How did your kid become so darn smart?? Top five or ten.

Parents Forum
181

I hate to sound like a snot, but I’d like to think I’m pretty smart or at least the smartest of my siblings- or at least liked learning the most. Older sister didn’t care about school, only scraped by with B’s because she had to. Younger sister works incredibly hard, that poor perfectionist, but gets high grades in regular to Honors level classes. I didn’t feel like I was trying all that hard to get my grades in AP/Honors classes. (Again, I feel gross writing all that, but for purpose of this thread!)

The biggest differentiator in between me and my siblings was definitely reading. My older sister read occasionally, and younger hated (hates present tense, too) reading more than anything else. I was reading all the time from the moment I could, anything I could- street signs, cereal boxes (I famously woke my mom up at 5 AM one weekend to ask her how to say “cholesterol” on the Cheerios box) to every book in the house. I (like many younger siblings) liked to do whatever my older sibling did, so when she was learning to read in kindergarten, I kind of learned with her. By the time I got to kindergarten, I was the most annoying kid in the class I’m sure because I was telling the teacher I already knew how to read this and spell this and blah blah blah (I SPECIFICALLY remember how painful it was to sit through other students “sounding it out”). By December, they had me tested in reading and I scored in the 99th percentile for first graders and the 96th percentile of second graders. My parents considered moving me to the second grade and just catching me up in the math, but were worried I’d be so young/only a grade below my older sister, 3 years older than me. So I skipped the remaining part of kindergarten and the first half of first grade over winter break. Unfortunately, at that point little me kind of knew I was “smart” and I’m sure I was annoying about it endlessly. Long story short: I think it all comes back to reading.

Fwiw, both my parents are smart (my mom in the math/science way, my dad in the reading/history way), but reading definitely was the differentiator.

182

Maybe to see differences in “innate capacities,” one has to be looking for them. Not just demanding all homework be done. Or checking grades, which very much depend on the school, the challenges it presents and the peers. In fact, one poster continues to say how easy it is to get A’s. So how does that delineate “smarts?”

183

@MiamiDAP oh please…a five year old is not managing their EC time. Their PARENTS are managing their EC time.

We get it…you claim that American schools are horrid, and poor. You claim that simply doing homework will net a student a high GPA.

Just because you say it’s true, doesn’t mean it is.

184

Our family’s experience is that IQ alone is not necessarily a good predictor of outcomes. Only one of our children has been formally evaluated by a neuropsy. The others who are classified as gifted have qualifying test scores from middle school (but have other characteristics which I think are far more indicative of their overall intelligence, and more importantly, healthy ability to function. I actually have very little personal appreciation for test scores.)

Our ds with the “known” wisc score has a high IQ but he completely lacks the ability to function as an adult. He is an Aspie with multiple comorbid conditions. He is crippled by his anxiety and inflexibility and has extremely poor executive functions. He currently works as a donation greeter at Goodwill. Simple everyday normal functioning is a huge struggle.

But, yeah, he is smart.

185

It may be that nature determines your potential, but nurture determines whether you have the opportunity to live up to your potential. Probably most parents posting here are those who are highly interested in their kids’ educational achievements, and not in poverty or other severely disadvantaged situations, so they attempt to provide good nurture (and lack of bad nurture) in this area, so differences among their kids are likely more nature based. But bad nurture (poverty, low quality schools, high crime, etc.) probably functions as a limitation on many in the general population, so that potential talent is often wasted.

186

Oh, she was like the kid in Kindergarten Cop who told the class how boys and girls differ? :slight_smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3wcxHiorJ4

187

One issue in this whole discussion is that nearly any given parent’s sample size available for close observation is going to be quite small—their own child(ren), maybe the children of a couple close friends or family members—compared to the general population, and therefore any claims based off of observing that sample are very, very likely to be highly skewed.

188

Money is probably well correlated to positive nurture and lack of negative nurture, though that may be due to correlation with other things like educational attainment. Lack of money may mean having to live in a low opportunity environment, with low quality schools, high crime, etc…

189

There’s a recent researcher trend to give nature and nurture equal weight. But the examinations I saw break this down into more variables than “smart” or measurable IQ or math abilities. I’m surprised so many parents here downplay their influence (except where there are serious challenges.) Any number of random interactions or comments can spark a bright-potential kid. Just because we can’t put our finger on exactly what it was/is, doesn’t mean it’s as simple as genetics.

That said, it took me years to take some credit. I wonder if some of the different opinions here depend on the ages of our children.

190

And (as I might have mentioned before on this thread – I’m not sure), there are counterexamples, and my kids are among them.

One of mine learned to read on his own and has always been an avid reader. The other didn’t learn anything about reading until it was taught in school and never read for pleasure until she was an adult. The non-reader consistently did better in school. I was very surprised!

I’m not saying that reading is bad. I’m just saying that it’s only one of many factors, and with my kids, other factors must have been more important. (I suspect that with my kids, one of those factors was a dramatic difference in math aptitude.)

191

I usually just ignore posts (#174) about how just doing all your homework gets you all As. I will attempt to go back to ignoring them after this post.

I suppose if you want to disbelieve the whole field of psychology, you are free to do so. However, the earth is round, climate change is caused by people, evolution happens, and psychology uses various tests to measure “general cognitive ability” or “g”. See the article that @Agentninetynine linked.

In our elementary district, all the kids take a group IQ test in 3rd grade. This used to be the OLSAT, but has been changed to the CogAT. Unless a parent exempts their kid from the test, they will have a general idea of IQ. This is common in many districts around us.

Not really. All the teachers (except that one Montessori preschool teacher who said he was an “abstract thinker” like that was a bad thing) told me that my son was really smart. His elementary didn’t do letter grades for subjects, just marked the areas where he met or exceeded grade level expectations in specific skills. And, the teachers wrote a few paragraphs about how the kid was doing and what they needed to work on for the report cards. So, we had no GPAs until 7th grade.

In general, I agree that personality aspects have a huge effect on the success outcome for individuals who have the same intelligence level. I’m not at all convinced that someone “is ether lazy or hard working” from birth. The study Agentninetynine linked says, “Some evidence supports this prediction in that GCTA heritability estimates for personality appear to be much lower than for intelligence, even taking into account the lower twin-study heritability estimates for personality than for intelligence.” So, personality aspects, such as grit and being driven, are affected by a wide variety of environmental things, many of which we have discussed in this thread.

Whatever…

To say otherwise in public would not be PC. Also, mindset theory argues that a student is personally better off believing that, even if it is not completely true.

Kids say the darndest things.

When my son was 4 he asked, “Dad, if you divide infinity into two piles, what is in each pile?” Dad replied “Each pile still has infinity.” Son continues, “Yes, that’s right. And since both infinities are the same, infinity is even.” Not true exactly, because infinity/2 isn’t an integer. But, still kind of surprising to hear in the car on the way to T-ball…

192

So many variables. I guess if we can solve this one - we can move on to curing cancer and autism.

Let me toss out another angle - inspirational people. In college I met the first person I’d ever known to have scored a perfect SAT. Being an average bear, I marveled at this as it never occurred to me that such was even possible. But beyond just the score there were other aspects I found strange and amazing. She’d get visibly excited telling us about some obscure math concept or a trick with 68000 series microprocessor programming. Then she’d start arranging the salt shakers and napkins and forks on the table and moving things around to illustrate the point. Her infectious enthusiasm stretched to other areas including music and history and other. And she’d laugh like the Mozart actor in Amadeus when she’d make a particularly surprising point - like she’d delivered a punch line or pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

From attending a good school, I saw in action an exceedingly smart person just being herself and enjoying what Feynmann calls “the pleasure of finding things out”. Some of this stuck with me all the way to becoming a husband and a parent. Did any of this impact my kids? As has been pointed out, we parents have a limited sample size without controls. My gut says yes.

Then there are inspirational people who actually interacted with the kids - family friend engineers, scientists, psychologists and …

193

@patertrium Vi Hart (google her if you don’t know the reference) :slight_smile:

Yep. I have a couple with enthusiasm like her. :slight_smile:

194

Re #191 and “curing autism”

Some researchers claim that what can lead to autism in some is essential for human creativity and intellect in some fields.

195

It’s a spectrum. I think people who protest the idea of “curing autism” sometimes forget that not everyone with autism has high functioning autism or what used to be called Asperger’s. My friend’s son in high school is very low functioning, and any improvement would be a blessing to their family.

196

My ds is considered high functioning and our experience is not abnormal. We have counsellors who have patients/ clients who individually have multiple degrees but cannot hold jobs. They cannot cope on many levels…pace, stress, changing routines, etc.

The Bill Gates stereotype is exactly that, a stereotype. Statistically Aspies have a staggering under/unemployment rate. our ds is one of those stats.

197

I am close to a boy (not immediate family) who will require 24x7 care forever owing to severe autism. Aspy would be an upgrade. Just pointing out that approaching the myriad problems of the spectrum is a profound challenge. It is fascinating that giftedness and genius can live on that border.

198

'Not just demanding all homework be done." - This is a very good demand at the age of 5 when the first 5 min. homework is received by kindergartener. At the age of 10, it is way too late, they are too set with their priorities, so I partially agree that the demanding all homework be done may not be appropriate at all since by certain age if they have some difficulties that only means that they definitely did not do a homework well enough to keep up with the material at school. And that means that some “remedial” activities are must. If they do their homework from the very first time it is assigned, do it timely and correctly every time, here is no way that they fall behind… .

199

Being a first-generation low income and underrepresented minority, my friends say I am one of the smartest individuals they have had ever met.

My mother (who is the only parent) was not the stereotypical Hispanic woman you see in California, Texas, Florida, and other states with a massive hispanic population in the United States. In the beginning she was, but she realized unlike many others that coming to the United States meant a huge educational opportunity for her offspring; she is closely getting the American dream. I do have a father, but he is a major alcoholic (the stereotypical Hispanic), so luckily none of my siblings as well as myself imprinted him since we knew that our mother cares while he doesn’t.

What she basically did was that she made my sister, brother, and myself to go the the library a lot. Being surrounded by books, we had no other choice but to rely on those, as well as the Internet once we got to middle school. When I say a lot, I mean every weekend and holiday during the school year - and the library was home to me in the summer basically.

Not only that, but she drove us across city to go to a well-known school with superior surroundings as in the students, staff, facilities, and the whatnot. She valued education in ourselves throughout childhood.

Now going towards high school, she gave us hard realistic lectures about the real world and what life really is all about. So not only we became “smart” and “studious” from elementary and middle school, but also open-minded and respectful.

So in a sentence to you parents, educate the p00p out of your children and then in high school, introduce reality and tell them what THEY want to do. But give suggestions to them since there will be demand for intellectual individuals. I aspire to pursue a career in Statistics since it’s not popular and many companies need them. My sister at UC San Diego is pursuing a career in Medical since although bandwagon, many people drop out. My little brother (just 6th grade!) from the help of myself introducing him to the majors and that education is important, aspires to be an Engineer since it mixes well with art, math, and science - he wouldn’t be happy in something English and history intensive. We are all pretty rational of our choices as well.

If I could name the top 3 mistakes I see in parents…

DO NOT SPOIL YOUR CHILDREN. That will be one of the worst mistakes in your life for your children. Go visit some place that is “ghetto”, so they can open their eyes and be thankful! Teach them that hard work = success, because this happens in this dimension.
WATCH THE DECISIONS YOUR CHILD MAKES AS WELL AS WHAT PEOPLE THAT PERSON HANGS OUT WITH. I understand that children should decide what they want to do, but some things are just too irrational…especially what high school they choose (unless if they are independent, if they conform expect them to be the stereotypical person at that secondary school).
THINK BEFORE YOU ACT. A lot of parents don’t do this. If you repeat specific diction to you children, they will as well. If you smoke or drink in front of them, they will as well. If you show that you are lazy and explain that luck/fate is the key to success, the will believe that as well.

Also, give them your hardest advice on things, because it will show that you care about them dearly. Take THEIR advice as well, PLEASE DO NOT GO WITH AGEISM!!!

Good luck parents.

200

Re: Reading.

My non-reader (for pleasure) is highly highly intelligent. She just never liked reading as an activity.

A close friend had a child who read, read, read. Stayed up all night reading Harry Potter for example. But had no motivation to do well in school.

I think it depends on what and why one reads. (Among other factors).