The Psychology Today website has an interesting article on why child prodigies tend not to achieve greatness as adults. There are several aspects of the prodigy experience that are examined, but the one that caught my eye is that perseverance is a better indicator for success than natural talent. This is something I have observed time and again among people I know. I’ve seen amazing gifts languish because the person who has them has never learned how to work hard. This is something I fear for my kids. They are so smart, school comes easily to them. They skip along, casually absorbing things that their peers have to struggle for. But when they hit something that they don’t absorb as naturally as breathing, they stop cold. Both German and Clarinet did this to Kiki. Now she is having to learn to work hard with no guarantee of success. It is hard for me to stand by and watch her struggle when I know I could end it, but I must do it. I must do the same for all my kids when they hit their personal roadblocks. The one who has the most advantage here is Link. He is just as smart as the others, but he has some academic weaknesses that he must struggle against. Because he struggles now and learns how to keep going, he is less likely to be stopped cold later.
It makes me think of a scripture found in The Book of Mormon:
Ether 12:27
“I give unto men weaknesses that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humbleth themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”
Sometimes the things we consider our greatest weaknesses become our greatest strengths simply because we have to work so hard at them.
Amen.
There is an interesting article which concludes broadly the same thing at http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
random thoughts- backyard neighbor
This topic has sent my brain spinning. While I agree with your concerns (in fact this is one of my top worries for my children), for some reason I feel unsettled by the idea that strong things are easy and weak things are hard. I think that it is important to make a difference between working at things we enjoy and working at things that we don’t enjoy. I work very hard everyday but there are plenty of areas in my life that I ignore simply because I don’t enjoy doing them. For example, I should be doing sit-ups to “strengthen my core” but I hate them with a passion. Would I enjoy them more if my stomach was stronger? Probably, not.
As I was reading this, I was thinking about Gleek. She is a climbing little monkey and I frequently see her in my backyard on the playset swinging around. While it is true that physical things come easily to her, she spent hours mastering the monkey bars and she is constantly perfecting her skills.
Kiki also works very hard to develop her talents. Her drawings take my breath away. She brilliantly captures the anime style and yet it is not simply a copy of other people’s drawings. Another gift that Kiki possesses is kindness. I have observed her many times walk out of her way to give someone a hug because she thought they were looking sad. Gleek wasn’t born doing cartwheels (though some days it feels like it!) and Kiki needed to learn how to hold a pencil.
I think that it is possible to become desensitized to talents and overlook effort. Perhaps what haunts me the most is that my husband once confided to me that he could never amaze his parents. They expected him to do well- always. If he received an award, it was because well, OF COURSE, he would get an award. They were so used to him succeeding that doing his best seemed normal to them.
Re: random thoughts- backyard neighbor
What’s also easy to overlook is that even with talent, you don’t really succeed without hard work. Take, for example, Steve Davis, the snooker player. He has talent for the game, but that talent is reinforced by practice and that’s hard work. I remember seeing him on the telly years ago, giving tips on how to be a snooker champion, and he said then (at the height of his career, more or less) that on average he practiced about 5 hours a day, every day.
Now, I have a talent for brass instruments. But that talent only means I can pick one up and get a tune from it. To play it properly, much like Kiki and the clarinet, takes practice, and that really equates to effort even in something which you enjoy.
Re: random thoughts- backyard neighbor
You are very right. Sometimes people excel at things because they love them and are willing to work hard at them. People who are willing to do hard/boring tasks in pursuit of something they love, do not have the prodigy problem. In fact, hard work is often mistaken for innate talent.
Doing more sit-ups may not make you enjoy sit-ups more, but the effort may be worth it if the core strength that the sit-ups provide enables you to accomplish some other task that you do enjoy. It isn’t a perfect example because there are many ways to build core strength and you can probably find one that you enjoy much more than doing sit-ups.
People with the prodigy problem are unable to see beyond “I don’t like this” so that they can do the necessary sit-ups to enable the things they do love.
Wow. Thank you very much for that article. I totally see Kiki in the first few paragraphs and now I have ideas for how to fix it. This needs a new blog post.
Sandra, Thank you for all these gifted kids articles and thoughts. They are things we are needing to work on and study and think about too.
I can see the “Ew. This is hard to do… I don’t want to do it.” attitude in my kids. Even with SoccerGirl doing her kindergarten homework… “I already know this, I don’t want to do it.”
And now LightningBoy is coming up against an Extended Learning Program project- it’s a new thing, it takes effort to do… and he drags his feet like crazy.
His ELP teacher told us it’s okay to help him get his project done, if he could just FINISH a project, it will make the next time easier to do on his own.
I tell my kids, “Sure you’re smart, but it takes hard work to be a genius.”
(and then make them pay attention when inventors say, I reinvented this 1,000 times before I got it right… now that’s hard work!)
I often wonder what would’ve happened to me differently if I were encouraged to do my best in school when I was growing up… I coasted through with no effort getting Bs and As in my favorite subjects.
What if I was encouraged to work hard? I think I would’ve easily gotten straight A’s.
Well, within the next few years I’ll look into going back to school for a Bachelors degree and THEN I’ll find out! : )
more thoughts
I think you hit on what has been twisting around in my head. Hard work for the sake of doing something hard doesn’t necessarily make one better or stronger. Strength comes from overcoming obstacles in order to achieve a desired goal. As parents, the question becomes “What does my child want to achieve?” How do we guide them to become a productive member of society? This is something that I struggle with daily.
I think your way of thinking about this–that as a parent, your responsibility is to encourage your kids when they hit those roadblocks–is perfect. I wish my parents had done that with me (well, I wish they’d done a lot of things, but anyway). I was in a country school that had no idea what an AP program was, and before that in grade school and middle school the so-called “gifted” program was just additional worksheets, math brainteasers, that kind of thing.
So when I hit college, it was overwhelming–here I was with my equals, finally, and I had no idea how to study. I knew how to work hard in high school, but at extracurricular activities because I’d coasted through academically and still gotten valedictorian. It’s a completely different set of tools, though, hands-on vs. butt-in-chair, and it was a hard road to learn that.
Honestly, though, isn’t that what German and Clarinet are for? To stop you cold and make you work your way over? It’s like times tables: recite, persevere, repeat…
;7
This kind of reasoning is one of the sticking points for me with Christianity overall.
How can an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being such as the Christian take on God decide that ‘give unto men weaknesses’ is a good policy? Would it not be better to find another way to bring people to need their God? *curious look*
It’s a stacked deck. “You need Me because I made you to need Me.” Kinda takes all those fine words about free will and turns them rather irrelevant.
-John
My understanding of this is based very much in my beliefs. I believe that we existed as spirits before we were born and that we will continue to exist after we die. Life on earth is a necessary, growing, stage in an eternal progression; just as puberty is a necessary stage in becoming an adult human. The point of life on earth is to struggle and grow. When this life is over, the difficulty of the challenges we were given is factored into the judgments that are made about how we progress hereafter.
I view my relationship to God as a child/parent relationship. My children have weaknesses that are inherent with being immature. I can see things that they are incapable of seeing, and so I must guide, help, and occasionally scold. As an eternal being, I am the one that is immature and in need of guidance, help, and occasional scolding.
Even if you presume, which I don’t, that all weaknesses are bestowed specifically by God, this still does not invalidate free agency in any way. It merely affects the hand you are dealt, not what you choose to do with the cards. I choose to play my cards as if there is a loving God hovering near to help me. You might choose a different way to play your cards.
I understand and accept that your beliefs are such. Honestly, I wish I had such a firm belief – would make life a whole lot less confusing, altho’ probably not easier.
I was under the impression (misapprehension?) that Mormon belief was similar/identical to Christian belief, in that God is deemed all knowing, all powerful, and all loving. Assuming that triplet, does it matter what the source of the weakness or problem is? Surely something all knowing and all powerful can find a way to protect or strengthen that weakness – something that all-loving would motivate, I would think.
*shrug* It’s been a problem of my own faith for many a moon. Thank you for sharing your point of view – I do appreciate it.
-John
You’re welcome. I appreciate the chance to put my beliefs into words in a situation where people are interested in learning, rather than trying to argue who is right. It is always interesting for me to look closely at exactly what is taught as doctrine in my religion and what my own interpretations of those doctrines are.
You are right that Mormonism teaches an all-knowing, all-loving God. It just makes sense to me that someone who is all-knowing and all-loving, would know when not to interfere with a growing process. Could God prevent all pain and weakness? Yes. Would that be the best way to help us grow and develop? No. As a parent, I have the power to make sure that every meal for my kids consists of french fries and rootbeer floats, but I know that would not be best for them. My kids need to suffer through green beans sometimes, even though they don’t want to.