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The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

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Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#81

Post by danenania »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #75
danenania wrote: post #70

Being a new dad, this is something I've begun thinking a lot about. Reading about CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy) has shed some light on this issue for me. I think the core problem is when a child is taught that their value to the family and to society is based on extrinsic rather than intrinsic factors. If you are made to believe that you are valuable as a human because you are x, y, or z subjective determination…

You will resonate with Aktie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting which cites a lot of research confirming the long term futility and harm of extrinsic pressures encoded in common parenting practices and educational institutions.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#82

Post by thih9 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7
torstenvl wrote: post #2

It's hard to identify the thesis here. Is the thesis that intelligence is a myth? If so, the post provides precious little evidence in support. Is it that smart children are overburdened by expectations and anxiety? If so, the "evidence" is a set of personal anecdotes and hyperbolic generalizations. It is, quite simply, not factual that teenagers are made to study 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. If that occurred,…

She's a single mom who has a son. It doesn't seem to me that she has an understanding of how much more picky females are than males when it comes to sexual selection. Her son needs to compete hard in his life, whether she likes it or not.

To me this comment looks unrelated and lacks proper sources.

What does sexual selection has to do with this article?

How do you define „picky” in this context? Do you have sources on females being more picky?

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#83

Post by danenania »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #78
danenania wrote: post #70

Being a new dad, this is something I've begun thinking a lot about. Reading about CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy) has shed some light on this issue for me. I think the core problem is when a child is taught that their value to the family and to society is based on extrinsic rather than intrinsic factors. If you are made to believe that you are valuable as a human because you are x, y, or z subjective determination…

> This doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to do great things or encourage our children to do the same if they're inspired to. But before that, we need to learn to be satisfied with a simple life just existing in the world as ourselves without any extraordinary achievements. Amazingly put. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, I’m of two minds on this) I’m convinced this is a feature rather than a bug of American…

It's a complex question to be sure, but I do think we'd be better off without this unhealthy form of motivation. I think whatever we might lose in sheer GDP output, we'd gain many times more in quality of life and reduction of negative externalities.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#85

Post by erikpukinskis »

ralusek wrote: post #52
renlo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for argument’s sake, my opinion is that intelligence is a kind of social construct. What we view as “intelligence” is the manifestation of traits that are important for our current society to function. i.e, we value bridges, so the traits of bridge builders are viewed as positive traits, which we call “intelligence”. In other environments these traits might not be seen as intelligent. For example, from what I’ve…

Our definition of intelligence continues to refine itself to be a highly generalizable aptitude for certain abstract skills. Your example of equating intelligence with wealth or bridge building is not even close to how intelligence is measured. It will be measured in dimensions like long term memory, working memory, pattern recognition, rotation of visual space, strategy/problem solving. And these abilities invariabl…

Our definition of intelligence comes from a set of measures which were calibrated to correlate with measures of success. Success is by definition a measure of societal “fit” and so the whole program is by definition socially constructed.

Doesn’t mean it’s not “real”. But I also would not say it’s “abstract” in any meaningful sense. It’s certainly not derived from first principles, nor do we have any kind of theoretical model of intelligence that’s good enough to construct measures around.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#86

Post by solidasparagus »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #19
nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

> And more importantly, the fact that I believed it meant that I was able to operate free of insecurities or imposter syndrome that so many of my peers faced. How the heck did you convince yourself to believe it? As a "gifted" kid, what I learned very quickly was that adults will happily exaggerate minor talents (which one acquires primarily through just spending time on them, a task made markedly easier when everybo…

If you are consistently more successful than your peers at school while doing less work, it's pretty easy for a kid to believe they're gifted when everyone is telling them that they are.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#87

Post by redis_mlc »

For those readers who don't have kids ...

It's very important to not say three things to kids:

- "You're my favorite" - this is incredibly corrosive to relationships between siblings, and lasts forever.

- "You're so smart"- when you say this, you're telling the child that they have an intrinsic gift that replaces having to work hard. Just say, "Good job." or "How can you improve it next time?"

- "You's so pretty." - when you say this, you're telling the child that they have an intrinsic gift, and are above working hard on relationships or a career.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#88

Post by detaro »

redis_mlc wrote: post #87

For those readers who don't have kids ... It's very important to not say three things to kids: - "You're my favorite" - this is incredibly corrosive to relationships between siblings, and lasts forever. - "You're so smart"- when you say this, you're telling the child that they have an intrinsic gift that replaces having to work hard. Just say, "Good job." or "How can you improve it next time?" - "You's so pretty." -…

Acknowledging someone has an intrinsic gift is not the same as telling them it's a replacement for work. (By all means, make sure they know it's not!)

It's also fairly silly to assume if you don't tell your kid it won't notice it has these gifts, rather it will notice that you never acknowledge this.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#89

Post by frankbreetz »

I struggle with this. On one hand I want my children to be who they want and not be burnt out when they are 20,on the other hand too many children are never challenged and give up too easy. I went to a college prep high school and graduated in the middle of the pack, but it was quite challenging and I didn't enjoy it. But, in college there were quite a few valedictorians who clearly just coasted through high school, they mostly went to under funded public high schools. I feel these children were done a disservice. Does anyone have any advice on how to teach self discipline without having your child resent it?

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#90

Post by dang »

xiphias2 wrote: post #7
torstenvl wrote: post #2

It's hard to identify the thesis here. Is the thesis that intelligence is a myth? If so, the post provides precious little evidence in support. Is it that smart children are overburdened by expectations and anxiety? If so, the "evidence" is a set of personal anecdotes and hyperbolic generalizations. It is, quite simply, not factual that teenagers are made to study 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. If that occurred,…

She's a single mom who has a son. It doesn't seem to me that she has an understanding of how much more picky females are than males when it comes to sexual selection. Her son needs to compete hard in his life, whether she likes it or not.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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