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The Trouble with Bright Kids

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Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#21

Post by chunky1994 »

bane wrote: post #15
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. applies to you, you need to tell someone, if you haven't already.

Absolutely. No matter how bad it seems right now . It gets better. Don't ever give up, no matter how trapped you feel. Feel like the entire Ocean is over your head and drowning? Just wait a bit. Even the tides fall to the moon. Talk to someone. But just as important, don't give up. There's very few things you can get yourself into that you can't work your way out of. I'm thinking of particularly recent cases like poo…

But what I do rather than giving up is just sink into my own world, and if that's not destructive, I don't know what is. I just feel depressed, and then end up feeling that I should be stronger and I'm weak because I'm depressed, which just makes me even more miserable.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#22

Post by lupatus »

bane wrote: post #15
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. applies to you, you need to tell someone, if you haven't already.

Absolutely. No matter how bad it seems right now . It gets better. Don't ever give up, no matter how trapped you feel. Feel like the entire Ocean is over your head and drowning? Just wait a bit. Even the tides fall to the moon. Talk to someone. But just as important, don't give up. There's very few things you can get yourself into that you can't work your way out of. I'm thinking of particularly recent cases like poo…

I'm similar too, except that my father drilled a work ethic in me. I also grew up in a very rural area. So, my father would give me projects that HAD to get done. Some examples: "If you don't split this firewood, we won't be able to heat the house in the Wintertime." "If you don't clean these ditches, now in the Fall, then the Spring snowmelt will wash-out our driveway." "If you don't carry buckets of water to the house this morning, we won't have any to use the rest of the day."

Because of these tasks, I developed a "can-do" attitude. I learnt that if I can figure out how the most efficient way to split firewood, than I can also discover the most efficient way to be fit / be attractive / get high-paying jobs / etc. It just takes cleverness and determination to get out of a bad situation.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#23

Post by nod »

chunky1994 wrote: post #18
nod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chunky, do you have a role model? A mentor? Whether a PG-type or someone successful in some other dimension, I'd encourage, nay, exhort you, to find and talk with a mentor who can tell you about the world that awaits your beyond your "beach of dreams" and current educational straight-jacket. Please, please don't assume that your smarts are all you need to see your future from your current vantage point. Many have wal…

Indeed there is, but even when I do talk to that person, it's seems to just highlight the fact that I'm stuck in a place I don't want to be, and though I want to get out of it, there's no conceivable way to do so. There' so little time to do anything, and this year's going to decide my future. It's really hard to not think of it like a noose around your neck, and whenever I do think about it, I keep wondering whether…

Different people are different distances and difficulties away from their ideal life, but the only way you're really stuck is if you give up. "this year's going to decide my future" is not true. Well, aside from the tautology that every year, every moment decides your future. The noose is a mirage, just as much as the resume/admissions game is. Play the game or don't - but don't let it bind you.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#24

Post by aik »

bane wrote: post #8

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school. Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade. -…

So the question then is -- did you really often not try because you didn't care, or specifically because you were secretly (even to yourself) afraid of making a mistake and thus disproving everyone's beliefs about you being smart (being afraid of letting people down, or not living up to the expectations of others)?

This is exactly what happened to me. I often was thought of as smart, (though still to this day I don't know why), but nonetheless it affected me and led me to avoid certain challenges. To think that it was all a result of a belief in a "fixed/unchangeable intelligence/personality/self", as opposed to the opposite, is both incredibly enlightening and exciting and very frustrating that I allowed myself to form the mindset in the first place.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#26

Post by yeison »

bane wrote: post #14
chunky1994 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

It sounds hopelessly stupid, but it saved me. I'm one of the few percentage of the population that can frisson to certain works of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson When I was sitting there, knife to my wrist, the thought of all of the music that I would miss, that I wouldn't discover or be able to frisson to (I didn't know what it was called at the time and only learned what it was decades later, but I kne…

Here I was thinking frissoning to music was completely common. Except I never really stopped to wonder whether there was a word for that.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#27

Post by chunky1994 »

nod wrote: post #23
chunky1994 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed there is, but even when I do talk to that person, it's seems to just highlight the fact that I'm stuck in a place I don't want to be, and though I want to get out of it, there's no conceivable way to do so. There' so little time to do anything, and this year's going to decide my future. It's really hard to not think of it like a noose around your neck, and whenever I do think about it, I keep wondering whether…

Different people are different distances and difficulties away from their ideal life, but the only way you're really stuck is if you give up. "this year's going to decide my future" is not true. Well, aside from the tautology that every year, every moment decides your future. The noose is a mirage, just as much as the resume/admissions game is. Play the game or don't - but don't let it bind you.

When you put it that way, it sounds much better. But what happens if you don't play the game?

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#28

Post by wahnfrieden »

bane wrote: post #14
chunky1994 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, this sounds so much like me! Although I'm not always miserable, only I'd always done well in school except for the last two years when everything just got very, very boring. I graduate this year, and everything you've said in: > At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut o…

It sounds hopelessly stupid, but it saved me. I'm one of the few percentage of the population that can frisson to certain works of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson When I was sitting there, knife to my wrist, the thought of all of the music that I would miss, that I wouldn't discover or be able to frisson to (I didn't know what it was called at the time and only learned what it was decades later, but I kne…

I had no idea frissoning was a unique thing. How repeatable is it for you? I've felt it countless times from music or moments in film or life in general when I experience something that is particularly profound or impressive on a visceral level. It's not a daily occurrence though. I've usually attributed it to the feeling of getting a surge of adrenaline. Interesting.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#29

Post by nl »

chunky1994 wrote: post #19
bane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds hopelessly stupid, but it saved me. I'm one of the few percentage of the population that can frisson to certain works of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson When I was sitting there, knife to my wrist, the thought of all of the music that I would miss, that I wouldn't discover or be able to frisson to (I didn't know what it was called at the time and only learned what it was decades later, but I kne…

> Why did I do so poorly in school despite the tests? It was probably the tests. I was told I was so smart so many times that the effect mentioned in this article seems particularly germane. I didn't work hard, so I didn't do well, but I tested high, so I thought the system was broken, not me. I was already smart, so I didn't need that fact positively reinforced, but I did need instances of hard work reinforced. I ha…

how did you get around that

Get around what exactly? I don't think he is saying he got around anything - just that he dropped things he didn't like.

If I know that then I certainly wouldn't be this depressed

It probably doesn't sound useful, but there probably isn't a single simple answer to how. BUT - more usefully, there are simple answers to when. Things will get awesome in somewhere between 1 and 3 years - as soon as you find fulfilling things to do, with people who get you. This will happen. It will take longer than you would like, or seems reasonable, or be easy, but it is achievable.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#30

Post by aik »

Jach wrote: post #7

The general idea here, "praise effort, not smartness", is pretty well backed by the research, I came across a similar study some years ago and they keep popping up. (Maybe it was the same one?) It's definitely made it into my mental catalog of parenting techniques should I ever have kids. It also reflects my own personal experiences I think a lot of above-average-in-something people go through: at some point in their…

I'm fairly sure it was the same (or a similar) study done by Carol Dweck. She's the mastermind behind the effort/fixed mindset theory.

Concerning Feynman -- that is very interesting. My belief is that although the brain is massively flexible/plastic later in life, how your time is spent during the "formative" years does have a massive influence on what your brain will be particularly skilled at as you get older (though again, it can be changed to a good degree, it just takes a lot of effort). And, how your time is spent during the formative years is largely guided by your own natural inclinations/interests and hence what you naturally focus on, both in the external world and internally. If it was possible to significantly influence/alter what a child tends to care about, what they tend to focus on or spend their time on, and what they tend to think about throughout the days -- their brain will develop in a significantly different way and the child will end up with different core abilities. I don't know how much one can affect a child's natural instincts however.

Thoughts?

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