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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)

#61

Post by psyc »

nostrebored wrote: post #4
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…

Using neural networks as a machine learning concept to explain actual concepts in Neuroscience is a huge overstep. People have always thought the most advanced technology can be analogous to cognition, see steam engines and clocks.

And those were progressively better analogies. These are great terms to think in, and it's not an overstep. It doesn't have to be absolutely true to be very useful for understanding.

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

#62

Post by justinjlynn »

blackkettle wrote: post #7

> In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet “only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators,” laments the psychologist Ellen Winner. Why on earth is that something to 'lament'?

I think their point is that, for some reason, it is lamentable that they did not fulfill the whole of their potential. Whether or not that is lamentable is its own argument. The privilege exhibited by the talented who consciously do not use their potential is the ultimate insult to those who are not given the opportunity - not only is it in no way controllable by humanity, it can in no way be granted by any kind of affirmative action. I imagine the lament is probably sourced there somehow.

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

#63

Post by replicatorblog »

In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators.

My daughter is being treated for Leukemia by some amazing doctors at Boston Children's Hospital. To my knowledge, none of the health care professionals at this world-class institution have won Nobel Prizes in medicine. All the same, for my daughter's sake, I'm still glad they hit the books for a couple decades.

There are great honor and value in doing an important job consistently and well. This idea that a life is wasted if you don't remake a field in your image seems hollow when these prodigies often end up with the power to save lives.

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

#64

Post by gabrielgoh »

ucontrol wrote: post #59

A dull article ridden with blatantly false claims and oversimplification of an otherwise complicated topic. >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 inn…

All I see here are your opinions, while the article has numerous citations and data to back up its claims.

The reason why the article is interesting is because it goes against the common wisdom "you need to know the rules to break em", and backs its claim up with peer-reviewed science. And while you may find the findings unpalatable, isn't this how progress is made?

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

#65

Post by sjg007 »

jacobolus wrote: post #18
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…

My son is only 8 months old, so we’ll see how it goes, but my intention is to give him lots of freedom to define what he wants to learn about and work on, but then help provide lots of structure and support for actually doing the work, and making sure it gets pushed all the way to a quasi-finished state. The thing I was most disappointed about in my own schooling was that I got very little support or time to do serio…

I have a question, did you ask for or seek out mentors?

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

#66

Post by replicatorblog »

Tiger Woods and Serena and Venus Williams are arguably the most iconic players in their sports in the last two decades and both are famous for overbearing fathers who forced them to practice from the time they could hold clubs and racquets.

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

#67

Post by haimez »

replicatorblog wrote: post #66

Tiger Woods and Serena and Venus Williams are arguably the most iconic players in their sports in the last two decades and both are famous for overbearing fathers who forced them to practice from the time they could hold clubs and racquets.

They're also famous as athletes and not creatives.

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

#68

Post by sanswork »

replicatorblog wrote: post #66

Tiger Woods and Serena and Venus Williams are arguably the most iconic players in their sports in the last two decades and both are famous for overbearing fathers who forced them to practice from the time they could hold clubs and racquets.

And on the other end you have Todd Marinovich.

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

#69

Post by Jimmy »

ucontrol wrote: post #59

A dull article ridden with blatantly false claims and oversimplification of an otherwise complicated topic. >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 inn…

>>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?

Um, yes? Are you challenging the article's claim here? Depending on how strictly we're defining "game changing", only a small handful of people, even those who were "gifted" as children, ever accomplish anything really notable.

You can look at this [1] followup of "mathematically precocious" youth, for example. Around 10% ended up tenured at a top-50 university or became CEO of a Fortune 500 company. It is unlikely that anyone in the other ~90% is doing anything "game changing". Not even everyone in that 10% group is doing something "game changing".

[1] https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/01/Article-PS-Lubi...

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

#70

Post by cmdrfred »

lacampbell wrote: post #31
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 Did you consider consulting society first before foisting such a responsibility on us?

I don't see too many dads at sporting events proclaiming "that's societies boy!"
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