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How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#31

Post by lacampbell »

pcarolan wrote: post #16
aleem wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From one of the comments on the article > Backing off will no more produce a creative genius than pushing your child. Neither strategy makes the slightest difference to what is essentially an autonomous process. Beethoven's father did not back off. And Lars von Trier's parents left him to his own devices. Both are geniuses and both hated their childhood. > My guess is that most parents who follow Adam Grant's spuriou…

Good point about Feynman. The only thing I've found to work is trying everything until something starts to work. Of course, you start with the books to get ideas for what to try next. Ive got one of those kids that bounces off the walls. The older I get though the less I care. Some kids just can't sit still. Kids are society's problem and when we don't build spaces for them to be kids, its gonna happen.

Kids are society's problem

Did you consider consulting society first before foisting such a responsibility on us?

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#32

Post by SamReidHughes »

kiyanwang wrote: post #15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r#E... I remember reading some of László Polgár work after becoming interested in how he raised three daughters, two became chess prodigies, the third a concert musician. He posited that "that any child has the innate capacity to become a genius in any chosen field, as long as education starts before their third birthday and they begin to specialise at six". Th…

At least it works if your kid has the genes of a parent with the patience to read through 400 biographies.

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#33

Post by deepnotderp »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #3

My personal theory on this is twofold: 1.) High achievers are used to pushing at things to win. Creativity is like a garden - you have to do some tending, but then you have to back off and let the plants grow. Fiddling doesn't help, in fact you're liable to end up killing the plants. 2.) Smart people actually learn too fast. Creativity requires very broad neural connectivity, and I think fast learning tends to produc…

Repeat after me:

Artificial Neural Networks/DL =! Biological Neural Networks

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#34

Post by bane »

padobson wrote: post #9

The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule. I grew up in a household where compliance to parental authority was the prevailing rule. This made me fairly compliant as an adult (which opens you up for exploitation by peers and authority figures), but this wasn't too difficult to…

There's a kind of debate forming on individuals deriving good behavior from core moral principals vs good behavior being externally supplied by some kind of punitive framework. It seems that in cases where the behavior parameters are externally supplied, a person may not have developed any ability to figure out what to do when circumstances change outside of the parameters that were set for them. Whereas when people are taught principals and taught to derive behavior from those principals, they simply don't need lots of rules (if the principals are good ones I suppose), and in many cases will reject rules that seem arbitrary and not useful.

I think it then follows, if this turns out to be the case, that people who are raised in rule "free" environments learn more independent thought and reasoning and more creativity than people who are raised in highly restrictive environments where their internal thought processes may be less developed, and their tasking and behavior needs to be externally supplied.

However, I think this is a very difficult idea to use for child rearing. The balance and thought that needs to go into teaching good principals is much harder than simply making a list of rules. In the worst case, a child will get neither.

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#35

Post by pcarolan »

xherberta wrote: post #30
pcarolan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point about Feynman. The only thing I've found to work is trying everything until something starts to work. Of course, you start with the books to get ideas for what to try next. Ive got one of those kids that bounces off the walls. The older I get though the less I care. Some kids just can't sit still. Kids are society's problem and when we don't build spaces for them to be kids, its gonna happen.

> Kids are society's problem Respectfully, I'm sad for children whose parents think society is going to look out for them. Every kid deserves a couple of people who take personal responsibility for their behavior and well-being. I have a pretty high tolerance for kids being bouncy and boisterous, but it's always nice to see parents giving the sort of information that helps them become considerate:("Look, that woman's…

I wasn't making the point that society was in charge of my kids, rather that society needs to be tolerant of kids nature and adapt to it to some degree. I can get my kid to sit still, but its not his natural state so I don't often do it. I am glad that there are places you can take your kid to join and indoctrinate them into cultures you want to identify with. I am glad there are options. I would not choose french civility. I would probably more want my kid to eat a big burger with his hands and get ketchup all over his face at an outdoor bbq. God bless choices.

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#36

Post by cardamomo »

hellofunk wrote: post #6

> The gifted learn to play magnificent Mozart melodies, but rarely compose their own original scores. Performing music and writing music are really very different art forms. I'm surprised this NY Times author has conflated the two. Writing music is not the next step after learning to play music.

Within the Western classical music academy, these indeed are currently quite separate. That is not universal to all musical traditions.

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#37

Post by lacampbell »

FussyZeus wrote: post #28
aleem wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From one of the comments on the article > Backing off will no more produce a creative genius than pushing your child. Neither strategy makes the slightest difference to what is essentially an autonomous process. Beethoven's father did not back off. And Lars von Trier's parents left him to his own devices. Both are geniuses and both hated their childhood. > My guess is that most parents who follow Adam Grant's spuriou…

> But guess what, a large proportion of the remaining brats will be all attitude and no skill while the drones will at least become doctors and corporate lawyers. By using creativity as the ultimate-and perhaps only-benchmark, Mr. Grant falls into the same trap as the Tiger Moms he so despises. I guess fuck all the parents who think their kids deserve more than an economically-optimized future? Seriously with the fut…

Seriously with the future of humans doing work so utterly in question right now

I 100% don't buy this narrative at all. I don't know who started it, but something about it makes me reach for a tinfoil hat.

The general historical trend has been towards automation but I still don't see any massive change in the horizon.

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#38

Post by liquidise »

luckyt wrote: post #2

> just eight have won Nobel Prizes You pick 2000 teenagers, and 8 go on to win a Nobel Prize, and you're still not satisfied? High expectations much...

That means 1 in 250 go on to win a Nobel Prize. An absurd rate.

I'd bet money that the only group to perform better over the same timeframe is the list Nobel Prize winners themselves.

Edit: I stand corrected. Solvay Conference had 15/29 one year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference#Fifth_Confer...

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#39

Post by lacampbell »

padobson wrote: post #9

The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule. I grew up in a household where compliance to parental authority was the prevailing rule. This made me fairly compliant as an adult (which opens you up for exploitation by peers and authority figures), but this wasn't too difficult to…

And while our lax rules have certainly inspired creativity and fed into her individuality, it hasn't done a great deal to build work ethic. I'm aware of the stereotype of parents believing their kids are lazy, so I'm open to being wrong here.

I think the work ethic thing has less to do with rules, and more to do with how you approach small adversities. For a lot of people, if something is hard it's not worth doing. I think kids pick up on that.

Is struggling with something difficult bad, or good?

Re: How to Raise a Creative Child – Step One: Back Off (2016)

#40

Post by FussyZeus »

lacampbell wrote: post #37
FussyZeus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But guess what, a large proportion of the remaining brats will be all attitude and no skill while the drones will at least become doctors and corporate lawyers. By using creativity as the ultimate-and perhaps only-benchmark, Mr. Grant falls into the same trap as the Tiger Moms he so despises. I guess fuck all the parents who think their kids deserve more than an economically-optimized future? Seriously with the fut…

Seriously with the future of humans doing work so utterly in question right now I 100% don't buy this narrative at all. I don't know who started it, but something about it makes me reach for a tinfoil hat. The general historical trend has been towards automation but I still don't see any massive change in the horizon.

Robots do better work without breaks, rest, coffee and in many cases without even occupying physical space. We're on the edge of automating driving, one of the most complex and demanding tasks humans do on a regular basis. The benefits for the companies are infinite: a completely docile workforce of robots that don't need anything but a steady flow of power. There is no reason to suspect any jobs are safe any more.

It's not a conspiracy, it's a cost/benefit chart that any responsible executive is going to be looking at.

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