Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Opinion, nature or nuture

This is how I understand it also!

I think most folks agree that an optimal environment is necessary to achieve intelligence potential, which is inherited. What people disagree on is what that optimal environment is. I think the optimal environment is pretty bare-bones, i.e., a "good enough" environment, within which a person can develop at their own pace. Kids are smart in developing their smartness and messing with that by intense training in specific areas, while influencing brain development, doesn't change their overall functional intelligence IMHO. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - so perhaps messing with nature through training that is not self-initiated may cause another skill area to suffer. Then again, I could be completely wrong and my parents cost me several IQ points by not making sure I did those math workbooks they got for me...

LOL - after all the reading i've done after being informed that DS4 is HG+, I have certainly wondered if my IQ perhaps was decreased since my parents chose to ignore the fact that I was identified as gifted. But I sure had a happy childhood, so it all worked out!

I'm making up for lost time (posting maniac today). I think a meeting with our public school summed it up.

The school psychologist looked at the WSPPI and said "you know there is nothing you did - this is just who she is." Then, she turned the report page, looking at the WJ-III achievement results and said, "what were you doing with her."

I'm not a professional. Just "onion-ated" as my daughter once told me. But, I think we are all born with a certain potential. A certain style of parenting may help some hg kids shine and be recognized before others emerge (hoping all will emerge regardless of socio economic and parenting impacts).

Do you subscribe to the Duke TIP free newsletter? It's very good. One article from Spring 2008 pertinent to this thread is:

NURTURE THE NATURE: UNDERSTANDING AND SUPPORTING YOURCHILD'S UNIQUE CORE PERSONALITYby Michael Gurian and Dakota HoytContemporary science, especially genetics and brain research, shows usthat at least these seven aspects of our children (and ourselves) are morehard-wired, or inborn, than we may have realized.Read more>> http://www.dukegiftedletter.com/articles/vol8no3_ee.html

thanks cym. I found the article very interesting. Really liked the statement:

What if we turned off the electronics for a week and let each child be bored�what activities would our children gravitate toward?


Though I would like to try this without man-made toys too and see what she would do in nature for a week.

Ren

My kids would do just what they did today: wade in our rain-soaked creek and make total messes of themselves! The 4yo was dumping the water out of his boots as he stood in the mud in his stocking feet.

I'm no fan of electronics-zombies, but that does have its benefits to the one who does the laundry!!! :p

Bump.

Wow this thread has 326,000 views. What do we have here, like about 20 regular posters?
A good reason not to use real names when posting about children.

My Mom and MGM both went to college. The latter played pro-basketball during the 1920s and later ran a large business with her husband as the figurehead. Both were voracious readers and Feminists, but also romantics and deeply committed to their own personal freedom - my MGM loved to read Vanity Fair and Vogue even in her 80s. Both were neglectful mothers to a moderate degree, focusing on their personal interests and careers. My mother's siblings all got PHDs.

My dad had a perfect score in all of his military schools and had 100% availability on his airframes up to and including 20 craft. He left Vietnam with 5 Presidential Unit Citations. He managed the airframes used by NASA during the Lunar Missions. He can fix anything ever made. He never went to college and frowns on "too much book reading"!

My sister, bless her heart, is a rock. She has a great memory and is gifted athletically, but she cannot think long-term and books do not interest her. My sister's kids are all bright, but my sister is a bit of a neglectful mother.

One nephew is astonishingly capable at games. By his fifth chess match with me when he was 9 I had to work to beat him - he thinks many, many moves ahead. He beat his older siblings at Chinese Checkers using multiple jumps on his first game. Now that the kids are becoming independent, all four are reading a lot. But I think my sister's mothering or lack thereof has reduced their abilities from what they could be.

My wife and her dad have photographic memories. The FIL has the entire parts catalog for Ford memorized. My wife can recall verbatim any conversation she has. She won numerous school-district wide competitions when she was in middle school and she can beat ME at any videogame made. She made it all the way to end of Age of Empires a week after buying it. No one can follow her when she works in excel.

Nurture? My mom pretty much let me do what I wanted and took me to the library when I prodded. She rarely set limits on what I could or could not do. She had tons of books around on all subjects as did my MGM. I saw them read all the time.

My dad almost never read. My brothers who lived with my dad of a different wife are all successful at their fields and good men (and great dads - like their dad ) - one took to reading deeply in his 20s. Another is very good at video games and is a phenomenal welder. A third made partner at his firm. Their kids are all advanced physically - walking and running by age 1. One child is very, very good at videogames. I see no deep love of books in any of them, but its not like they are buried in books.

I had a deep burning desire to LEARN for as long as I can recall. I felt stymied and suffocated at my dad's, but I also felt loved and listened to, but with my mom amd MGM, I had tons of books and they would take me to events and places, but they also had their own interests - and this pushed me back to learning on my own.

We talk about nurture vs genetics - there is also one other property - that of positive or negative feedback. Its not enough to provide books or a loving environment. There has to be a dynamic between the parent and the child and the teacher and the world that raises the child's energy level and keeps it there - something that emerges from the interaction of these entities.

I have to admit, statements like this make me very nervous.

Certainly it is possible to neglect one's kids out of selfishness. From what you've told us elsewhere, it sounds like you were the victim of neglect, and that's certainly not okay. But this statement makes it sound like the only way for women *NOT* to neglect their kids is to give up all "personal interests and careers." (Men seem exempt.)

I'm hoping that's not how you meant it, but the sound of it does get my feminist hackles up!

I think it's pretty clear that happy, fulfilled parents (not hedonists, but people who feel they have meaning in their lives) generally make better parents. Certainly parents (male and female!) who bring kids into the world have a responsibility to those kids. Neglect is not okay. But plenty of stay-at-home moms neglect their kids, too. One can read Vogue or have a career or be deeply committed to personal freedom and not neglect one's children. I have my own interests--as does everyone here that I've talked to!--but I love and care for my kids, too.

Again, I think it's clear that your case was, indeed, one of neglect. But I don't want the particulars of that one case to get overgeneralized inappropriately. And I couldn't call myself a feminist in good conscience if I didn't say something about it.

Thanks!