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

I remember my parents trying to get me into advanced classes in sixth grade but the school rules said it needed to be done by third grade. I couldn't skip a year either, it was too late.

The second (harder) way into double advanced classes was to pass a test going into high school. That test contained math that only those already in advanced classes had been taught. I aced the reading portion, scoring at 11th grade reading level, but it wasn't enough.

The same year I was sponsored to be an exchange student to Europe but my family couldn't afford the plane tickets. A year later, bored out of my skull and disappointed, I gave up completely on public school.

I embraced mediocrity because I figured out I could get by with no real effort. I concentrated my creativity outside of school and learned more programming languages and electronics. I never got above a C average again until college.

Some teachers saw promise but I let them down because I didn't show up to class and was always in trouble. I knew I had missed the boat to the good classes that led to good scholarships and onto good colleges, and I was bitter and didn't give a shit anymore. To get into the caliber of school I dreamed about I would have needed more than just good grades in regular classes, and all the windows except sports closed before highschool even started.

There's been some articles about "lost diamonds", which may explain why smart people do better as a whole but the large majority still end up living average lives and doing nothing of note. I might not have been any smarter than average, but I definitely feel like I was one of those kids who the system left behind. I knew many others I considered smart that shared my company at the troublemaking fringe of highschool society, definitely a pile of wasted potential at the bottom.

My siblings and I had the same imperfect parenting, same resources, similar genetics, etc, and at the end of the day I was the one that went hardcore down creative pursuits during childhood. I could see a similar spark in my siblings, but for whatever reason they put their 10,000 hours elsewhere. It was only during college that one of my brothers picked up writing and the other picked up music. The potential (and opportunity!) was always there, but for whatever reason they didn't capitalize on it in childhood.

>Gifted children who have a noticeable head start and whose skill development begins remarkably early _do not_ usually end up being game changing professionals in their respective fields.

Really now?

>Developing a skill set early on leads to competence in what is learned but stumps creativity and chances of innovation.

So having an deep, innate, intuitive grasp of a certain set of knowledge, made possible by said early exposure and disciplined training, has nothing to do with genius and potential inventive achievement in later life? But rather, it only allows for uncreative competence in what is learned and practiced, that and only that?

Really?

Is this man serious? How does something like this even pass for an article? How much thinking goes into writing something like this? Christ almighty.

I love it because the very things that Mr. Grant here paints as inhibitory to creativity are exactly the essential components of creative genius! His information is not only incorrect, it is the exact opposite of how things do work in real life.

It's not a zero sum game. Both of aspects in question - Disciplined skill development as well as Creativity - are essential for intellectual success and are interdependent.

Structure, discipline, strong parent engagement and emphasis on learning and skill development, AS WELL AS creative undertakings, play, leisurely engagement, passionate tinkering / creation - both aspects are crucial.

In order to be able to create, the child has to imitate first. In order to fall in love with a pursuit, it has to be exposed to it first. And in order to be creatively successful in a pursuit, the child has to be very skilled in it first. And parents' intervention, guidance and support are very important in this regard.