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I'm in a rush too - but fwiw, of all the 11 year olds I've ever known - some you can tell what they are hard-wired to do from day one, but most are going to change with the wind in terms of interests over the next few years. If she hasn't really had any high-level truly inspiring science courses yet, I wouldn't hedge any bets that she *won't* become interested in STEM - it's possible she just hasn't been exposed to her true passion yet.

FWIW, math and science were always my strongest academic subjects, although I was doing great in school across the board. My mom and dad were also math and science geeks. I, otoh, loved loved LOVED music (still do!), and I was really good at it. I was convinced that I wanted to study music in college right up until I was 16, and had that first talk with a college rep who mentioned money. Salary-type money. I went home and thought things through. Suddenly STEM was much more interesting too me That revelation re salaries also happened the same year I had my first physics course, and that's who I really am anyway. Just because I spent my youth planning to be a music major, followed by a very shallow decision that $ was suddenly more important than being a musician... I still landed where I was meant to be and where I truly have huge passion - in the sciences. I just wasn't far enough along my life's path at 11 to know where that passion was yet.

I suspect that no matter what direction your dd ultimately chooses, she'll be fine

Best wishes,

polarbear

But is that the life you really want for her?

I mean, on a philosophical level, wouldn't it be better from a whole-life perspective for her to FIND a real passion?

Not just something that she happens to have a freakishly good ability in, but could mostly care less about?

Or-- is it time to dig in and FIND the passion within the area that she's so freakishly good at-- probably by exploring different facets of it?

I seriously don't know the answer for PG girls with multipotentiality on the table.

We're facing this too, as you probably know.

Our DD even recognizes that it's a PROBLEM. Colleges want "passion" for something. She does not have that, in spite of her "well-rounded" appearance and avid interest in a variety of things. She takes tremendous enjoyment in a great many things, but is still in the hunt for a "passion."

I think that in part, this is because these are kids that have great cognitive capacity and emotional maturity at a younger-than-typical age; they recognize authenticity (or a lack thereof) in spite of a lack of life experience. They can separate a "crush" on a new thing from "love" for a subject or discipline. They're CHOOSY.

They aren't really dilettantes, they are just still looking for the one true love.


I agree with kcab-- the name of the game here is to keep doors open.

My DD is very very good at a lot of things that she places no personal value upon at all. We aren't sure WHAT to do with her. She has a passion for pleasing other people, mostly. She loves doing community service and teaching. Other than that... well, she's pretty smitten with collaboration in STEM. We're hopeful on that front.

Probably not terribly helpful, sorry.

I'm with those who say work to keep her exposed to a lot of subjects and keep the options open. Perhaps helping her explore the future majors/opportunities that have social aspects (teamwork, problem-solving, etc.), rely upon good writing and yet reward math talent/knowledge. I'm thinking big consulting firms at the moment, but there are plenty of other options.

Personally, I wish someone had encouraged/supported me more in math so those options had remained open for me. I was not as good in it as I was at writing, but was far above average, right up to the point where it became tedious and my love of chitchatting in class/daydreaming took over. I wound up in my major because I had very strong writing/verbal skills. It was a skill set that served me well for many years, but turned out not to be a passion.

You really have to go for where your passion is. I mean, it's great if you can find a way to dovetail the two, but a career/job without any passion is just depressing. My stepmother really tried hard to push me towards writing because I was very good at it, but I just didn't feel any pull towards it, and instead went into IT. I regret NOTHING. I still read voraciously and write periodically, but I'll likely never write a novel and never publish anything else beyond what I did in school. And I'm fine with that.. I know it still to this day bothers my stepmother, but I'm happy with my career and my life.

I'll weigh in on multipotentiality and the quarter-life crisis. Following passion led me from economic research, to strategy consulting for big pharma, to wanting to start a school for my son. I have an interest in finance, a strong social justice streak, a passion for pharma, and have been bitten by the education bug. I think the only answer, for me, is to do it all through serial (social) entrepreneurship.

Maybe that's the answer with multipotentiality--learning how to arrange your passions intertemporally so that you can dabble your way to mastery in a handful of your favourite fields. Then, come out with a wicked interdisciplinary business model centered on the nexus of your interests and launch it either as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur. Really, I think it comes down to giving yourself permission to "play" for a living without the stress of becoming someone to be esteemed.

For your DD, MON, this might mean becoming a mathematician by day and writing math-heavy plays, writing world-class curricula for others, starting a robotics firm and writing defence scenarios, etc. If she has even an inkling of interest in a field, I would hesitate to close that door.

I think it's sometimes hard to tell what is a passion. Wasn't there a discussion on here awhile back about people not liking math because of the way it's taught - or maybe it's a hoagies article. But when you think about it a lot of things we are taught when we are young seem so tedious and boring because you have to do this - there is no connective value to it. Hmm that's triggering something for me - a pg school in CT which teaches trig by talking about sailing, trig was invented because they needed it. But absent those connections I often think students don't see the beauty of what they are learning. So hard to find out if you have a passion for it.

Also what does it mean to be passionate or even interested in things - it's choosing to do something when you don't have to - but do you really need to feel that way to keep doing math. I don't think so. And math is often the gateway to things she might feel passionate about later.

I think I lean toward doing the best you can do in all your subjects, whether you like them or not before you go to college and specialize. And who knows her innate skill might get her to aspects of math she is passionate about. Maybe she doesn't like it because its so darn easy for her. Might be interesting to go deep in whatever you are doing and see how she feels about doing it. Maybe engage a really mathy person - they have very different ideas about what's interesting. And if dd hasn't been exposed to it before maybe going that route would develop something.

But I am sympthatetic to forcing something on someone, piano is what comes to mind, a competent student with no passion. Tiger mom clearly made her daughters keep playing whether they wanted to or not and pursue it at a high level. Because you are talking about math, it feels very different to me, that it should be pursued to the fullest.

And although its not really what you are talking about she is the age where girls seem to just drop math, good at it or not, which ends up steering them towards fields later. Danica McKellar wrote her series of math books for girls who opt out of math because its too hard or irrelevant. But she was a girl very good at math while being an actress. So I think you can be creative and good at math. And the connections between the two can be powerful in our data driven age.

DeHe

You can use your brain in so many ways; she'll figure this out. I agree with PPs about keeping options open; but you can't predict where she'll find her success.

DeeDee

When I was 11, my passion was flight, and I wanted to become an aerospace engineer. When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a novelist. Three years later, I launched an IT career. So basically, my interests at age 11 weren't predictive.

Who is to say that math is the only time your DD uses her brain?

I say, for the kids who is good at everything, keep pushing at everything. Even if it's not the thing she ends up choosing as a career, there's no such thing as wasted knowledge.

Another vote for keeping as many doors open as possible. As an 11 year old I liked math and science but mostly because they were super easy to be perfect in. Our English teachers would never give out 100% but in math they had to It wasn't until university when math finally got a little more complex and interesting that I started to see the true beauty of it. Even then it wasn't until I was into some engineering/physics classes that I could fully appreciate the power of it all. At the end of it my engineering job has no math in it on a daily basis but is perfect for brain teaser problem solving addicts who like to learn constantly. There are many STEM jobs that require math to get to the end but don't necessarily use it.

this is purely anecdotal.

i did the maximum number of STEM classes in high school simply to leave the doors open. then i did an Honours Journalism undergrad. then i did a post-grad animation diploma. then... i took some advice from a professor: "find a field that lets you do a little of everything you're great at - otherwise you'll keep skipping around."

so my career is graphic design. it's clearly related to the arts, but there's a math element to it and i get to work for a broad range of clients who all have differing priorities, messages and needs. how a project looks is sort of fun to do - but how it WORKS (communicating/organizing info/code) is the real joy for me. i get to problem-solve, write, draw, code, edit and translate all day long (except when i'm teaching my kid) - but if i had to suddenly switch to doing something else, i bet i'd like that, too. i'm really weird like that.

I don't know the answer to this whine, but here's the answer to a related whine. DS is going through an anti-perfectionist phase; he'd be content to not think about anything, turn in things when he felt like it, and get A- / B+ . But he also wants to go into medicine or science and make a ton of money; he just cannot connect the short term with the long term.

My current speech: Would you really want to go to a doctor who'd only mastered 89% of the material? Truly? I wouldn't.

You don't owe me anything, but you ought to make the best use of you, for your own good and the good of the world. Not working in school right now means you're not going to know as much later, and that means not making the best use of you.

DeeDee

Can a solution be found to allow her to do the advanced work she can do and still have time for her friends. Maybe ask her what would be a workable solution to do both?

Good luck - teen angst plus gifted logic does not sound fun!

DeHe

Amen, DeHe. It's a real treat to deal with a snotty teen who can argue circles around a criminal defense attorney... not. She can make my head POUND-- and she knows it. She even knows on some level that she's being utterly irrational. But she does it anyway. (Gee, thanks, OE.)



Selective deafness and tough love, I'm afraid.

oh! one thing i forgot, and HK mentioning passion just jogged it for me. when i was young, my big passion was teaching, which was kiboshed by my (amazing, yet completely jaded) teacher mother, so i never got to go to school for it.

however, i've been passionate about teaching my whole life, and now because of homeschooling, i get to do it every day. sometimes our passions come and get us, even if we think we've let them go (which is another great reason not to slam any academic doors - who knows which skills you'll eventually need?)

Just so you know, though-- this variety doesn't like hearing THAT, either. (Right back to the selective deafness parenting technique.)

Either way, y'all have my condolences and sympathy here. I get to the point of wanting to tear my hair out when I get treated to how DD isn't GOOD at anything (yes, she really says this to me) and how everything we point to as counterexamples is just "Meh," "meh," or "meh" depending on the example. I feel like I'm arguing with an Emo-fixated BILLY GOAT after a while.

It's so grossly unfair to be THAT good at THAT many different domains and view it all with that level of angst and ennui.

There's a corollary here with vegetables and starving children in Africa, I'm sure. (And likely with the same overall success rate as far as arguments go with children, I'd guess.)

I am not like this, but my DH is. He is excellent at math but not interested in it. He does have an advanced degree in science, and it was always a help to him to be good at math, but the passion never developed. It was a simply helpful to his other goals. He also has forgotten much of the advanced math he learned, because he doesn't really care about it.

He is an example of someone who "could" do a lot of things in terms of sheer ability--but it really wouldn't have been a good idea to try to get him to. What I mean is that I think he would appear competent but be sort of incompetent at the same time due to lack of passion.

I did this because I was offered an engineering scholarship.

I had no interest in engineering, so I never did anything with my engineering degree.

However, it was a free education.

I then went to law school because I had no interest in engineering, which was where I learned that I had no interest in practicing law either.

Legal analysis, advocacy, argumentation, and writing are certainly some of my weakest areas, practically speaking, so I'm not sure how what you do for a career has anything whatsoever to do with your actual stronger talents and abilities.

At some point, you need to do something, anything really, to be able to survive day to day.

Sorry, this is a bit rushed. It seems to me there are too many people walking around in the world unhappy in their work. If she has a genuine passion I'd support her in it for as long as she was interested but, as per the PPs, I'd also keep the doors open on as much as possible. My daughter's test scores show she should be off the charts with maths, but she couldn't care less about it currently. Her area of passion is humanities related and so we support her with that and she has a mentor in that field. We found various ways to involve her in it and stuck with whatever she has enjoyed. But ... we've still made sure she's in (and have been lucky enough to find) a school environment where she's accelerated in math by a number of years as a matter of course. She's not working where she could be at maths wise, but she's not languishing.

Most of the parents of PG kids I know come from families with STEM backgrounds and without fail they are concerned about any of their kids who have an interest in humanities, and wonder how they can get them back on track. I on the other hand come from a (where tested) EG/PG family that pursued humanities (with STEM hobbies - we're a bit backwards!) From my experience there is some extraordinary work to be done in the humanities and to my mind, as the world becomes more complex and we need to understand the social and economic mechanations that underpin it - and need people to be able to articulate them (the value of great writers like your daughter!) - the humanities are vital. STEM is too of course, but having seen what can be achieved from a humanities base and being aware of just how complex it can become, it's not an area we should feel is 'lesser' or 'not hard'. Sure it can be done at a superficial level and often is (hence the Arts degree clichés), but once you get beyond that, the contribution that can be made in terms of policy development, social justice, social entrepreneurship, business, applied ethics and so on, is fantastic and exciting.

Might be worth exploring the concept of STEAM (the is for arts):
http://www.steamedu.com/

I see my role as supporting DD10’s passions and pushing her to reach her potential in areas she isn’t as passionate about. My DD loves reading so we frequent the library and bookstores; we have tons of paper, notebooks, and art supplies because she loves writing and art; we trek to dance classes three times a week because she’s passionate about becoming a better dancer. She will dedicate tons of time to what she loves to do with no prompting from me, but I have to prod her to do math.

DeHe is right this is “the age where girls seem to just drop math, good at it or not.” I teach women’s studies, and I use my daughter’s school district to illustrate the math gap and how it begins to dramatically widen from 5th grade on. I don’t want her to be one of those statistics. It’s a careful balancing act. I don’t want her to hate math so we alternate between areas of math she finds more interesting and those she just wants to plow through to get it over with. Although she’s not enthusiastic about math, she knows it’s something she has to do for half an hour. She still has plenty of time to pursue what she is passionate about, so she doesn’t see math as infringing on something she really loves. There are even times over the past couple of years where she has just sat down to work on some math on her, but these periods come in spurts.