment signals are missed. If figured out what my DS needed, what if I had missed the opportunity, gladwell's moment, would he be just regularly gifted, with behavior problems, or maybe just the behavior problems, or would he have found another way to get what he needs. Not sure. But what I do know, is that he is who he is, regardless of hothousing, tiger-ness or anything else. But my job as a parent I believe obligates me to help him fill those needs even if no one else thinks so!!

DeHe

Now can I cite something though? �Cause there's this book I just read about nurturing your kids nature that I really like how they define your Childs strengths as being not the same things as skills. �Strengths can be turned into skills. �Strengths are the things that when you do them you feel energized. �and with the practice,practice mold we're always focusing on kids weaknesses, trying to fix them. �Any passion is going to be from an area that makes you feel strong, alive, energized from doing it, not from an area of weakness. �Not that this helps the argument because the Chaunese clan says you feel strong on your 10,001st hour. (whatever the physical # translates to). �Conversely the unschool of thought says you can only find that passion from finding your own path. �I like this book I just read because it solved one of my parenting paradox I made for myself three years ago. �How can I unschool ds, even if I send him to public school. �Jenifer Fox m.Ed, gym teacher/author has replied, "by teaching your child how to reflect on their own feelings and refine their understanding of what activities they engage in that makes them feel strong and more energized after they do them, and keep pinpointing what exact aspects of that activity energizes you, so you can approach every task through the lens of your strength (...paraphrased poorly:) and probably what the unschoolers are saving their children from, which is a NCLB weakness based school system with a mission statement goal of fixing kids, of spending eight hours a day for thirteen years only being told what's wrong about you. �Never really celebrating what's right about you. �Because we have to fix what's wrong with you first. �Who cares if you can X, you can't Y. �So Y you'll do all day until your X regressed enough to match. �

But with this new positive psychology movement, "the nurtured heart approach", the strengths movement, the "your child's strengths". �I'm beginning to manifest a solid physical line, a definite shape of what it looks like to show my kids how to , crap. �I lost it..

By the way, in googling something else I happened on this volume of a journal of High Ability Studies that appears to have a focus on just this question:
High Ability Studies, vol 18 issue 1, 2007
This is behind a subscription wall, but at least some of the papers are findable individually by googling their titles. In particular, the Ericsson et al. paper at the beginning looks interesting (and it starts by discussing the trainability of memory, as it happens). I haven't read it yet. The presence of another paper in the same issue by the same authors responding to criticism of their paper suggests that there is considerable controversy!

I'd put the balance with my own five-year-old kid close to 50% nature, 50% nurture. That's a complete guess, of course. I believe strongly that nurture plays a much larger role than many here assign to it.

Of course, it's obvious to me that some high levels of certain skills can't be attained by a person with any amount of training; I often label these "savant-type talents". For memory, this would include such things as memorizing the entire London skyline at a glance (Stephen Wiltshire), memorizing whole pages of the phone book at a glance (John von Neumann), etc.

I think, though, that there are many kinds of skills where savant-type skills would not be possible, or would not be highly relevant, only giving one a sort of boost. I don't think that being a numeric savant who can calculate pi to any arbitrary place in one's head, for example, really gives one much of a boost in higher math reasoning ability, nor would memorizing math textbooks at a glance. Memory of course is a special area that can increase one's ability on a myriad of tasks, but I suspect that for a great many tasks one could be well enough off with the type of memory enhancements that come with practice that a savant's memory would again not be the prime determining factor in maximum achievement potential. For other tasks (winning Jeopardy, drawing things precisely from memory, etc.) a savant-type memory might help quite a bit.

I remain convinced that for most types of skills that really matter to the human race (research etc.), a person with fairly average biological attributes could be trained to the level of being a "genius" as that term is generally used by the public-- primarily a person who is observed to make great discoveries, or otherwise change the world in a significant way. I believe you can train someone into having an indomitable spirit, incredible focus, amazing problem-solving abilities, the whole nine yards. Of course, a John von Neumann type, trained "perfectly", would quite likely be ahead of the average-starting-point person in a number of ways due to her or his gifts.

Haven't seen the board this fired up in a while!

For the nature vs. nurture question....My DS was born with his brain, nature. I have fed the monster, nurture. So my first inclination would be 50/50. But I remember a conversation with a Psychologist regarding DS at 18-20 months(somewhere around there)We took DS to see him because even at that age perfectionism was causing issues, big issues. The Psychologist told us that the fact was that my son was born with an "insatiable need" to learn. Not a want, a need. He further stated that if my son were asked to live in a 5 x 5 cardboard box for a week, he would learn something. No way to stop it, or slow it down. That is purely nature. His words, 6 years later still ring true. My son will learn, whether I want him to or not. I can't slow him down, neither can his teachers. The only thing that we can do is nurture his "needs" by making available whatever he identifies.
So, in our case I would say that my DS is a product of probably 70/30 with nature firmly holding the top spot.

As far as the prerequisites issue goes... I firmly agree in learning A before B. That being said I believe that all prerequisites should be open to challenge. My son is in the school he is because of his ability to pass assessment tests for classes he's never taken. His school is committed to putting him where he needs to be. Because of this, he is given tests prior to schedules rather than automatically being moved up one grade level.

Strengths vs passion..... My son has amazing math skills, show him something once and he's got it. He can also carry it forward and make the connections without any help ie: understanding that division is multiplication backwards. Because of this, he is currently working 5 years ahead in math. That being said, it is a strength, not a passion. Science on the other hand is his passion. It doesn't come quite as easily, although a terrific memory helps. At 8, he is committed to having a career in science. Last month, he asked me to print a list of all of the world's sciences for him. He hung it on the wall in his room because he doesn't want to miss anything. He is excited with the chance to study geology, physiology, chemistry and the rest. He won't stop until he's had a taste of each and every one because only then can he make an informed decision regarding his life's path. Eventually I suppose, he'll make 10,000 hours on something!

That's my 2 1/2 cents for now.........