5 ms·

> Younger people are smarter than me I feel this too. I'm in my twenties and the small children scare me with their brilliance sometimes. I am excited to see t

by creep 8y ago

> Younger people are smarter than me I feel this too. I'm in my twenties and the small children scare me with their brilliance sometimes. I am excited to see those little guys grow up. I am convinced they will be the first generation to ask, in full, "what should we do?" rather than, "what can we do?". Very excited.

jsemrau 8y ago
My daughter (8 years) speaks, reads, and writes three languages fluent. It's scary sometimes.
- andai 8y ago
  How is she exposed to three languages?
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    Swiss?
  - Yetanfou 8y ago
    Maybe by being raised in a bi-lingual family where the parents did not speak each other's language when they met? This is how it is for me and my children: I speak English with my wife and Dutch with my children. She speaks Swedish with them, English with me. I have no problems speaking Swedish but things just ended up this way and it'd feel strange to speak Swedish to her. I often do speak Swedish to my children when there are Swedes around so they can understand as well but for the rest it is Dutch which counts. This has led to them speaking Swedish, Dutch and English at a young age (my youngest daughter is 6, she speaks Swedish and Dutch and is coming along quite well in English (as in 'speaking', she already understands most of what is being said). The younger a child learns a language, the easier it is for them so I can only see advantages in this approach. My oldest daughter now goes to a school with a 'French' profile so she'll end up speaking at least 4 languages, one of them (French) a romance language [1] for some contrast to the three Germanic languages (Swedish, Dutch and English). In other words, speak your native language with your children, you'll be doing them a favour. Just make sure they learn the language of the land as well, preferably at home before they go to school. [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
    - bloak 8y ago
      In practice the local language always becomes the child's strongest language, whatever you do, so if the local language is the language of the land then you don't need to "make sure they learn the language of the land": it will look after itself. Your problem will be to prevent the local language from completely replacing the other languages.
      - Yetanfou 8y ago
        The local language is not always the language of the land. In parts of Sweden the local language is Arabic, children growing up there sometimes don't get to speak Swedish before they go to primary school at the age of 7. They could have the bad luck of ending up at a pre-school where nobody speaks Swedish [1] which makes it even harder for them to learn the language of the land. From the article: "På Missansia förskola har alla barn utom ett vårdnadshavare med ett annat modersmål än svenska. Enda stället där de kan tala eller uppmuntras att utveckla svenska är därför i förskolan. Utbildningsnämnden konstaterar därför att "om då förskolan enbart har personal i småbarnsgruppen som inte kan svenska får dessa barn ingen uppmuntran i det svenska språket". Nämnden utrycker också en oro över att barnen riskerar att få en sämre start än sina klasskamrater i skolan, vilket kan medföra en sämre kunskapsutveckling och ett utanförskap. – Förskolan ska bedrivas på svenska, det är extra viktigt när de talar sitt modersmål hemma. Grunden är att vi måste garantera barns rätt till en bra förskola, säger Olle Johansson." ...which translates to: "At Missansia pre-school all children except for one have parents (the word used is 'vårdnadshavare' which means 'custodians') with a native tongue other than Swedish. This means the only place where they can speak or be motivated to develop Swedish is pre-school. The school board therefore concludes that "if pre-school only has personnel (in the group for the youngest children) who can not speak Swedish this means those children do no get any motivation in the Swedish language" The board also is worried that the children will have a worse start than their classmates in school which can lead to worse results and segregation. – Pre-school has to be run in Swedish, this is extra important when they speak their native tongue at home. The reason is that we have to guarantee the child's right to a good pre-school, says Olle Johansson. [1] http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-svenska-om5307212.aspx http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-sve...
mirceal 8y ago
Are these kids smarter or is their environment “better” in such ways thar allows them to be brilliant?
- Lordarminius 8y ago
  My money is firmly on the environment.
- creep 8y ago
  Does it matter?
sliken 8y ago
Heh, well I don't feel like the small children are smarter than me. But having raised a smart kid I always find it amusing then an adult talks to her like a kid, then gets counter attacked by a bright kid who is used to adults talking to kids like they are idiots. Kids are plenty smart, they just don't have the experience, but I find they can handle complex ideas just as well as adults, if given a chance. Similarly trying to sugar coat things like violence and death doesn't really help, and while difficult they seem to deal with it as well as adults.
analog31 8y ago
I'm seeing this myself, with an unusual calibration. My kids are learning music, as I did when I was a kid. The classical repertoire has not changed much since then, so I know what level they have reached compared to me at the same age. Granted, much about music is subjective, but some of it can't be faked, and so I can gauge my kids according to fairly objective measures, and they are far ahead of where I was at the same age.
- Lordarminius 8y ago
  Could this be because they enjoy the advantage of your mentorship ? I took personal charge of the education of my niece and by age 7 she was more proficient in some areas of maths than I was at 12.
  - analog31 8y ago
    That's certainly possible. I also think that music teaching has improved, and my kids are growing up in a town that's crawling with great musicians -- part of why we live here. In our house, the parent/child dynamic wasn't conducive to me teaching my kids. That's kind of luck-of-the-draw. So they go to private teachers. But I suspect our love of music, and having it be part of our lives, has rubbed off on them.
geomark 8y ago
Does anyone have kids that seem less smart than they were at that age? Asking for a friend.
- bloak 8y ago
  Definitely. Of course, different people have different skill sets, so it's hard to make a reliable assessment of overall intelligence. Nevertheless, my children seem less intelligent than me, overall, and I seem less intelligent than my father, overall. I believe it's called "regression towards the mean".
  - ggm 8y ago
    That's the joke my dad told me. He got a first. We all got seconds. Case closed.
- pizza234 8y ago
  I do. I was not a child prodigy, but still, I was (am) significantly high on the "smartness" scale. My kid is definitely "not like me". I don't see any problem with it; I don't belong to a culture where success in absolute terms is the ultimate goal in life, so, "smartness" (which of course is a narrow definition) is just one of many, many factors.
  - geomark 8y ago
    When you see that your kid isn't as smart as you were it would seem to be important to instill in them the need to really strive since success is probably not going to come easy for them but they can still do well. Wondering how smart parents do that, so I can tell my friend.
    - pizza234 8y ago
      You're making a few assumption that don't hold true in my culture/philosophy: 1. a specific type of success 2. the need for such type of success I personally don't value any of them, and in my culture they're not pushed hard, either. If I would be in that culture and philosophy, definitely, that would be a very troublesome situation, as it would put lots of achievement pressure on the children (and likely failure to meet the "success" of the parent. I guess there is literature about the relationship between genius parents (in a strict sense, so not my case) and children, since probably, very similar mechanics develop.
zeth___ 8y ago
Really? I look at kids these days and see hyperactive idiots with access to all the knowledge in the world but who choose to watch fuzzes of color that nearly give me seizures. I'm not saying older generations were better just that this one isn't.
- ggm 8y ago
  Maybe we all show selection bias because I see people who see signals in what I call noise, and people who have moved on from social media leaving it to snarky older people.
  - Can_Not 8y ago
    Maybe the next generation has both smarter smart kids and dumber dumb kids? Knowing the net change and distribution of intelligence would be nice.

by creep 8y ago

jsemrau 8y ago

My daughter (8 years) speaks, reads, and writes three languages fluent. It's scary sometimes.

andai 8y ago
How is she exposed to three languages?
- lostmsu 8y ago
  Swiss?
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  Maybe by being raised in a bi-lingual family where the parents did not speak each other's language when they met? This is how it is for me and my children: I speak English with my wife and Dutch with my children. She speaks Swedish with them, English with me. I have no problems speaking Swedish but things just ended up this way and it'd feel strange to speak Swedish to her. I often do speak Swedish to my children when there are Swedes around so they can understand as well but for the rest it is Dutch which counts. This has led to them speaking Swedish, Dutch and English at a young age (my youngest daughter is 6, she speaks Swedish and Dutch and is coming along quite well in English (as in 'speaking', she already understands most of what is being said). The younger a child learns a language, the easier it is for them so I can only see advantages in this approach. My oldest daughter now goes to a school with a 'French' profile so she'll end up speaking at least 4 languages, one of them (French) a romance language [1] for some contrast to the three Germanic languages (Swedish, Dutch and English). In other words, speak your native language with your children, you'll be doing them a favour. Just make sure they learn the language of the land as well, preferably at home before they go to school. [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
  - bloak 8y ago
    In practice the local language always becomes the child's strongest language, whatever you do, so if the local language is the language of the land then you don't need to "make sure they learn the language of the land": it will look after itself. Your problem will be to prevent the local language from completely replacing the other languages.
    - Yetanfou 8y ago
      The local language is not always the language of the land. In parts of Sweden the local language is Arabic, children growing up there sometimes don't get to speak Swedish before they go to primary school at the age of 7. They could have the bad luck of ending up at a pre-school where nobody speaks Swedish [1] which makes it even harder for them to learn the language of the land. From the article: "På Missansia förskola har alla barn utom ett vårdnadshavare med ett annat modersmål än svenska. Enda stället där de kan tala eller uppmuntras att utveckla svenska är därför i förskolan. Utbildningsnämnden konstaterar därför att "om då förskolan enbart har personal i småbarnsgruppen som inte kan svenska får dessa barn ingen uppmuntran i det svenska språket". Nämnden utrycker också en oro över att barnen riskerar att få en sämre start än sina klasskamrater i skolan, vilket kan medföra en sämre kunskapsutveckling och ett utanförskap. – Förskolan ska bedrivas på svenska, det är extra viktigt när de talar sitt modersmål hemma. Grunden är att vi måste garantera barns rätt till en bra förskola, säger Olle Johansson." ...which translates to: "At Missansia pre-school all children except for one have parents (the word used is 'vårdnadshavare' which means 'custodians') with a native tongue other than Swedish. This means the only place where they can speak or be motivated to develop Swedish is pre-school. The school board therefore concludes that "if pre-school only has personnel (in the group for the youngest children) who can not speak Swedish this means those children do no get any motivation in the Swedish language" The board also is worried that the children will have a worse start than their classmates in school which can lead to worse results and segregation. – Pre-school has to be run in Swedish, this is extra important when they speak their native tongue at home. The reason is that we have to guarantee the child's right to a good pre-school, says Olle Johansson. [1] http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-svenska-om5307212.aspx http://nt.se/nyheter/norrkoping/ingen-i-personalen-kunde-sve...

mirceal 8y ago

Are these kids smarter or is their environment “better” in such ways thar allows them to be brilliant?

Lordarminius 8y ago
My money is firmly on the environment.
creep 8y ago
Does it matter?

sliken 8y ago

Heh, well I don't feel like the small children are smarter than me. But having raised a smart kid I always find it amusing then an adult talks to her like a kid, then gets counter attacked by a bright kid who is used to adults talking to kids like they are idiots. Kids are plenty smart, they just don't have the experience, but I find they can handle complex ideas just as well as adults, if given a chance. Similarly trying to sugar coat things like violence and death doesn't really help, and while difficult they seem to deal with it as well as adults.

analog31 8y ago

I'm seeing this myself, with an unusual calibration. My kids are learning music, as I did when I was a kid. The classical repertoire has not changed much since then, so I know what level they have reached compared to me at the same age. Granted, much about music is subjective, but some of it can't be faked, and so I can gauge my kids according to fairly objective measures, and they are far ahead of where I was at the same age.

Lordarminius 8y ago
Could this be because they enjoy the advantage of your mentorship ? I took personal charge of the education of my niece and by age 7 she was more proficient in some areas of maths than I was at 12.
- analog31 8y ago
  That's certainly possible. I also think that music teaching has improved, and my kids are growing up in a town that's crawling with great musicians -- part of why we live here. In our house, the parent/child dynamic wasn't conducive to me teaching my kids. That's kind of luck-of-the-draw. So they go to private teachers. But I suspect our love of music, and having it be part of our lives, has rubbed off on them.

geomark 8y ago

Does anyone have kids that seem less smart than they were at that age? Asking for a friend.

bloak 8y ago
Definitely. Of course, different people have different skill sets, so it's hard to make a reliable assessment of overall intelligence. Nevertheless, my children seem less intelligent than me, overall, and I seem less intelligent than my father, overall. I believe it's called "regression towards the mean".
- ggm 8y ago
  That's the joke my dad told me. He got a first. We all got seconds. Case closed.
pizza234 8y ago
I do. I was not a child prodigy, but still, I was (am) significantly high on the "smartness" scale. My kid is definitely "not like me". I don't see any problem with it; I don't belong to a culture where success in absolute terms is the ultimate goal in life, so, "smartness" (which of course is a narrow definition) is just one of many, many factors.
- geomark 8y ago
  When you see that your kid isn't as smart as you were it would seem to be important to instill in them the need to really strive since success is probably not going to come easy for them but they can still do well. Wondering how smart parents do that, so I can tell my friend.
  - pizza234 8y ago
    You're making a few assumption that don't hold true in my culture/philosophy: 1. a specific type of success 2. the need for such type of success I personally don't value any of them, and in my culture they're not pushed hard, either. If I would be in that culture and philosophy, definitely, that would be a very troublesome situation, as it would put lots of achievement pressure on the children (and likely failure to meet the "success" of the parent. I guess there is literature about the relationship between genius parents (in a strict sense, so not my case) and children, since probably, very similar mechanics develop.

zeth___ 8y ago

Really? I look at kids these days and see hyperactive idiots with access to all the knowledge in the world but who choose to watch fuzzes of color that nearly give me seizures. I'm not saying older generations were better just that this one isn't.

ggm 8y ago
Maybe we all show selection bias because I see people who see signals in what I call noise, and people who have moved on from social media leaving it to snarky older people.
- Can_Not 8y ago
  Maybe the next generation has both smarter smart kids and dumber dumb kids? Knowing the net change and distribution of intelligence would be nice.