Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Success factors

Well Wren, I certainly have one child that wants what she wants when she wants it, has since birth, and generally she is a force to be reckoned with.

I haven't traveled around the world or anything (though I really want to... we were going to Europe before I found out I was pregnant.)

But I've also wondered why I did things none of my peers did. (Like getting fairly far in my music career, which was my main goal as a teen.) and I decided it was just my willingness to try and persist. Isn't one of the characteristics of giftedness persistence?

I just found that when I got near the "top", already having self-discipline and being able to work hard to get better at something would have helped me a lot. I definitely haven't been influenced by any Puritan ideals, either. I've only my own experience to go by. The vast majority of people (at least that I've met) will quit something whenever it gets too rough.

If you can keep a child loving a challenge and working hard at something without them feeling like they "must be dumb" because they need to work at it, I'd say your child would have a huge advantage over a lot of other people.

(Just think of all the divorces, obesity, people who hate their jobs but don't want to do the initial work to start their own business, etc.)

Did self-discipline or the ability to work hard and not quit help you to be successful? Persistence and other things might show up with giftedness, but I don't think self-discipline and the willingness to work through difficulty are necessarily inborn traits. Someone with an average IQ could likely accomplish quite a lot if they had those traits.

I think extreme stubbornness is one hallmark of talent. So can be great flexibility.

This is making me think of the experiment with kids and marshmallows. Have we discussed this here before? Fascinating stuff. FTR, I did the experiment with my kid (intense, often difficult, VERY FOCUSED when she wants something) and she passed with flying colors.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

At one time I wanted to write a children's article on that psychologist. I must have the beginnings of that draft somewhere.

Willing to delay gratification is a good one but how many gifted people really apply that to their lives? Not all gifted people are well fit and healthy eaters as adults.

And I do not think persistence is linked to giftedness. I think it is nurtured. Just like discipline or being able to delay gratification.

Which means that being gifted is like a lucky break but in no measure guarantees any kind of success.

Thanks for all the input everyone.

Ren

The fact that something can be nurtured does not mean it is not linked to giftedness. If you'd like to explore the topic further, here are a couple of links:

http://www.google.com/#tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=("Persistence")+(gifted+OR+giftedness)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%28%22Persistence%22%29+%28gifted+OR+giftedness%29&nfpr=1

I did google persistence and gifted and did not see a "nature" link, it appeared to be nutured. In fact there were several things that came up and mentioned teaching persistence to gifted children.

Ren

It's not a "lucky break".

It's a feature of a particular person that provides a wider range of outcomes because the circle of potential is larger.

Some outcomes are much more positive or "successful".

Some outcomes are much more negative. See World History for further details.

When very young children show persistence as a trait, it's probably at least part of their nature. Again, the fact that you can find a reference to something being taught does not mean that there is no link to giftedness; there are scads of references, some of which come up in those starter searches, showing that there are indeed links between persistence and giftedness.

A sample that literally took me less than five seconds to pull up, from one of the starting links I gave you:
http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/31/2/70.short
"Gifted students showed more persistence in regard to the difficult task than EMR students and also chose more often to repeat the difficult task."