Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Erdos and the coffee beans (or: what smart does)

The subject is a bit of a misnomer, I don't hactually have a story about Erdos and coffee beans, but DH tells stories about Paul Erdos and... lunch... that are pretty... mmm... sad. My dad also told stories about a "genius" he worked with who, sent to make coffee for the group was later found trying to melt whole beans in a saucepan etc. (All damage done was apparently fixable.) DH himself is not exactly immune to failures of common sence/common wisdom.

I am not quite that type. I may not be exactly competent, but for the most part I can do what I try to do, especially if it's a real-world skill, like, say, archery or ancient production techniques <cough, cough... ahem>. DS (2 & a month) made muffins a couple of days ago while I made dinner (Me: "here, this is a half-cup measure, you need three half cups of that" DS, gleefully: "Ooooooooohhhhhhhh!"). And he already knows how to make coffee (becasue I am a machine for turning coffee into mistakes), so I don't think he's headed for those sorts of problems. But his dad does have them, and I am fully capable of obsessing about a topic to the absolute exclusion of all else, so the genetics are there. I think maybe my outcome is alittlebetter than DH's, or maybe just my starting point,who knows?

But this got me thinking about the nature of intelligence. And the fostering of skill, which seems to me to be a handmaiden of intellegence.

And... exactly which skills one should foster. It would be very embarrasing, in a philosophical kind of way, to be the parent of the next Erdos, but spend so much time on how to fry an egg that he never discovered math. On the other hand it would be somewhat embarrasing to be the parent of the next Erdos & have to keep him fed because he can't fry an egg. And on the third hand, I want grandkids... which requires a certain ammount of common sense/wisdom. On the fourth hand, it would be very embarrasing to be the parent of the next erdos, have him blowing people away with his math sence, but failing to teach him to write, so that everyone's always chassing off for pencils and papers whenever he opens his mouth, or teaching him no languages so he can only ever work with people who speak hungarian. Not that my kids speak much Hungarian. The -6 month old, especially. but anyway.

Anyone got great and earth shattering ideas on ballance/bredth/persuit of passion to the exclusion of all else/etc? What's the price of admission to life? What do you simlply have to get in there?


-Mich (who needs to start thinking about summer plans

My, My, My. It certainly sounds as if your ds makes a delghtful cup of java, judging by the, Erm, rather enthusiastic tone of your post. . Where else can you be yourself? Likely you are everywhere you go no doubt. I'm off to make my list. BBL

I do not have to worry about grandkids. �One time we went to diner with a family we know. �Their late birthday three year old girl was sitting beside my late birthday three year old boy when her grandfather suggested the children make a cute couple and should get married when they grow up. �At least that's one less thing to worry about.
I want ask a question a little bit to one side of early development and nurturing talent. �Does a persons mind have fixed limits on how they can reallocate their mental resources or are the limits merely based on what they want out of life at the moment?
On the balance of fostering passion and exclusive passion I believe it depends entirely on what you believe.
Some people believe that it takes an entire lifetime of devotion from the very beginning to a self-selected passion to fully develop a certain kind of talent. �I know this because my computer lets me miraculously see what people I don't know are thinking�//^_^\\'. �Pure Bliss. �
I am not obsessed with helping my kid find their passion. �I wouldn't necessarily �support it properly because I believe he'll have many. �Here read this. �
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10685.aspx

K. It wasn't earth-shattering but I was personal and reflective. �I deserve an A for participation and a StRBux Frappicino Grande with 4 shots of expresso whipped cream and chocolate for getting an A.�

Michaela - I think your son might need to make the board a pot of coffee to get good answers to such big questions. My first thought reading the post was that learning some lifeskills isn't contrary to having great ideas or deep thoughts. Sometimes kids get the idea that they are one kind of person or another. They are smart or they are capable. Starting on some of these life skills early may make it more natural for kids to be competent.

As far as the list of skills I'd also include emotional and social skills (forming relationships, being a good friend, handling conflict, managing stress, etc.) Life skills (caring for health, budgeting, competence with basic housekeeping).

I sure hope a person does not have fixed limits on how they can re-allocate mental resources. I've never stuck with anything for more than 10 yrs. I have about 2 tracks going at any given time, occaisionally three (and then I burn out,) or only one (at which point I also burn out . I'll have to die aufully young if I don't get to keep adding/reinventing.

on One passion, developed from birth: I did once ascribe to that notion. I dropped it when I was about 12 and ended my first "phase." It was quite a life changing experience, and I replaced that obsession with religion. I needed religion to cope with the loss of the passion. BUT. Maybe, just maybe, I would have had to stick to that obsession in order to really become great. I have not become great, but in the process of raising DS I've been thrown back into that obsession a bit, and it's interesting how many times I've been told that I have to become the expert for him, that "you really have a handle on this," or that "actually there's supposed to be a paper comming out on that." Maybe, if I'd gone to medical school, I would somehow have become great. No-one will ever know. You just can't do a double-blind study on that kind of thing.

I think I want to help DS and D? find their passions. I think that if they find them early I'd like to support them to hold on... somebody tried with me, but it was already too late. But I don't think I want them to be too much like Erdos, I want them to have kids, spouses, hobbies, great diversions, and flights of the spirit (think Roman Holiday). I think those things are worth having. I want them to wake up on a sunny morning, and successfully cook themselves bacon and eggs and a perfect cup of coffee, and enjoy the breeze without thinking too hard about it.

And I don't want them to have to be *the best* to survive. I want them to be rounded enough to get by in the patent office as it were. Einstein must have worn socks back then, right? He *could* wear socks, he just chose not to when the option became available. DH tells the story of another mathematician he knew who was "probably almost" as good as Erdos, but who had to steal food at conferences to make ends meet.

I feel like my father, and to a lesser extent I, have gotten caught up in that problem, being not good enough to trade exclusivly on an extreeme skill, but not quite rounded enough to do ok as "normal" people. DH is good enough to trade on his extreeme skill, but partly that's because it's in a high-demand area. He might be very sunk if he were even 10 yrs younger than he is.

Which is why I kinda think making coffee/basic cooking is part of the "price of entry," and reading and writing, and probably some minimal degree of bilingualism, how to not get hit by cars, some basic history and geography (more of that than my school board thought necesary). I'm sure I have blinders on, though. What am I not seeing? The not getting hit by cars thing only came up because of something DH did that was very dangerous (that brought up this whole line of thinking), he was totally confused by my anger and I eventually realized he had no clue of any kind that what he did was STUPID.

It's all very complicated. I want my kids to have that shot at the stars, if it's a posibility for them. The support to stick to a single great passion if they want to. I want them to be able to flip flop and reconsider and reinvent themselves. I want them to have it all... which is where the question of ballance comes in.

-Mich

Howler Karma, I hate to bother. �But could u come tell us the story of multipotentiality? �((sitting quietly on the rug for circle time))

Ok. I been quiet as much as I can. �
I kind of want to give my babies the whole wide world.
Luckily they're small so at this point it's babysteps.


LoL. �I thought you said flip flop and recover.

Howler Karma we really could use your latest multipotentiality lecture since your kid's more at the crux of that path at this time, but we want to pre-worry about it right now. �Sheesh. �Mothers.�

It is complicated. �The self-care stuff was a given. �I definitely needed the boy to be able to eat food without choking, wash his butt, use a knife and fork, dress himself, pick up his own toys. �Now, though, there's a couple of parenting philosophies. �Should I let my kid do chores? �Some parents don't. �Some parents say your job is to be a kid, mine is to be the mother. �Some say chores are part of being a kid. �
�I don't interfere, translate, or hover when they talk to other people IRL although I ignore everything else that's going on to watch them I make it look like I'm not. �He's going to have to speak for himself his whole lifetime.�

My mother nags the heck out of me by how far I trust my kid. �She might be right. �We just followed our science class suggestion and put a grape sliced a certain way into the microwave, which makes a little flame. �Ok we did it several times. �Isn't that what they mean when they say play with your kids?

On the walk home today I added: basic exterior housekeeping -- basic yard work, some idea which direction the siding should run to keep the water out, how to tell if the pilot light is out.

There's a lot of overlap between basic SKILL and deep INTELLEGENCE... If you know how to think about gravity, you should be able to sort out which way the siding overlaps, right? Intellegence can't grow without data, can it?

-Mich.

Erdos was almost certainly on the autism spectrum. Lots of people on the autism spectrum don't end up even as moderately functional in life skills as Erdos did, and the overwhelming majority don't make the kinds of intellectual contributions that he did.

My hope and plan for my AS son certainly includes him being functionally independent, but that self-care list that someone else (La Texican?) posted didn't get completed until pretty late, and it involved accepting a certain amount of Velcro and elastic in clothing choices. While he has made great strides, it is by no means certain that DS won't need significant supports into young adulthood to navigate situations that most people find simple. If giving him those supports means that he can make great contributions because he isn't spending all of his mental energy figuring out how to make coffee by himself, fry an egg, and not set the kitchen on fire, I don't think that is such a bad thing.

We are working hard to give him the best neurological toolkit he can manage to acquire while trying to also make sure that he gets opportunities to work hard in passions that can take him far. It is one of the great challenges of life that saying yes to anything means saying no to all of the alternatives, and the hour that you spend here can't be spent any other way later on if you change your mind. Finding the balance is a never-ending task.

Mich,

I think the key stumbling point between intelligence, knowledge, and common sense is not not understanding the implications of gravity, but getting the idea that you should stop and think about the potential consequences of what you are about to do before you do it, and that you should stop to think about how to apply what you know in one context in a seemingly unrelated one. Executive function and motor planing play a huge role, too.

Oh dear... well, I'm here now.

But unfortunately, I have not had enough caffeine to understand the question. (or to spell/type, apparently)

<giggle>

In all seriousness, I think that what Aculady says above is correct; it's about executive function as much as it is training, I think.

There's no way to predict *every* situation that a functional, adult human being will encounter in their lives. Probably not even in a single week. LOL!

Quick-- what do you do when:

• you're being pulled over by what seems to be an unmarked police vehicle?
• you discover water about half an inch deep all through your kitchen?
• a new neighbor's strange dog is standing outside of your car and barking?
• a person you don't know asks you what time it is while you are riding the train home at night?

As adults, we mostly have the tools and life experience to evaluate each of those situations, create a short list of possible causes and possible actions that we can take, then rapidly evaluate the results of those decisions.

But those skills often don't develop well until one's mid 20's, and in those with particular deficits, there may be unfortunate 'holes' in one's competence for a lifetime.

We all know those people, right? They aren't all geniuses, for sure. I actually know an adult woman who called her landlord when a lightbulb burned out in her condominium. Not kidding. She simply had no idea how others handle such things, I guess.


ETA, just for La Tex: we're still working on the proper and THOROUGH application of shampoo in the DD. The discovery of boys is helping somewhat. I hear that self-care takes a large leap during adolescence, and it is mostly about discovering an interest in others in a romantic sense that seems to work the magic. LOL.