Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Success factors

When my daughter was a baby (in the age 1 range), she found a duck puzzle in the toy box. You had to fit four pieces together to make the duck. She sat down with it and struggled to put it together. Some people here may have observed that the idea of turning a puzzle piece to make it fit isn't always obvious to a young child, and many (most?) kids have to learn how to do this. She was getting stuck on this point. I didn't help her --- we used to call her "By-myself baby."

Anyway, she was struggling to do the puzzle for a while. It got to a point where I was worrying that she was going to throw it across the floor and start crying. Instead, she kept at it quietly and eventually put it together. I breathed a sigh of relief, happy that it was done.

Then. . .she dumped it out onto the floor and started all over again. She did that puzzle again and again until it was trivial for her.

You can't teach a baby to be persistent in this kind of situation. This was 100% internal drive. She continues to display this trait to this day (she's nearly 7). It doesn't surface in every situation, but when it does, she really tries. We encourage her, but the drive primarily comes from her. So in her case, there is way more nature at work. (YMMV)

Val, my daughter is also very much like that. More so than her intelligence, I think this is the trait that is going to get her places. It astounds me to watch because, frankly, I am not like that and neither is my husband. It's really rather beautiful (and at the same time, this intense persistence makes her a major challenge to parent). It's also a big part of why we moved her to a gifted school. She isn't just smart. A lot of kids in our circle are smart. She is driven. It's especially humbling to watch when it applies to things at which she is not naturally good--riding her bike and learning to swim come to mind. These skills took her a WHILE, but goddamn it she was GOING to DO it. She would cry and rage but she would get back on that bike.

My son is probably more driven than the average bear, too, but definitely not like she is, and I wonder how it will all play out.

I think persistence is a very important skill for children (and adults) to have. There are kids who are just very good at persisting in the face of failure, but that is a skill that can be developed and learned.
My husband and I both volunteered last year in my son's second grade public school- I did math and he did reading. (Our public school is ranked in the top 10% of California schools; high income, high-achieving). Several kids would say to us when we tried to get them to do the little worksheets or write sentences, "I can't do it." At one point, my husband sat down with this little boy and said, "yes, you can. You can write your name!" This went on for awhile, and usually the boy would do the work. We thought, as did the teacher, that this boy and several others weren't dumb; they just weren't able to hunker down and get it done.
Not surprisingly, I guess, that boy and the others who couldn't persist as the work got harder were invited to do voluntary summer school at our school. Some kids in the class were not any smarter, but they somehow had developed skills where they could persist until they got done what they needed to do.
I think having your child do sports or a musical instrument, for example, can be good ways for them to learn persistence in the face of failure. My son is hearing impaired and extremely bright- I have always told him that he might have to work harder than the other kids to keep up, if he doesn't hear at the same level, and he has been able to (usually!) do that.

I talk to my kids about learning to channel their stubbornness (I am still learning this skill, but I'm at least better than they are). My husband is pretty good at it.