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The Trouble with Bright Kids

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Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#51

Post by itmag »

cletus wrote: post #40

Like others who have posted here, I have s story similar to this. By the sounds of it, I wouldn't call myself as "gifted" as some who have posted here but, relative to the environment I was in, I was "gifted". I grew up in three small towns. For the first 9 years, in a town of less than 1,000 where the 3rd and 4th grades (for example) were in the same class. When I was 8 I was doing the same work as the 7th graders w…

That's interesting. So what you're saying is basically that if a kid is smart then he will be smart even without verbal acknowledgement of it. So it's better to keep hammering "you're really disciplined!" because then the kid will be smart AND disciplined. The latter of which is a learned trait, as opposed to raw smarts.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#53

Post by itmag »

Many commenters here mention that they were/are really bright but also undisciplined and miserable. This underlines something I've been thinking about a lot: that cognitive style accounts for a big chunk of life's success.

Think of the dumb-as-pigshit ladies' man or the happy-as-a-clam soccer mom who has life all figured out or the salesman who pulls in a ton of cash because he's really driven and doesn't give a fuck about rejection. Then think of the miserable yet brilliant nerd languishing in some dank cave of an apartment because he can't figure life out. Forever Alone...

Then again, if the bright people could learn to adopt better cognitive styles, then they would be unstoppable. Smart people should be winning at life, not dwelling in the shadows as a kind of misunderstood race who push society's technological progress along yet never reap the benefits in terms of happiness.

What are some cognitive styles you wish you had?

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#54

Post by itmag »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #34
wahnfrieden wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't repeat it much. I don't go chasing after it; I let it find me. It isn't something you can conjure up over and over. You feel like you are in contact with beauty itself, and then you are forever changed. The experience is fleeting, but I remain grateful for it when it happens. In my case I found it in some music that I found at the exact right moment in my life and it served as a sort of pivot point to open my…

Sounds like a mystical experience. Maybe something to look into?

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#55

Post by pyre »

itmag wrote: post #51
cletus wrote: post #40

Like others who have posted here, I have s story similar to this. By the sounds of it, I wouldn't call myself as "gifted" as some who have posted here but, relative to the environment I was in, I was "gifted". I grew up in three small towns. For the first 9 years, in a town of less than 1,000 where the 3rd and 4th grades (for example) were in the same class. When I was 8 I was doing the same work as the 7th graders w…

That's interesting. So what you're saying is basically that if a kid is smart then he will be smart even without verbal acknowledgement of it. So it's better to keep hammering "you're really disciplined!" because then the kid will be smart AND disciplined. The latter of which is a learned trait, as opposed to raw smarts.

  > So what you're saying is basically that if a kid is
  > smart then he will be smart even without verbal
  > acknowledgement of it
You basically want to pour all of the positive feedback into the tools that will help the child in the future. No matter how 'smart' the child is, they will need to learn discipline, study skills, etc.

Even if the child has a natural knack for picking things up quickly, that won't always be the case. Those sort of abilities tend to plateau after high school, which can make university a challenge.

It's possible that you could get away with calling your child smart, so long as you worked to instill the idea that the only way to 'stay smart' is through hard work and discipline.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#56

Post by sliverstorm »

mcobrien wrote: post #47
cletus wrote: post #40

Like others who have posted here, I have s story similar to this. By the sounds of it, I wouldn't call myself as "gifted" as some who have posted here but, relative to the environment I was in, I was "gifted". I grew up in three small towns. For the first 9 years, in a town of less than 1,000 where the 3rd and 4th grades (for example) were in the same class. When I was 8 I was doing the same work as the 7th graders w…

Thanks for sharing this. I have a bright five year-old and, having read articles like this one, my partner and I try praise effort as much as we can. Here's the problem. For nearly all of the tasks she's set in school, she doesn't need to expend much effort at all. We say, "nice work, you must have tried really hard!" and she replies, a little confused at us, "no". It sounds like you found everything too easy as well…

My story was similar though not nearly as dramatic as your parents'.

I would suggest shifting your parenting focus away from school. If she's truly smart, she is going to be top of her class without any effort for at least another 6-8 years. So, what I would suggest is to first try and cultivate an ethic of going above and beyond, and always doing work you "can take pride in" (when the work is too easy, without established values it can get very hard to keep caring and avoid turning in B- after B-) and second turning her on to more outside of school. When I was a little kid this manifest as a voracious appetite for books and Legos, which fed my imagination and logical thinking. Magic (the card game) was my replacement for chess.

Different kids will be interested in different things, but in general they are hungry to learn, so if school is easy you just have to find that extra interest outside of school and they will go crazy. Science, especially life sciences, geology, and such are usually solid choices because a sharp child is going to be inquisitive about the world around them.

(Don't ignore school, of course)

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#57

Post by ThomCarver »

mcobrien wrote: post #47
cletus wrote: post #40

Like others who have posted here, I have s story similar to this. By the sounds of it, I wouldn't call myself as "gifted" as some who have posted here but, relative to the environment I was in, I was "gifted". I grew up in three small towns. For the first 9 years, in a town of less than 1,000 where the 3rd and 4th grades (for example) were in the same class. When I was 8 I was doing the same work as the 7th graders w…

Thanks for sharing this. I have a bright five year-old and, having read articles like this one, my partner and I try praise effort as much as we can. Here's the problem. For nearly all of the tasks she's set in school, she doesn't need to expend much effort at all. We say, "nice work, you must have tried really hard!" and she replies, a little confused at us, "no". It sounds like you found everything too easy as well…

Just my two cents - as long as the grade is what's being praised, the kid won't be fooled- its attainment that's being rewarded, not effort. Find a way to teach them that achievement is hollow (and not true achievement) unless they really worked for it.

My parents were relentless in assessing my effort, not the grade I got - the grade itself was treated as an irrelevance (of course it wasn't to them, but the pretence was enough to fool me). Yes yes you got full marks - but the questions teacher said you needed a calculator to do, can you do them by hand? It's great you're keeping up with classwork - but if you flick ahead a few pages in the textbook you'll find extension exercises, have you done them too?

At the time, I did not appreciate this approach - I could outperform any of my friends and not receive the praise I felt was due me. In fact at 18 I got the highest grades in the UK - and still my parents expressed disappointment because they knew I was capable of higher (I got 100% in one subject, but a second was also attainable with more effort). I'm not saying this was a perfect strategy - it did go a little too far the other way and make me feel I wasn't capable of anything truly impressive.

However this article made me realise how important this was. By moving the emphasis away from the grades, you can define standards that are relevant for you; that genuinely do represent an achievement because they require great effort. For me that meant aiming for things other people said couldn't be done. I did an entire maths A-level from self-study alongside my other qualifications; I switched course at Uni and taught myself the entire first year Cambridge engineering course over the summer, so I could join in second year. However smart you are, there are always goals that require effort, as well as achievement, and you do someone a disservice if you encourage them to settle for less.

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#58

Post by sliverstorm »

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. -…

That last bit has become my standby.

"This 'being social' stuff is miserable. But if you're so smart, you should be able to fake it, at least!"

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#59

Post by sliverstorm »

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…

Thanks for helping me discover the word. It occasionally happens to me out of nowhere for no reason. I guess I'm trippin' on life?

Re: The Trouble with Bright Kids

#60

Post by tomjen3 »

mjtokelly wrote: post #43
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…

I was desperately bored in high school, and my solution was starting college early: http://www.simons-rock.edu/ At Simon's Rock, the whole entering class consists of students who just finished 10th grade. In my experience there, self-selected 16-yr olds given the opportunity and expectation to live like adults mostly rise to the occasion. That advice comes a bit late, given you have just 6 months of high school left.…

Most 16 year olds will be happy to do what is expected of them if they are treated as adults. The worst parts of being a teenage isn't that it is difficult but that you have no freedom and nobody takes you seriously.
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