I am new to this forum. My son is 9 yrs old and was identified as highly gifted in kindergarten, his full scale score on the WISC-IV was 147 (99.9%). He has breezed through school thus far however, has not shown a propensity toward any particular subject/area, until now. 5 days ago, he began the typical 4th grade recorder curriculum in our public school system. He is excelling at an extremely rapid rate. He can perfectly perform (from memory) selections that will not be formally taught for months and seems to have a natural ability to read music. Last night, he watched a video of someone playing jingle bells on a recorder once, then played the song with little difficulty and could recite (and remember) what notes were played on the video. He shows an intense and passionate desire to hone in on the craft by choosing challenging selections that he can "perfect". Is this ability typical amongst gifted children?

Welcome

Yup, he sounds just like me (IQ 153), and I don't consider myself a prodigy. Music, along with everything else, came easy to me at that age (still does for the most part). I started playing guitar at age 9 and quickly surpassed the other kids in my class to the point where the instructor told my mom she couldn't teach me anything else and I need to find someone new.

My DD (then 7) was playing two handed piano and writing her own arrangements after only three months of lessons. She learns very quickly and has a natural aptitude for music. She plays by ear as well as reads music and has never had a problem figuring out how to play songs from memory. This year she started clarinet in band (she's now 11) and sat on the counch one day and figured out how to play "In Flander's Fields" by ear... this was in November and she'd only had the instrument for a couple of weeks and hadn't been formally taught anything. Anyone who has picked up a clarinet and tried to get something other than a squeak out of it can attest to how impressive that is, lol.

She also does not seem to be a prodigy.

So here's my question (because maybe I'm wrong about the two of us)... what defines a prodigy? Is it exceptional talent, potential, drive and achievement all blended together, or is it any of those elements alone? To me "prodigy" is a very specific word to be used selectively, and I don't consider myself or my daughter in that category.

Are some kids at prodigy level because they're forced by their parents to spend hours practicing, or does the term "prodigy" encompass an inherent mastery drive that supersedes distractions or other interests?

If I compare myself and my daughter to the kids who I consider are prodigies, this question comes to mind: at what point does a natural aptitude for music cross over into prodigy territory?

This strikes me as a neat talent to have, in terms of musical skill, however I think of it as more of a cognitive feature that's nice to have.

I view it in the same vein as a photographic memory, but with respect to music.

I would think that a real "prodigy" to the extent that word means anything, would have an internal drive toward musical composition or performance.

One of the concepts out there is the idea of a "rage to master." This can be with many highly gifted or almost all prodigies or even some more typical kids. Some of us follow one topic for a whle until we feel done with it, then relax until another takes hold. I would guess you might have seen some of this before now. Like a Lego kit obsession or Harry Potter or something else that took hold for awhile outside of academics?

I don't think you can immediately tell that someone is a prodigy, despite the associations we have with the word. You have to watch and wait for a bit, and allow for some instruction or at least time with the subject. I would look into a different instrument for your child--perhaps piano or violin. Prodigy or not, sounds like he possesses natural musical talent for sure.


This seems like a good definition to me. But what kind of adult? I'm terrible at chess and I don't play piano, so lots of kids are prodigies by my standard. At the same time, I think you could be a child prodigy and not be at the level of a world-class pianist or chess player at 7.

Yes!! This... exactly. With everything, not just music. The problem with DD, DS and I is that we delve into something too deeply, beyond its practical application, then become completely bored and done with it and reluctant to resurrect it later when it becomes useful or relevant.

My DS learned to play chess a week or so after his 6th birthday and was the only grade 1 student in his school who could. He could beat adults. He's since become bored and stopped playing. Was he a prodigy?

My DD when she was 7 and burning up the piano recital circuit (lol) had(still has) an aptitude that surpassed many (non musical) adults. She also got bored and drifted away from it and has not progressed at a "prodigy rate" despite her early promise. She is lagging in skills because of her weakened interest (and I never played "tiger-mom") Was she a prodigy?

I think the term can be hard to define. To me it encompasses skill and achievement as well as potential, but I could be wrong.

Chess seems like a field where you could actually have quite a lot of prodigies by this standard, with my admittedly still somewhat surface knowledge of the chess world. A lot of kids are really good at chess! I almost feel like this is an area where kids are slightly advantaged over adults (compared to something like math, music, or certainly art).

Yes to UM's post; part of the problem in parsing this, it seems to me, is that the terms involved are just so darned slippery.

How do you decide which "domains" are worth the name, for example?

What about a child that can do NOTHING but play with Legos for hours? My attention would wander... so that child is better at this than this adult is.

My DD6 had the reading ability of a college-educated adult, for example. I hardly thought this worth applying the term "prodigy" to her, however.

I don't really know. The term prodigy seems to mostly be applied to children who have obvious talents that many adults DO NOT possess. These are not necessarily things that can be taught to just anyone-- at least not at such a level of proficiency, if that makes sense. Most adults can't learn to play chess more than "adequately" after all, so a child of 8-10yo who can beat most adults at chess might be considered a "prodigy."

What I find fascinating is that simply playing at a high level of technical skill seldom warrants the term, it seems. For some reason, most people interpret that as training-- not innate ability. I'm not sure that is correct either. What do you call someone like my DD, who doesn't really care much about music, yet plays late intermediate works on less than 15minutes of practice daily? Well, she certainly lacks rage to master, that's for sure. So does the fact that she can whip out Bartok and Scarlatti with such minimal practice say anything about her? I think that it probably does-- she has the latent ability... but isn't interested in developing that talent. But she's no piano prodigy. Would she look like one if I were willing to employ Amy Chua-level pressure? Perhaps. In fact, I think it plausible.

I'm not sure that I really understand the question completely-- after all, HG+ is a category which is inclusive of PG persons.

Not everyone who is PG has a talent that elevates them to "prodigy" status in the popular conception of the term. There is a lot of misunderstanding about that, in fact. The two terms aren't really synonymous.

A child can (IMO) exhibit a prodigy talent and not even be PG. Savants do this with some regularity-- it's what makes them so remarkable and fascinating.


On the other hand, a child with very high cognitive potential may lack a singular talent like this. My DD seems to-- she's quite well-rounded, but not "extraordinary" in any way that seems fascinating to others. I don't know how much of that is her choice to be this way, versus a lack of an area that could be developed this way. There's an element of intrinsic motivation that comes into play when you talk about prodigy manifesting in children.

My son's intrinsic motivation with chess has been quite extraordinary to watch. It is one reason I've wondered if he might be a bit of a prodigy. Some kids study chess. DS inhales chess like chocolate.

However, I still feel it's early to tell, though we have intentionally not rushed into hardcore competition.

ETA: Meanwhile, his sister is good at chess at well--much better than she lets on at school--but it is not and never has been intoxicating to her. She could be at least as good as some of the second-tier club players in her grade, which is not at all shabby at her school. But there's not the same spark. She plays because her brother wants to, and she's gotten progressively better because she really hates to lose to her younger sib.

The SAT is normed to have average scores of about 500 for each section, and I don't think that middle-aged adults do better on the SAT than 18-year-olds on average. A 9yo who scores 500 on an SAT section is talented, but I would be reluctant to use the term "prodigy". A 9yo who scored 750+ on a section or 2100+ on all three could be plausibly termed a prodigy, and I think a score of 2300+ would merit the term. So my implicit definition of prodigy is a child who performs at the level of the "best" adults, where best may mean top 1% or 5%.

Even though your DS was identified very young (age 5?), it is likely that he is highly gifted. Whether he is also a musical prodigy requires more information and time to determine. Your DS certainly has musical talent but a musical prodigy is far more rare. In my mind, it is a wider distinction than that between moderately gifted and profoundly gifted (and I don't mean by the lower DYS standards). The recorder is a very basic instrument and therefore too blunt of a measure to determine the level of his musical ability. Perhaps it would make sense to try him on the clarinet or saxophone or something in the string family and see how far he develops in the next six months. I don't know whether there is an official definition but I personally would not consider any child under age 10 to be a prodigy unless he was at the level of a professional adult. It appears that in most cases, the prodigious ability appears far earlier although without opportunity . . .

Yes; and see, DD learned to play at about five, but just wasn't that interested once she beat me, her dad, and her grandpa once each.

She definitely lacked motivation or interest in it. She's as proficient as most adults will ever be, but has no interest in excellence in the domain, basically. She hasn't played in years at this point. Which is kind of disappointing to her friends who are chess geeks, because she is still awfully good-- way better than most people who are trying.


ETA: This example points up the difference, I think, between "PG" and "prodigy." DD is quite likely the former (I could provide a lot of anecdotal support for the claim that her reasoning ability was that of at least undergraduate level when she was 4-7yo)-- but clearly not the latter. COULD she be in the right domain? Perhaps, but we've certainly not seen anything that lights her fire that way long-term. Mostly, she inhales information and is then 'done' with whatever it is, or dabbles periodically over a longer period of time.


On second thought, she does have a current interest-- marksmanship-- where "prodigy" could turn out to be the appropriate term. As in, national rankings, possible Olympic level. She's probably going to qualify for nationals this year and she's been shooting for less than six months. She's passionate about it, and she's very very good. It remains to be seen, though, if she'll sustain the interest when she hits a rough patch. But she regularly out-shoots everyone on the range except the elite shooters who compete nationally/internationally. They are adults who have been shooting for years, and mostly for decades. She is 14. So yeah-- that might be an example of prodigy-like passion/ability.

Also--

Prodigy is about developing/developed TALENT, the way that I see it.

Giftedness (profound or otherwise) is about cognitive potential.

I'm not sure that the two things are really much related to one another by anything but coincidence.

I think males are more likely to develop obsessive interests and thus harness their talents to become prodigies. It's not clear that if as many women were obsessive as men that things would be better. To make a good living it suffices to be very good at one thing, but a parent must play the roles of teacher, dietician, psychologist, and doctor, among other roles. Maybe females have evolved to be more well-rounded and less obsessive because their domestic roles have required that.

My DD would probably dress you down quite furiously for that remark, Bostonian.

Actually, I would not describe DS as "obsessive" about chess. Chess is joy for him. What I see with him and chess is not something I have seen often in my lifetime.

DD tends a bit more towards obsessive in personality than he does, TBH. DS is also dramatically more emotionally self-aware, has a much higher EQ, and is far tidier. Oh, and a much better dancer. DD can draw better, though. They both are uninterested in babies. Neither has ever liked superheroes, but they both loved cars as toddlers, though neither cares about them now. DD seems to be better in math than DS is currently shaping up to be, and DS read more than a year earlier than DD. And...

Wait, did none of that fit in the boxes??

And to follow onto UM's post above--

my DD is not an example of "less obsessive" in any way, actually. She's serially obsessive about whatever interest she has which is new and shiny.

This is the entire reason why I've been reluctant to call marksmanship anything but a current interest. She was at one time this way about almost everything. It's just that she's so clearly got prodigy-potential in this domain.

Also laughing a bit at the notion that this particular skill set could have been shaped for some care-giving/domestic need by evolution. LOL.

It's worth noting that far too many EG/PG people are distinctly androgynous in their interests and strengths to make gender-based statements about them. IMO, I mean.

Being serially obsessive won't make you a prodigy. I still think males are more likely to obsess over a narrow field for a long period of time, as Bobby Fischer did with chess.


I am a gifted adult interested in chess, politics, finance, and computer programming. All those fields are male-dominated.

Meaning, Bostonian? I understand that you conform to your hypothesis quite nicely. However, any example which disproves the hypothesis renders it invalid as a generality, yes?

My HG+ spouse is interested in dog training and cognition in animals, in apiculture, theater and in fine lathe-work. He's a regional authority in some of those sub-specialties, so his interest is pretty darned high there. He's also obsessive about his interest in popcorn consumption, but I hardly figure that this counts for much.


I am a gifted (female) adult interested in history, political science, economic theory, and several arcane areas of STEM, in addition to my more gender-normative pursuits (fiber arts, pharmacology, neuroscience, music). But in any case, I hardly consider that even meaningful anecdote given that this is an N of one, albeit it does disprove the theory that gender determines obsessive interest areas. I have had any number of male-dominated interests in my life, and certainly spent much of my professional life in such settings without a lot of discomfiture that my interests were not supported, probably because my interests are not gender-normative in many ways. Even my more gender-typical interests, I have noticed that I tend to focus on the technical or logic-driven side of things. I'm a scientist at heart, I think, and it colors the way that I interact with the world-- I was very definitely born this way.

I'd say that higher LOG correlates nicely with curiosity, which is probably more likely to result in an encounter that has the potential to be interesting enough to render it "obsessive" (at least it seems that way to others), long-term or otherwise. I also tend to believe (and studies that I have seen overwhelmingly bear this out) that being non-normative is relatively freeing from gender-norms in terms of exploring interests. Who knows, if not for gender norming and cultural pressures, perhaps non-gifted persons would explore more taboo interests more often, too. Instead, we get boys interested mostly in sports and first-person shooter games, and girls who want to cuddle horses and write i's with little hearts over them.

Yet another fascinating thread.

Bostonian, you're making inferences from a subset of the tails of a statistical distribution and ascribing them to the remaining distribution. Mathematically it doesn't hold water.


It's interesting, because the social psychology literature shows that males whose wives are the dominant household breadwinner are now exhibiting the classic socialized "female" behaviours-- remaining at home to care for children, faking orgasm, engaging in heightened preening. It appears that will dominates skill in the household labour allocation decision regardless of gender.

+1 for gender non conforming females here.

I'm really searching for a meaningful comment to add something to this thread.

So far, nothing.

Here's a thought-- as to why "prodigies" tend to be male... in all but a few areas:

Perhaps this is either a nurtured/innate difference in level of competitive/cooperative tendencies in the individual. Girls are frequently taught by well-meaning parents, extended family, and other caregivers from a rather young age that being "competitive" is not very feminine, at the very least. Those messages are pretty insidious and difficult to avoid. Girls learn quite young that being a cutthroat competitive personality is a route to social misery, at least within one's own gender. Some of that seems to be biologically driven.

There is no way to play chess "collaboratively" so that nobody loses. KWIM?

What I find rather interesting is that so few domains are designated "prodigy" domains to start with. LOL. Most of them happen to be male-dominated pursuits for one reason or another-- if one takes sports, for example, most of those ARE going to be male-dominated by definition, and they certainly are seldom co-ed by virtue of biological differences between genders.

But what about music, where physiology would seem to play no role at all? That one would have to be entire nurture, I'm thinking, since nature probably distributes the ability rather evenly.

I have two musical prodigies in my extended family-- one of each gender. The male one was encouraged to pursue it as a career-- the female one was DISCOURAGED to pursue it as a soloist because it wasn't "feminine" to be beating others in competition, I presume.

Honestly, the female was the more talented of the two, and had a better solo instrument (piano, other keyboard, guitar, etc. etc. etc.) than the male one (clarinet, other woodwinds). Just as an aside, the female one was also probably a potential MATH prodigy, though this too was strongly discouraged in that family. The male prodigy wound up doing the conservatory track and made a living as an symphonic musician and teacher, albeit not at the elite level. Though he did spend time showcased as a military band member during the Vietnam era, so.

If this hypothesis is true, then one would expect the appearance of high level talent to be quite unevenly distributed-- by nationality as well as gender-- on instruments where size is mostly irrelevant, such as the brass/woodwind instruments and the smaller string instruments. (Not everyone has the hand size to play piano or double-bass, and this is uneven by gender).

That does seem to be true. Internationally, male soloists seem to be somewhat more common than female ones, but within individual instruments, there is a CLEAR cultural influence-- consider the flute or trumpet for example. Few female trumpet soloists in the US where brass instruments are a "guy" thing, and most international flautists are male, though almost none of them are American... where nearly all flute soloists are female. Heck, nearly all FLAUTISTS in America are female. Just as many danseurs are European, and yet America seems to have no difficulty producing prima ballerinas.

It's an interesting thing, to look beyond the obvious explanations that break down once one examines the evidence for counterexamples, and questions "why" those counterexamples exist. Are they merely outliers? Perhaps-- but then again, everyone who is a prodigy or PG either one is already an outlier.

I'd be very interested to see if male prodigies have a wider range of IQ than female ones do, at least unless one ventures into female-dominated domains like dance or musical theater. My guess is that they do-- because for a girl, social interaction is biologically a prime directive. That offers a powerful innate motivation to NOT engage in competitive activities that would damage one's social interactions and standing among peers. However, if you're already "weird" and you can't do anything about it, then all bets are off-- you have nothing to lose by being yourself and exploring an area of this level of ability. I'd expect that the same thing should hold true within female-dominated areas in the arts-- the boys that pursue them avidly probably have some other factor that makes them non-normative to begin with, be that gender identity, intelligence, or something else.

Does that make sense?


I certainly experienced this myself. My own LOG tended to be higher than the males in the male-dominated domains, as often as not. And really, those were domains where the price of admission to begin with is usually IQ > 135. It's just very obvious when you can make cognitive leaps that others can't, or just DO things that others have to work through step by painful step. Well, I'm sure that everyone here gets what I mean by that.

Girls by and large-- and women, too-- would often weigh the social cost of being themselves as being "not worth" the possible glory in standing head and shoulders above others. That's still seen as being distinctly UN-feminine.

OP's DS9 has shown to be top 0.1% intellectually, and it looks like this has transferred over to certain aspects of musical ability, that may be similarly rare. But, to answer OP's question, no, I wouldn't use the term "prodigy" for this.

According to

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/arts/music/09composers.html
The Greatest
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
New York Times
January 7, 2011

the great composers have all been male.

Looking at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082500218.html
Top 25 for the 20th Century
by Tim Page
Washington Post
Sunday, August 27, 2006

the pattern has persisted in modern times.

Hmm - I just realized that people may have widely varying interpretations of what rises to the level of prodigiousness. Perhaps even more widely disparate then the use of the PG label. For example, Davidson appears to apply the PG label even when just one index or GAI on the WISC reaches the 145 (99.9%) level. Other authorities would not consider even a full scale IQ at 160 on a modern/current IQ test as sufficient to merit of the use of the PG label.

Then there is the issue of age in determining prodigiousness. Many people associate the term prodigy with child prodigy. Furthermore, the term "child" in this context often references young children (not usually tweens and rarely teens).

Sports provide interesting examples. Do we often hear of child athletes refer to as prodigies? What about sports associated with early peaks and are dominated by teens like women's figure skating? Certainly not all internationally prominent athletes (actual Olympic medal contenders) would qualify for child prodigy status, but at least some of them must have been at a prodigious level at a young age.

This is an interesting thread -- and apologies to the OP for going off tangent.

yes-- but WHY?

A look into families that produced multiple prodigy talents is HIGHLY instructive there. Take a look at the Mozarts and the Mendelssohn siblings for a glimpse of what I'm getting at there. Fanny was widely considered to be (by contemporaries who knew both children well) far more gifted than Felix. But she was not supported as a composer, and was discouraged from pursuing further training as a composer more seriously. This pattern is not at all unusual in famous composers-- that is, that they may well have had a female sibling who gave every indication of being at least equally talented, but who remain(s/ed) unknown.

When one looks at cloistered populations, the gender difference is considerably less marked in terms of poetry, music, and writing. Environment clearly plays a pretty significant role.

It wasn't until painting became a more "respectable" and "proper" pastime for women (in the late 19th and early 20th century) that female artists began to attain something like parity in elite art circles, either. The art of the Renaissance is almost entirely male, for example-- the few examples which endure of female painters with that kind of prodigious ability were the products of QUITE unusual upbringings-- upbringings that treated them more as boys than as girls.



So no, I'm not at all convinced that the arts historically represent natural occurrence of prodigy talents very well. They represent nurture of such abilities, almost certainly. Contemporarily, they certainly do so more than at times in the past-- and it is probably no coincidence that CURRENTLY, this disparity is shrinking.

The Juilliard School is 54% male, and 46% female; a disparity which has been shrinking annually. It's certainly not because fewer female applicants are in the pool-- if anything it is the other way around. If you are male, the numbers suggest that your odds of admission are TWICE what they are if you're female. The pattern is repeated at other prestigious conservatories, I might add.

Hear, hear, HK. Well said.

Yes - this is us (except for us, replace PG with HG).


This makes sense to me as well. Gifted kids can be prodigies and prodigies can be gifted but they're not the same thing.

I suspect that what we are calling "giftedness" is also about developmental arc over a lifetime, so it's not really about potential in the sense of achievement. You get the developmental arc whether you are at potential or not.

Prodigies would seem to be a combination of specific developmental arcs, whether gifted or not, and a specific sphere of talent/ability.

You can probably forcibly create a prodigy. I would expect that such creation is not pleasant for the prodigy, since you are forcing the prodigy into the absolute top of the possible developmental arc for extended periods of time.

IMHO, prodigies are those children who at a young age can perform at least as well as highly trained adults. So, there has to be talent, drive, family resources, parental attitude, right instructors, etc. Sarah Chang is a prototypical example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Chang

DD is showing early promises in math and music (learns quickly and naturally and is very driven) but she's certainly not a prodigy.

Mmm hmm. Indeed.

I was blown away, and not in a good way, when a friend laughingly told me how my DD and hers "always just make up rules and play silly chess" during chess instruction in school. Keep in mind that while DS is no doubt more talented than DD (he is, after all, 4 years younger), she certainly does beat him sometimes and he must concentrate for sure when they play. "I guess she's not like [DS], huh?" she said.

The child is my DD's best friend. I asked DD about it. "She's not any good," she told me, "so I don't want to really play her because I would win and she would be embarrassed."

I remember finding this very interesting when I read it a while back, and perhaps relevant...

http://www.lumosity.com/blog/prodigy/

Of course they highlight working memory at Lumosity-- it's what they're selling...

Males being more competitive is consistent with their being more focused or obsessive and more likely to convert innate ability into prodigy-level performance. As I know from experience, if winning at chess is very important to you, you are more likely to put in a lot of time studying and practicing.

This is roughly what I have read about.

There is a very interesting chapter in Andrew Solomon's book Far From the Tree that discusses musical prodigies. Those are the kids who, before reaching adolescence, performed at the level of a reasonably accomplished adult. Talent is definitely a huge part of it, but it's not just talent, it's talent well developed when they were still 8-, 9- or 10-year-olds. So there is usually a lot of effort involved.

However, the caution is that many of these prodigies don't grow up to be world-class musicians. There are many reasons, some burn out, some simply plateau very early, some resent the entire idea of being a prodigy and rebel, etc., etc.

On the other hand, studies of world-class achievers (in music, math, science, etc) in the book Developing Talent in Young People have shown that these people were almost all not prodigies when they were children. They obviously had some talent but didn't stand out that much. What was different for them was the passion and the persistence.

Guess that is why there are no female athletes.

And there are many female prodigies. I had a subscription to the Young People's concerts with the NY Philharmonic. They always had some teenager that was a prodigy and guess what? Most were girls. One violinist started pre Julliard at 6. There is an amazing young pianist, maybe around 8 now, a girl, in Chicago.

In my opinion, you used to have successful guys marry based on looks and being cared for. In the last 20 years, you have more doctors marry doctors, men in PhD programs, marry women in PhD programs. There is more competitiveness being raised in girls now. To be more like Hilliary Clinton than Laura Bush.

Males are more focused?

I will look for it.

Another thing that is really fascinating to me is that, as mentioned in Andrew Solomon's book but especially in Developing Talent in Young People, K-12 school didn't seem to matter that much, if at all, for either the prodigies or those who attained world-class achievement. I think I relaxed a lot after knowing this.

LOL now there's a loaded statement. Before I bristle too much on behalf of my fellow females, let me say that I do recall reading something about the fact that females have more connections between the hemispheres of our brains, enabling us to do a variety of things such as verbalize our emotions and "multitask" (if that even exists - more likely we just switch rapidly from one task to another rather than executing multiple tasks simultaneously). Anyway. Males, meanwhile, have more of a propensity for specialization. Could that be misconstrued as focus? Because frankly, one could easily focus on multitasking. But now are we even talking about the same thing? (focus Vs specialization)

These are just generalized statements, of course... they don't necessarily apply to everyone and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to counter them.

As should be clear from the context, I used "focused" in the sense of having fewer interests, not in the sense of being better able to concentrate. And in my messages I have said that being more focused may increase the chance of becoming a prodigy but also has downsides. Bobby Fischer was a focused chess prodigy who never finished high school but achieved his chess aim. Looking at his whole life, including some of the terrible things he said, perhaps atributable to insufficient education and knowledge about the world, he was not an advertisement for extreme focus.

Interesting discussion, but it looks like the OP's last visit was before their original (moderated) post appeared, so they haven't even seen their original post appear, let alone the rest of the thread.

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.

To the OP. My 6 year old is extremely musical - ever since he was a baby. He started piano at 4 years old and at 6 plays at the intermediate level. He is good at music theory too. The amazing thing for us is that he can play pieces by ear - and these are classical pieces that he listens to on classical radio (yup, that is all he listens to). And he has been cranking out musical compositions for more than a year now - cute songs about superheroes fighting bad guys and the rain outside canceling his playdate at the park etc. His compositions have amazing details -like pedaling, speed changes, movements, legatos, different octaves etc. Infact, he won a prize when I casually entered his composition for a contest open to 9 year olds.
BUT, we think that it is more of a passion than anything else. If I morphed into Amy Chua, we might see "results" from it. But, I am a wimpy Tiger Mom and want my child to "enjoy exploring" music - with a parental attitude like this, he will not end up a prodigy. He might pick up and learn 4 or 5 instruments and play really well at the school level and then go on to a STEM career as several have done before him in our family.
So, in our case, there is no prodigy lurking in there - just a fun loving, curious little kid with an aptitude and ear for music.

There are definitely different varieties of parenting a prodigy.

To say all prodigies are forced or areas of their life neglected sounds like sour grapes to me, akin to parents of average kids about gifted kids.

Thanks CFK - I was wondering about Jake Barnett with the non-STEM part. I didn't think he had the background for it either based on his mother's book. And yes, I'd say he's more savant-like than prodigy, though I can see why people classify him as a prodigy. Early college is seen as being an indication of a prodigy, but I agree that there are shades of gray with that classification.

Ultramarina - I've read Far From the Tree, Scott Kaufman's book, Ungifted, and been thinking about this as well due to my ds8. So I can commiserate with you. Yes, it's definitely not easy when it's your kid and even more challenging when it's a field/subject that is far from your proverbial tree. It does and can happen though. Genes can skip a generation or around. Funny and/or unusual things can happen in utero and affect them for life that pushes them into another world.

Here's Solomon's NY Times article on (classically trained musical) prodigies - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/how-do-you-raise-a-prodigy.html?pagewanted=all

That's very true about your point with Einstein, Newton, etc. - we don't always have the ability to recognize and nurture extreme talent at all times and places in history. Part of it is being born at the right time and right place. It's chance and happenstance. Still, it seems some of these 'prodigies' blossom regardless of when and where they're born. They're just so driven and determined, it seems.

An omnibus prodigy is one with a multitude of talents. That's rarer than a musical prodigy, for example, which tend to be more singular talent in nature - and significantly less studied too. Ainan Cawley and Tanishq Abraham are touted rare types, omnibus prodigies. Their talents cross many domains.

I think with math and someone like Tao, it's just easier to identify as a pg and/or prodigy (both labels have been applied to him). Tao's father gave some guidance and mentorship, but more importantly was able to identify the prodigiousness. There probably are other Tao-like kids around who are not being identified by their parents or picked up on by schools for a number of reasons. Remember, too, we know about Tao, in particular, because Miraca Gross studied him (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10116.aspx).

Tanishq Abraham is being homeschooled by his parents who have also been successful at helping him. Still, geographically, the family lives in CA which has also played a huge role too. He's got more opportunities than someone living in other parts of the world.

Taylor Wilson's parents moved to Davidson Academy so he could pursue studying nuclear fusion (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/boy-who-played-fusion?nopaging=1). Naturally, not everyone is in a position to move across the country or is willing to do so. IF he didn't move to Davidson or if didn't contact certain people who were willing to help, he probably would have been hampered in his abilities.

There's no musical prodigy without usually instruments in the house. So exposure has to be a huge factor. You don't own a piano, your child isn't going to be able to practice playing it then. You don't play or listen to classical music; your kid/s aren't going to suddenly start composing it.

I don't know where the line is between an omnibus prodigy and/or pgness. I don't know if one exists. There seems to be a lot of slipperiness with these definitions and classifications. And not many studies at all, except on those classical, musical prodigies.

I think prodigies still need to be encouraged and their gifts/talents fostered. But there's a line and a balance in life, which I think Tao's parents realized and tried to address - or at least that's what I've read (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/s...ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&_r=0). And you do have to think about the child's emotional/social well-being irrespective of their prodigiousness.

What I also noticed from the various readings is that musical prodigies (who seem to be studied the most) start very early, like in infancy, toddlerhood, or as a preschooler (3/4 yrs old). STEM prodigies seem to flourish a little later in their field, around 6-11 years old. Taylor Wilson built his first bomb at 10.

I certainly know what you mean. It's a life of sacrifice for child and parent, even at high but not-stratospheric levels. Is it inescapably bad for the child in the end? I don't know. Are Olympic athletes and prima ballerinas stunted people? I'm quite sure some of them are. All of them?

(It's ironic to me to find myself arguing this end of it. I'm playing devil's advocate more than a little. Note that we still have not signed DS5 up for anything other than chess tournaments local to our actual city, despite pressure from his coach to travel overnight with him to regionals, states, and nationals.)

There's definitely a difference between people like Elton John, Yo Yo Ma, Lang Lang, and Marvin Hamlisch and a pg with musical talents. It's not just ambition, motivation, or drive. There seems to be a 'x' factor with them that propels them to world-class musicianship, which differs from the rest.

There's just something extraordinary about their gifts. Elton John acknowledges that he's got a rare, beautiful gift/talent and almost appears embarrassed by it when he's questioned on it by interviewers. He doesn't want to dwell on the fact. He knows it's not 'normal'.

Ultramarina - there's UK television series on YouTube which featured a chess prodigy. The parents were homeschooling him and went through a lot of hurdles (which you've mentioned) to compete at chess tournaments. The child ended up losing to Russians/East Europeans and was disappointed. I felt so bad for the parents who felt terrible and seemed so 'normal'.

So yes, I would agree that the parents, including us, make huge sacrifices - financial, emotional, physical, etc. That's a huge part of it. There's the school part or un/homeschooling, then there's the coaches, mentors, or other professionals for guidance and help.

I think there were some Olympic ice competitors who literally lived in trailers so they could afford the ice rink time/practice. The parents were willing to make the sacrifices.

You cannot ignore it. The child will often not let you.

There is a huge difference between a child being this driven and the parent. It can be very hard for outsiders to tell the difference. I went to university with a 11 year old child 'prodigy'. (You can still find articles, he was on TIME or Newweek magazine.) He was awarded his BA in math at the same time I did. I did in fact interact with this boy, and it was clear he was a VERY unhappy kid. By the time I'd met the kid, it was clear dad was the one pushing. No question the kid was HG+ and gifted in math, but his senior project was NOT up to par with the rest of us. The whole story deteriorated that summer, with the end result of the kid going back to live with his mom and his going back to junior high.

I am in no means saying that there is a problem with all 11 year olds in college. Just in this case dad lost his perspective on what was in his son's best interest.

Absolutely true in child-led situations. I definitely wasn't suggesting otherwise.


Nor, to address Dusty's remark, am I expressing "sour grapes" of any kind. Frankly, I do think that my DD probably has potential prodigy talent in a couple of domains-- but it would not have been child-led, and like ashley, I'm a wimpy, pale shadow of a TigerMom. Honestly-- I'm relieved that this isn't a parenting problem that I am faced with. I have quite enough on my plate already with a PG child, tyvm. I don't need or even want fame in my life or hers. I think media attention is fairly toxic-- IMHO.

I've known a handful of child-athletes who were elite level. Everything in their lives, and much of their parents' as well, revolves around the talent and its insatiable demands. Their lives are strange as a result of those sacrifices, and you really don't ever get those years of childhood and adolescence back. If you have no common experience with others to draw from, it can make you a lonely and awkward adult. I've also seen the "tempered" form of prodigy-raising; where parents place reasonable (though it might not seem that way to outsiders) limits on how much, and enforce them. No, those kids mostly do NOT rise to international prominence, but then again, they also take the time to develop OTHER aspects of themselves, so that failure in the prodigy domain doesn't assume epic proportions and prove destructive. It's inevitable that at some point you WILL lose, you will fail, etc. If you have other parts to your identity, it doesn't destroy you. My experience there is competitive gymnastics, btw-- male and female family members who were nationally competitive, but whose parents put their feet firmly down re: quitting school to do it full time, and were reluctant to do international competition. They did NOT push through injuries to compete, etc.

I think that most of us here can identify with that-- we all TRY to balance our kids' cravings for intellectually meaningful experiences with the ability to still be their chronological ages for some portion of their lives, right? Some of us make deliberate choices to encourage/provide popular materials (books, games, movies, etc. etc.) even if we think them vapid and pointless-- simply for social currency. It's a very conscious thing at our house, anyway.

But what happens when there just isn't enough TIME to do that? As a parent, it is awfully tempting to justify sacrificing normative childhood experiences in the name of extraordinary talent... but no, I am not sure that it is always a wise thing to do, even if it works out well on the talent side of things.

By definition, a prodigy has an extraordinary area of development, one that outstrips OTHER development. It's extreme asynchrony that has been encouraged and nurtured. So yes, I do think that probably is inherently not "balanced" development, and I also don't think that there is any way around the fact that it can dominate a child's developmental arc and swamp out other legitimate issues/concerns/needs. In spite of well-meaning parents.

I suppose that gets back to parenting philosophy when you get right down to it. I would probably discourage a prodigy by insisting on time away from the obsession. In the name of living in the world with others, I mean, and retaining additional facets of one's self. Parents who are 100% child-led or seduced by the idea of a prodigy for a child wouldn't see it that way.

It's not an easy set of conditions to parent. That much is certain.

I agree that it makes a huge difference whether all the effort is child-led or parent-led. But everyone also doesn't necessarily want the same thing. Whereas some might really cherish a "normal childhood", others think that the things that they do, which are so different from what other kids do, are entirely "normal to them". I think lots of parents here see this in their house all the time. I remember reading about this a lot in both Far From The Tree, and in Developing Talent in Young People. A world-class swimmer commented that he didn't play much with kids in school and in the neighborhood but he didn't mind at all. He said something like "those kids were trying out for neighborhood kids baseball teams, and I was already one of the best swimmers in the country. Why would I give up this and join them?" There was the mom of a music prodigy who said "look at what he does. He is not a normal child. Why does he want a 'normal' childhood?" And this prodigy himself said that playing piano for 8 hours a day is extremely normal for him and those kids who don't do this miss out a lot.

So it all depends on everyone's unique perspective.

Sacrifice is simply a fact of life for parents. We all do it at times. Some big, some small. As long as we believe that it's worthwhile for us, it's the right choice. We just can't justify it or regret it based on the outcome. We are not businessmen, we are parents.

I had fun reading ashley's post because she described so well our situation. Both of my kids are very talented young musicians, they play instruments at a very high level, my son composes ferociously, they do a ton of theory, have great ears, perform in many occasions, study with the best teachers around, and I go out of my way to find the best opportunities for them. But I'm not a tiger mom. I sometimes wonder how much further they would have been if I insisted that they practiced two hours a day instead of one. But that's just not who I am. I'd be happy to help my kids do things that they love to do as kids, and I'd be happy to let them decide who they want to be when they grow up. Those who choose other parenting styles will simply have a different set of challenges and rewards. (Like ashley, I also doubt that my son will end up being a musician. I think it's likely that he will have fun with music as an adult but pick a different career.)

I am relieved too. But "let them have a normal childhood" is what people say when we want acceleration. Lots of people don't have that idyllic childhood people dream off but with TRUE prodigies (self driven) that is at least their choice. A child who puts their social life first will probably not be a prodigy.

That is not true. Lang Lang said that many prodigies cannot sustain a professional career through the teens because of social pressures. He said very few continue. They were still prodigies but didn't continue professoinally. I know of 2 violionists who in their midteens, stopped performing professionally and took a different path.

And if you look at the documentary on Mark Yu, his mother made him practice. Is he a prodigy, yes, did his mother make him practice 6 hours a day at the age of 7, yes. She homeschooled him and his world became the piano. DD had a piano prodigy, now teacher from Juilliard. Her mother made her practice 6 hours a day and she stopped at 11 and didn't touch the piano again for 2 years. Then went back and got into pre Julliard at 14. She said it was such a big part of her life, she didn't know what else to fill it with when she stopped. It became who she was.

I suspect this may be different depending on what field one is a prodigy. A field where it's important to stay in the public eye perhaps. But many prodigy's make their way into academia particularly those in math & science fields. While it may be true they no longer impress those outside their fields (ie.. win Nobel prizes or such), it doesn't mean they can not sustain a successful career.

Here's a question: is it ever possible to be a prodigy and still have the practice of one's subject be hard work but not intensely grueling? Is prodigiousness painful to child and family in ALL arenas?

I think it depends on what one is a prodigy in. I feel like it is probably painful to be a true classical music or athletic prodigy (but some sports might be less so than others..for instance, maybe a snowboarding prodigy has it easier than a prima ballerina...probably a less competitive sport is better).

Chess? I don't know. It's a less glitzy, high-stakes world. Then again, there have been some really insane grandmasters...

Math? Not the same kind of pressure, I don't think. Intense pressure to achieve could backfire, but then we are in the realm of PG-kid pressure like we talk about here, I think...

We haven't talked about child actors. Could that ever be considered a type of prodigy? They seem MOST at risk of disaster to me, perhaps.

I'm going to echo the previous comments about child-led parenting. It's such a subtle area, replete with shades of gray. If a parent suppresses time the child would otherwise spend enthusiastically pursuing the prodigious activity to engage in more normative childhood behaviours and activities, I don't think we can say with certainty that the parent is acting in the best interest of the child.

There is something to be said for well-roundedness, to be sure, in that a certain critical minimum level of social skills, empathy, multifaceted self-concept, etc are required to be resilient and mentally healthy in the long run. I'd argue these thresholds are largely personal, and parents and children might have dramatically different levels required, particularly if the child is a prodigy in a domain where the parent isn't. It's possible that these thresholds aren't even knowable ex persona. For a prodigy who has met his personal minimum critical thresholds and gains net positive utility from pursuing the prodigious talent for the twelfth hour that day, I say indulge the child. What is life if not pleasure?

This reminds me of the fact that at HG+ levels (perhaps lower gifted levels too?) - without the necessary stimulation/challenge/environment you will see the older child not excel in their "specialist field"/ There are stats that back up that moderately gifted, or even bright kids more often than not outperform the higher gifted people in the workplace, academically etc.

I would surmise that it's a similar idea - either the dislike of the term gifted, the frustration of never fitting in, learnt underachievement - all pointing to lack of opportunity, environment and encouragement. Even the most astounding self-motivation can die in the face of lacking options.

It seems to be the same for the prodigy concept... I remember when my oldest was born thinking to myself that it would be best if he could try as many activities as possible otherwise "how on earth would he find his own talents and special abilities?".

Interesting thread which I'd avoided till now because I hate the p-word.

An eminent colleague whom I'd approached for advice about DS used it of him (without having met him). I'm still twitching, tbh.

Honestly, I think it's an unhelpful word. We see it in the list of prodigies on Wikipedia (getting a mediocre maths degree at 16 makes you a prodigy apparently!) and in people on this thread yet denying that Tao was one - honestly, if not him, then who?! It's a silly concept - even if we agree about it needing performance comparable to a talented adult in the field, how talented? Someone upthread (sorry, can't face trawling back to see who) in the same breath suggested that for music the comparison was a reasonable piano teacher, and that for maths it was a reasonable maths professor. Well, OK, but why not a reasonable piano soloist, or why not a reasonable maths teacher? You're going to catch quite different groups of children depending on exactly how you define it, and it's not clear that the resulting definition would be useful for anything, anyway.

About child-led vs parent-led: I think that's even harder than this thread has yet suggested. Parents push to overcome perfectionism, to provide challenge, etc, just as much for "prodigies" as for "HG+ children". When and how much that's the right thing to do is a genuinely difficult question. The presence of parental drive doesn't tell you much about the child, in itself, I think.

I think the converse can be just as true, where the issue is a surfeit of options. The one track to excellence above average person fought each step of the way to their mastery level, and it is an epic haul to bring another skill to a similar place. So, they keep pushing with the same drive and tada.

Speculation...
Maybe "true" prodigies happen when they have extreme working memory capabilites and encounter the right topic with the right amount of neuroplasticity. Their brain rapidly starts hard-wiring into that topic, and it becomes central to themselves as even internal reward mechanisms are wired in.

It was my post. I was simply giving examples, not trying to be rigorous. Why not a piano soloist? Because there are very few of these in the world and it's almost a given none of the prodigies could compare to them when they were kids. Why not a reasonable math teacher? Because my experience tells me that the math competency of average K-12 math teachers doesn't need prodigious ability. Usually people think of prodigies as kids whose performance reaches the level of "pretty good" adults, not world-class adult achievers.

I too don't really like labels, be they prodigies, or HGs, PGs, or, "gifted". I think everyone should have the opportunity to develop their potential to the fullest. I also believe that parents want the best for their kids and make sacrifices so that their kids can have a good life, regardless of whether their kids are classified as "gifted".

I agree, but unfortunately, the labels are sometimes necessary in order to understand what "to the fullest" means.

Children who are intellectually disabled need that label so that expectations won't be too high. Gifties need it so they won't be too low. Etc.

We're living this one over here... we don't need stats (it's nice to know we're not alone though ;p)

Agree!

A child psychologist that I knew since my son was born always says that the ideal IQ is 120. Because such kids can benefit best from all the learning resources out there that the public school system provides, and they have fewer social issues... Not that anyone can choose.

Yup... that makes sense. Trying explaining that to the uninitiated though... how the straight A student could have a lower IQ than your gifted or 2e kid.

Yeah well it is a bit late for my kids. To be honest I assumed bright because I figured both their parents were bright. Turns out I was underestimating one or both of us.

The kids who do best at school are the fairly bright kids with lots of parental support (emotional and financial) who like to please. If they are girls they should be pretty and feminine and if boys, masculine and good at least one sport.

Need a like button, puffin & CNN. I never know quite what to say to the parents of my son's classmates when they tell me how impressed they are with my son. How impressed that are with his intelligence. Yet these same kids are so much better at playing the game of school and get much better grades.

psssst-- they don't know it's a game.

yes!! this lol

I'd be a little careful with this popular truism. If you'd met my DD, you'd be the first to agree that "likes to please" is not, uh, the phrase that one tends to pin on her. We are also way below six figures for family income. DD is a straight-A student, though. Now, I would say that part of the reason for this is that she obviously has an excellent working memory and fast processing speed, and no other bottlenecks (no dysgraphia, dyslexia, etc), and is well-rounded with her abilities. (It's also fair to note that her grades *improved* when she moved to a gifted magnet.)

ITA with ultramarina.

Those kinds of commments can be offensive when sprouted by the parent of a poorly performing student to a parent of a highly performing student or even about highly performing students in general. It can suggest a whiff of sour grapes. Having been parents to both kinds of kids, I have always been very careful in that regard. My oldest was classic 2E with high IQ scores and at least one almost perfect (not just 99 percentile) national achievement test yet there were a few quarters when he barely passed certain classes. My two younger ones are both straight A students but objectively beyond garden variety "gifted" levels and while one (DD) is a sometimes pleaser the other (higher ability DS) has not a pleaser bone in his body.

In looking at all three of my children's classmates over many many years, I honestly cannot say the highest performaning students are lower IQ that the students with poorer grades. Of course, I would not be so presumptuous as to assume I know the classmates' IQs but you get a general sense after so many years and conversations with teachers and their parents.

I think the point that was being made was about gifted underachievment. Sometimes kids with very high IQs do worse in school than kids with IQs that are high but not gifted or HG high.

This idea also applies to standardized testing. Gifted people may overthink the answer choices and pick the "wrong" one (I'm thinking specifically of verbal questions with no objectively right answer.). I suspect that the same thing happens in the classroom. Gifted students may not accept the teacher's explanation, especially in math class where the approach may just be memorize and regurgitate.

Definitely! This can sometimes happen. I'm just not a fan of "The kids who do best in school are pleaser kids who aren't really all THAT smart" blanket statements. (Although my DD didn't, in fact, test stratospherically high. But I also base this on my observations of her classmates. Some of the kids who are doing really well are pleasers. Some are just really sharp. Some of the kids with lower grades are out-there kids who may not be doing well due to 2e, no desire to please, etc. Some are probably just on the lower end of gifted or less motivated. I don't see a single unifying pattern, and FWIW the child who stands out as THE best student (not my DD) also stands out as most likely one of the most gifted. She's just on another plane. Also an athletic and musical superstar.)

Agree with Ultramarina - intelligence, last I looked, wasn't distributed by a parent's income level. We're not a six-figure income household either.

2e kids who are pg/prodigy like my ds seem to be real outliers of outliers of outliers. These are the kids who beat to a different drum in a formalized school setting no matter where they are. Can't see my son being in school again for some time.

2e kids like my son muddy these waters. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure this out because there are other skills involved here besides high IQ. Behavioral optometrist tested my ds's visual skills in Dec and he scored in the whopping 1% percentile on one subtest that involved visual working memory. On one academic achievement test, he scored in the 98/99% percentile, though he didn't entirely cooperate with that test.

Prodigies don't necessarily have high IQ. Some do. Some don't. IQ, alone, is not the defining factor here.

Some have speculated that prodigies have exceptional working memory, within 99% percentile, and that is the defining factor. But there are flaws with this argument too. First, there are many parts of working memory. There's visual and verbal working memory. Second, the prodigies, pg kids, or other kids who have been studied influence the outcome or results.

Tracy Alloway, who's written a book on wm, hasn't studied prodigies or pg kids. Joanne Ruthsatz has studied prodigies, such as Jake Barnett and other, and has come up with some traits. However, her sample of prodigies is still small - http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/pur...tz-on-the-common-trait-of-all-prodigies/

My issue is that working memory experts claim that wm plays a huge role with education and learning. They claim that if a child has poor or weak working memory it's a reliable indicator of who would struggle in the classroom and is a predictor of future success. Yet, this isn't the case with my ds; he's not struggling to learn per se. DYS accepted the work samples as evidence of pgness, though he lacked the test scores for entry into DYS.

I haven't contacted Dr. Ruthsatz yet. But I will.

Thanks Val. Well said. PG kids are not always high achievers who are highly extrinsic motivation. It's quite the opposite situation with my ds8.

Agreed.

I've been thinking about the idea of talent for a long time. I suspect that the extreme talent that gives us breathtaking new ideas results from a complex interplay of different abilities and other factors. IQ is important in many fields (e.g. mathematics or physics), but if a stratospheric IQ was all that was needed, we would have produced dozens of new Darwins, Einsteins, and Mozarts every century.

So other factors are presumably important. I think about creativity and intellectual independence (Lee Smolin talks about this idea The Trouble with Physics, and I've seen it discussed elsewhere). Intellectual independence refers to an ability to follow your own ideas, while being fully aware of the consequences to your career. Etc.

There are presumably other factors as well, such as being financially able to eschew a traditional career. Maybe you are independently wealthy. Maybe you find a sponsor. Maybe your spouse has a good job. Maybe you can work part-time.
Then there is access: access to an instrument, to books, to tools, and these days, to the internet. Maybe someone gave you a piano. Maybe your professor arranged things so that you could tag along on a ship going to the Galapagos and your uncle persuaded your father to pay for it.

Either way, I think it's all very complicated.

This is one of the things my son does all the time. He will make a problem more difficult than necessary. He did this just last week in his Algebra II homework. He insisted in making his combinatorics word problems more difficult than necessary, and got himself stuck. I couldn't convince him that his interpretation wasn't what was intended, but did suggest he check with the teacher before the test the next day.

The correlation between parental income and child IQ is positive. It is not 1.00, but it not 0.00 either. If the correlation is 0.4 (to make up a number), you can expect in a country of more than 300 million people to find millions of children with above-average IQs from below-average-income households. But it's also true that the average IQ of children from households earning more than $100K exceeds that of children from households earning less than $100K.

But this topic is about the highly-gifted and prodigies, not what's average.

It's rather like trying to explain to Shaquille O'Neal why he should be 5'9".

You're using IQ to define intelligence and the ability to identify what high intelligence may be for an IQ test. Moreover, prodigies don't necessarily have high IQ and they don't necessarily come from affluent families either.

I do believe that these prodigy or high intelligence families would need to value learning or improving on whatever the prodigy or pg kids excels in whatever the household income level. And they'd need parents or someone else to recognize such gifts/talents and then foster them.

I'm not saying that wealth doesn't play a part with exposing a child to learning (music, arts, STEM, etc.) because it definitely can. Yes, of course, money can tip the scales. And before public institutions (schools, libraries, etc.), this was more the case.

Let's face it there's a reason 19 prime ministers went to Eton (the most of any UK public/boarding school). There's little financial aid for students to go to Eton so that eliminates a segment of society. Then it's only for boys too and that eliminates a segment of society at large. So yes, Eton is weighted toward those with wealth and socioeconomic connections today (ie. Will Prince William, heir to the throne, do? YES, of course, silly question). However, Eton College was founded by Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to seventy poor boys who would then go on to Kings College, Cambridge, which was also founded by the same King.

A number of prodigies in Solomon's book did not come from wealthy homes; in fact, I was struck by the number of single mothers who raised these musical prodigies. If you study famous people who are/were prodigies or hg or hg/2e, poverty and childhood trauma, of some type, seems to propel people to reach dizzying heights than otherwise. They seem to beat the odds. But then, prodigies are not the norm and neither are pg/2e kids.

Thanks Dude. Yes. We're talking outliers of outliers of possibly outliers. Not the norm.

It's actually a little unfair to pick on Eton in this regard - it has an excellent, and improving, record on financial aid.

My son is a dual US/UK citizen. Yes, Eton is improving its record and financial aid. They've got links now with Boston Latin (oldest grammar school in US), Philips, and other boarding schools. My UK husband, however, also says Eton needs to cough up more. About 20% of students at Eton receive substantial aid compared to Exeter's 45%. Moreover, Exeter, Philips, and other boarding schools in the US offer a total free ride to students whose families make less than $75,000.

Schools like Eton have been exclusive by their nature for a reason. Not everyone goes to Juilliard or London School of Music at a young age like some prodigies do either. I could be wrong but I don't think prodigies or pg kids from poor/er families make up the bulk of the population at somewhere like Eton, Juilliard, Philips, or Exeter since these schools need money to come in and they can't rest on their endowments.

Huh. Now some part of me is tempted to look into sending DD to Exeter. Her grandfather (DH's father) was an Exeter graduate. He was a scholarship student. Of course, if she also needed a scholarhip, I guess they could take this as evidence that this investment in grandpa failed.

I believe that my dd would absolutely thrive at Exeter. If we didn't have such a great situation for her at the public high school here I would very strongly consider it even though I would hate to miss that time every day with her.

Wasn't there also a policy of looking for highly gifted, at risk students for financial aid?

I know a guy who was from serious proverty in Harlem, got a full ride to Andover, from there a full ride to Harvard, then went Harvard law and is a very successful corporate lawyer now. He pays full ride at Andover for his 2 girls.

Well, it's not accurate to consider my kids "at risk," if you're addressing my comment. They're not, and they hardly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is why it would be a bit weird to use programs like this. On the other hand, you could look at it another way: DH and I have both chosen to work in fields that are not very financially rewarding because we feel we are of more service to the world that way. So maybe we deserve a break.

But I don't know. We both have expensive private liberal arts college educations and grew up in UMC families (in DH's case, on the lower end of UMC, tending more towards MC; in my case, in the middle of UMC). OTOH, both of us had scholarships, though mine (National Merit) was much larger.

My kids have a very good public high school available to them, so it's not as though we have no options. But DD is kind of a striver. Other than perhaps a lack of superb extracurriculars, which I guess we could work on, I don't really see why she couldn't get in to someplace like Exeter in 9th grade. But there is surely a lot I don't know about this. DH and I were talking about this semi-jokingly last night--would one of these schools mess her up more or less than we are going to in adolescence? (DD is HARD. The teen years will be HARDER. And she is a very, very independent kid. But of course, we would mess her terribly. We live far from New England.)

At Exeter, at least, you don't have to be at risk. We have a relative there now who is on scholarship. Her parents are both university faculty, just not well-paid faculty😐. I think it helped that they do not live in the northeast, so some geographic diversity they were trying to achieve; she is also an athlete. There are still significant costs involved, though (flying home and back for each school break is not exactly cheap, not sure how long they can sustain that, for example).

Yes, we would offer geographic diversity. I did think about the planefare aspect. We have relatives in the area, though, so if DD didn't want to come home every time, she easily could find somewhere to go.

I really doubt we would do this, TBH, and it is not something I would ever have pictured for my kid, but with this particular kid, it's not totally off the table. DS would not want to do it, I don't think. He's a homebody. DD...well, she is just her own thing, and I could see boarding school life being her kind of thing. She LOVES overnight summer camp. Wants to stay for weeks. She also is the kind of kid who can make friends with anybody and is not bothered at all by differences in background. (Although I have to wonder where the limit of that is.)

The list price of Exeter is $47,000 for boarding students. If more students were paying a higher fraction of the list price, the list price could be substantially lower, and more well-off families would consider Exeter. Need-based aid has trade-offs.

Your point being that if there were no scholarship students, it would be a mix of the very rich and the upper-middle class, with more UMC kids being able to go?

In other words, the scholarship kids make it impossible for the UMC kids to go to Exeter?

Well, that is the reality not only at prep schools, but also at private colleges.

More and more UMC students are being locked out by pricing.

My personal prediction is that ultimately, this is going to create a system whereby private college on a resume indicates either wealthy family or SES< LMC.

Yes to your first question, but your second question overstates things. Suppose that Exeter went from 47K but need-based to 35K flat. Since there is a demand curve for any good, including private school, there are well-off families (earning say $250K) who would pay 35K but won't pay 47K. I did not say it is "impossible" for the parents to pay 47K.

I'm confused. You're saying that the school shouldn't offer aid to people who can't afford $35,000? Or it should still offer aid to people who can't afford this lower sum?

Let's put this thread back into some perspective and context.

Harvard (est. 1636 - oldest university in US) and Boston Latin (est. 1635 - oldest public school and grammar school in US) were originally, primarily established as a training ground for the ministry and thus an educated populace since books were not readily available or accessible. Wealthy merchants contributed to both of these institutions due to the overall benefits to society at large. Bright, poor boys who qualified based on their talents attended these schools and were supported. For many years, it was no different at many boarding schools in New England, including Exeter, or other universities, including other ivies.

Schools, such as Juilliard, were established for different reasons than the ivies or boarding schools such as Exeter. Juilliard was founded in 1905 because the US lacked a premier music school and many US students were going to Europe. Juilliard (and Vanderbilts) bequeathed a substantial amount of money for the advancement of music in the United States for the school. Juilliard wouldn't have been created IF exclusive boarding schools or other schools supported such training - but they did not.

Remember, this thread is about prodigies. Juilliard attracts prodigies because it's one of the few schools in the country where they can receive appropriate world-class musical training. Not everyone is a prodigy there, but they probably have a disproportionate just based on the fact that Juiliard is a singular type of place for such unique training. You don't go to Exeter or Eton for classical musical training; you go to Juilliard! And IF you're a child prodigy, you tend to go early too.

I'm sure there are various ranges or levels of prodigies like there is with giftedness. But if you're talking the extreme end, this is very small number of the population - perhaps fewer than the number of pg kids and/or those in DYS. It's not like Exeter or other boarding schools are getting flooded by them. Hardly.

Juilliard, for example, wanted to train Marvin Hamlisch to be the next Vladmir Horowitz and was pretty bent on it. They recognized his amazing talent. Hamlisch, however, didn't want to be the next Horowitz but he accepted that he could learn how to play well at Juilliard and then later on apply such training to things he wanted to do - http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmas...rn-between-classical-and-pop-music/2782/

Hamlisch was declared a child prodigy at 4. His father was a accordionist and bandleader so there was a genetic component with music. The family also lived within a relatively short distance to Juilliard too so they didn't have to move across the country either. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony (those four together are known as an EGOT). Extreme talent here.

FYI - there's a children's book by him, Marvin Makes Music. NOTE: Marvin never wanted to practice either.

Following up and observing on cdfox's post--


Has the mission of such institutions drifted so substantially from that founding vision that "charity boys" (or girls) are no longer seen as a valid part of the model?

This is an honest question.

Not all prodigies do come from affluent-enough homes.


Perhaps the ethical onus is on such singular institutions to make cost irrelevant to the most worthy (and the most needy-- in terms of the training, I mean) potential students. And perhaps that explains the rationale for institutional mission drift at places like Exeter and Harvard?

Don't know, just speculating.

After all, in 1700, there weren't that many places to get a college education. So it would have been the equivalent of Julliard today, maybe Julliard in the 1950's, actually, since there are other prestigious conservatories now.

Er-- okay...

well, back (kind of) on-topic after that detour...



Oh, it's okay, though-- because the looming twin threats of hunger or exposure are pretty potent motivators, all things considered.


This, IMO, is the completely rational and evidence-based portion of the argument AGAINST subsidies for "low" income persons. Because there is some cut-off beyond which families pay full freight, which means that SOMEBODY winds up not being able to "afford" a tuition bill that some calculator or formula says that they can. Right? This is a problem right now in affording college.



See statement above regarding starvation and homelessness. Also-- given the proportion of pregnancies which are "unintended" in the US, I don't really think that most people ARE thinking this hard about family planning. Just sayin.


I support full funding of education through at least grade 12 (and not what currently passes for K through 12 education, but that is clearly a separate post-- though I suppose not really, now that I think about it... Hmmm... more momentarily on that*) as well.


* okay, the reason why I think maybe this ISN'T an entirely separate issue is that the entire reason for subsidies is that the product being subsidized is a "premium" one not available at a price-point that the consumer could pay, and that the service is essential to that consumer.

So, for example, a private school that offers something that the public school can't. Or doesn't. Like-- gifted programming, or programs for autistic teens or classes conducted in ASL or something like that....

or...

higher QUALITY education than a public school provides.


Hmm. Well, I'm not a fan of vouchers, but that kind of subsidization is effectively a voucher system, isn't it?

Hmmmmm.... not sure where I'm going with this line of thinking, but it's interesting to me to think about the natural conclusions of that...

A prodigy needs specialized opportunities, right? So societally, it would be in everyone's best interests to subsidize that special educational setting, I think. If only we knew some way to sort them into "this child NEEDS that environment," as opposed to "this PARENT needs to feel extra-special" and just give very large trophies to the latter and tuition checks to the former, eh?

How about free public education through to the age of eighteen and throw grade levels out the window. You run out of high school material and the state foots the bill for state college education. Equal promise, bonus returns. Of course the state may decide to enact harsh rules on grade skipping.

Thank you for sharing these success stories, it is always great to hear of parents working together to create opportunities for gifted kids, prodigies, and those wanting enrichment.

Everything has a cost. Whether families freely donate, or an institution charges a fee, or public taxes pay the bill. Hopefully in each case the effort provides hope, encourages motivation, and rewards all who strive to be their best and in turn feel inspired to help others in some way.

There is good and bad in everything. Even plans fueled by generosity of spirit, love of fellow man, and best intentions can go awry. Here is an article which provides background related to the economics of paying the bill: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lfare-state-created-age-entitlement.html

Possibly we need more gifted and prodigious economists and philosophers to help forge optimal policies?

To address the topic of the thread directly (highly gifted vs prodigy...how to tell the difference), this article from the Davidson Database may be of interest: Child prodigies: a distinctive form of giftedness.

Hello everyone - please keep this thread on topic. I've had to delete a few posts that veered in different directions.

Mark

Also the OP never came back to even read any responses.

We have little money. Ds6 does well - he is tall and sting and pg. He can be argumentative and ornery but he cares what the teacher thinks of him. I am supportive and have a good education. Ds4 is also probably at least hg. He will do what he feels like doing and ignore the rest. He doesn't really care what people think if him (or just assumes everyone thinks he is great), he won't answer questions to impress people, he won't do anything he has decided against and he is not quiet about. He will probably only do well when the subject interests him or he likes the teacher. The rest of the time he will be annoying the hell out of everyone else.