13 ms·

You don’t want a child prodigy

85 points by mindgam3 7y ago

andrewstuart 7y ago
I want my kids to be ordinary, middle of the road, happy kids. Not famous, not super incredible, not mega successful. Just normal urban kids. If they're happy and find their own purpose in life that's all I could hope for.
- ebg13 7y ago
  And if they're rich enough to be able to retire young while buying everything they want, even better.
- ativzzz 7y ago
  As an ordinary, middle of the road, adult, I wish my parents pushed me harder. Sure, I can do it myself now, but after 20+ years of building habits, it's very hard to change track, and so far I've been unsuccessful. Basically I have the desire to do "more", but lack the mental and emotional skillsets to be able to execute.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Mental and emotional skill sets can be improved. What do you want to accomplish that you aren't accomplishing? What seems to be the holdup? I'm sure plenty of people here can point you in the right direction to dramatically up your game in relatively short order (possibly including me).
    - ativzzz 7y ago
      > What seems to be the holdup? Primary issue is my lack of self-discipline to be able to override desires for short-term pleasures.
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        "Lack of self discipline" is very often code for one of two things: 1. Unidentified problems, such as minor health issues. 2. A signifier of being Twice Exceptional, which I highly recommend you read up on because average performance that the individual finds frustrating while longing to do greater things is a standard hallmark of being 2e. Some resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm I raised and homeschooled two Twice Exceptional sons. One was a B student. The other made straight As. The B student has both a higher IQ and a lot more handicaps/other issues. I briefly did pro bono work for The TAG Project: http://www.tagfam.org/ http://www.tagfam.org/
        ativzzz 7y ago
        Thanks for the reply > 1. Unidentified problems, such as minor health issues. What kind of minor health issues? Physical or mental? > 2. 2e I really don't think I fit in this area, just one example being because it's not > average performance that's my problem, because when I do something when I put in any amount of "effort", I nail it. The only time my performance is average, is when I don't do any work and just throw something together last second because I spent all my time playing video games. The problem, of course, is that I find the majority of things I do fall into that latter camp where I can't muster the drive to put in effort.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Any number of things can trip one up if they haven't been identified, so aren't being proactively managed. It could be as simple as "I have allergies and I don't know it, so I can't connect the dots that when I do X, I am exposed to something I am mildly allergic to and then I accomplish a whole fat lot of nothing." The problem, of course, is that I find the majority of things I do fall into that latter camp where I can't muster the drive to put in effort. Please just start reading the resources I pointed you to. There's also this, which I am the author of, though there isn't much there currently: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    How old are you? In the same way that most teenagers enjoy playing video games more than doing work, most people in their 30s enjoy doing work more than playing video games. If you're only in your 20s or early 30s then at some point your brain may just flip on its own.
    - finder83 7y ago
      Is that because they stopped playing video games or because they were part of a generation where it just wasn't as common? My brain never did that flip (though I don't mind work so much). I kind of expect to see video games start appearing in nursing homes around the time I have to go to one.
      - ddoolin 7y ago
        As an anecdata, I played games heavily as a kid, until my early 20s. I didn't stop completely, and I wouldn't say I enjoy working more, but I prefer many other things before I reach for a controller/mouse+kb. I don't know if the brain flip is accurate as it makes it sound sudden, but for me I just developed more interests all of which fight for ever-shrinking time.
        tombert 7y ago
        I'm the same way; from ages ~5-21 or so, I played video games almost-daily, but now I tend to keep myself entertained by programming something...not necessarily for my employer, but also not necessarily not for my employer. I can't quite tell if it's because I like programming more, or if it's because as I get older, I have trouble justifying stuff that I know won't help with monetary or intellectual fulfillment.
        Alex3917 7y ago
        I think this is accurate. As you get older it’s more obvious that video games are kind of an artificial happiness, similar to doing mushrooms or something. It’s not that they’re not fun per se, but it’s hard to actually feel good about spending lots of time doing something that’s not going to contribute to your long term wellbeing.
  - ddoolin 7y ago
    Interesting. I'm the same way in the first regard. 27 y/o for reference. I always wished my parents had pushed a bit harder, but now I live in Irvine (SoCal) where everyone here is busy trying to push their children to prodigy-dom. I get an intense window into this because my partner is a private piano teacher and I have to say, I'm quite thankful they never pushed me like _that_. There's definitely a middle road and as a parent of two, I can empathize with this being somewhat difficult to nail. I spent a lot of time feeling like you, wanting more but not executing. That said, I have been pretty successful in the last two years, learning those things on my own. I learned/am learning how to be a very proficient dev, play classical guitar, snowboard, dive, and surf decently, and even now fly planes. I'm not the best but enough for some serious personal enjoyment. For me it was the catalyst of flipping my world upside down, moving far away and starting over. Drop me a line if you ever want, maybe I can offer some assistance.
    - ativzzz 7y ago
      I'm the same age, and I agree, I am NOT saying that I wanted to be a child prodigy, but I wish there was a bit more push than the Laissez-Faire I got. I've thought about > flipping my world upside down, moving far away and starting over but I have too many good people in my life where I am to do this, even if it means sacrificing ambitions. Note that these are good people who inspire me to do better, but that inspiration fades when push actually comes to shove.
  - systemBuilder 7y ago
    Parents don't push kids. Kids push themselves. I was an EE/CS professor at a top 20 school. The only push was the example my parents set, as far back as 2nd grade. They never asked me to do my homework, work harder in school, or get better grades.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Parents don't push kids. Yes, they (often) do. With positive or negative effects depending on the approach and how well it is adapted to the kid. > Kids push themselves. Yes, they often do. The two are not mutually exclusive. > I was an EE/CS professor at a top 20 school. The only push was the example my parents set, as far back as 2nd grade. Yes, parental modelling is a powerful mechanism for influencing childhood behavior and, while it's not the only tool in the kit, by itself a powerful rebuttal to your first claim.
  - ddebernardy 7y ago
    > I wish my parents pushed me harder. Think twice about what you wish for. Parents pushing kids hard are not a panacea, and you might not have gotten as far in life if your parents were like that. > Basically I have the desire to do "more", but lack the mental and emotional skillsets to be able to execute. FWIW what usually holds people back isn't what their parents did or the education they received at school. Rather, it is the importance they put on their parents' eyes and on their peers' eyes. Just move on and do.
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- TheBeardKing 7y ago
  I sense a prejudice towards the bucolic.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  We just had a discussion with our kids yesterday about this, when I explained that the pat answer I tend to give them when they ask "can I..." before they've earned it, of "anything is possible if you try hard enough and believe in yourself" is actually flat wrong. Not everyone is good at everything, or even can become good at anything. Not everyone is built for every type of job or career or vocation. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and we must all accept both of these aspects of ourselves. I told them that I had decided some 15 years ago that I am intelligent and capable enough to go to Harvard, so therefore I should go, and that within hours of making that decision, I realized that it was the stupidest idea that had no basis in reality, so I never even applied. The point I was trying to teach them was that what a person will become in 5 or 10 years is opaque to them now, and that time will reveal it, so that instead they should just focus on living now correctly, practicing discerning what they should and should not do, and focus entirely on that. They might be a CEO or POTUS, or they might be a janitor of a broken down gas station. Every role is needed in life and someone is meant to fulfill every role. Greatness doesn't lie in what career you have, what college degree you have, how much you make, how many people know you, how many books you've written, how young you learned this or that skill. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that one should settle for a vocation that wastes their natural abilities. If I were to try providing for my family by being a janitor, I would be wasting the software talents that I cultivated into skills.
  - Konnstann 7y ago
    Not to come off as offering parenting advice, but how old are your kids? Not everyone can become Bill Gates or Usain Bolt, but for healthy individuals above a certain level of intelligence, passion and grit determine success more so than inherent characteristics. I wanted to be a lot of things growing up, and only through pursuing those dreams did I understand that I wasn't cut out for them, or didn't find them super interesting.
    - bumby 7y ago
      I wonder passion and grit aren't also inherent characteristics. Or, at the least, wondering if a ceiling on these traits is inherent.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Why do you want them to be urban in particular?
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  - moneytide1 7y ago
    Why did this simple, unassuming question get downvoted I wonder? Interesting to see that there is a negative connotation associated with questioning an urban life.
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    - mercutio2 7y ago
      They are urban kids. The parent wants them to be normal. He was not expressing a judgement about kids who are not urban. The question about an urban bias seems hyper defensive and inappropriate in response to a very personal wish.
  - andrewstuart 7y ago
    It's just an expression of the ordinary. What I mean is - it's up to them what they want to be. I don't see fame or being incredible as valuable things to pursue. Solid human relationships, kindness, satisfaction in work - these are the things that matter. Doesn't mean that pursuing financial success isn't valuable and worthwhile - as long as that's what you want.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > Solid human relationships, kindness, satisfaction in work - these are the things that matter. You can get all these things in rural communities as well.
- Retra 7y ago
  Yeah, but what do they want to be?
mindgam3 7y ago
Former chess prodigy here. I earned NM title at age 10, had my 15m of fame and briefly flirted with the idea of training to be one of the greats, then realized by around age 12 or so that the future wasn’t so great for chess pros. Went to college, did a bunch of startups, still love chess but never regretted my decision. I wholeheartedly agree with this article’s emphasis on developing generalist skills. I do think it’s also really valuable to have the experience of mastering one subject. Gaining mastery forces you to learn discipline and push through psychological blocks, both of which translate to any other domain you wish to pursue. But mastery != prodigy. There are very real downsides to the pressure to develop extreme talent at a young age. It can cause a kid to value achievement over everything else, create false sense of self that ignores real feelings, etc. Eventually this leads directly to the “troubled genius” archetype. We have enough of those already. Tl;dr: no on prodigy, yes on focus/mastery if the passion is there.
- ProAm 7y ago
  Has much of your experiences as a child transferred to your life as an adult? 10 is super young to be a prodigy, how much such awareness and actualization did you have then of your skill/talent? Did you willingly or knowingly apply your chess skills to life from that point forward? Hope these questions make sense?
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    It’s been a double-edged sword. Main benefits: 1. confidence knowing that I was really good at something, even if it is one of the most otherwise useless skills in the world. Whenever I’m down because I feel like I suck at something, I have a data point to remind me that at one point I had some competence. 2. Unexpected, but was really valuable when I raised money for my first startup: VCs like people who can beat them at chess. I think it’s because pitch meetings for them are basically like an endless series of dick size contests. I played the chess prodigy card hard, and it worked. YMMV Downsides: 1. Typical geek social isolation, multiplied by 10x because chess is way more useless than coding, robots, etc. 2. All the usual narcissism/invincibility/insecurity that comes from having people tell you that you’re special when you’re young. Same mindfuck happens when you have all these twenty something tech millionaires. Super unhealthy mindset and required a lot of failure + soul searching + therapy to emerge reasonably intact.
jaden 7y ago
> Athletes who go on to become elite usually have a “sampling period.” They try a variety of sports, gain a breadth of general skills, learn about their own abilities and proclivities, and delay specializing until later than their peers who plateau at lower levels. There's so much for kids to experience as they grow up, it's a shame when a child is made to specialize in a single endeavor before they've had a chance to try other activities.
- hirundo 7y ago
  A kid who goes deep on a particular skill learns a great lesson of her own powers of discipline and mastery. That lesson applies to whatever other skills she pursues in life, earning herself a high opinion of her own agency that colors most important life choices.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    I think the ideal is for someone to have a very deep knowledge of two different fields, or areas of interest, while also having broad general knowledge. This gives people an idea both of how deep human knowledge runs, and how wide. With only one area of interest, some people might come away with the idea that one area is somehow unique and different. With two, there's more reason to conclude that other areas are just as deep.
    - Benjammer 7y ago
      You can also try to counter your bias by always remembering the adage: "Specialists will tend to underestimate how well a Generalist can specialize, when they choose to specialize. Generalists will tend to underestimate how deep any given specialty goes."
      - stcredzero 7y ago
        I'll have to remember that one. In a way, I'm advocating for everyone to be at least two kinds of specialist and generalist at the same time.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
hence the Game Boy’s thoroughly dated tech specs. What they left out: It made it extremely stable and reliable and had features that mattered to the players that bleeding edge tech couldn't compete with.
- bqqyz 7y ago
  Seems like you posted this under the wrong article.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    No, I didn't. It's a quote from this article. I have two very smart sons who are very into games. They talk a lot about the gaming industry. I learned from them that the Game Boy was brilliant because it was "older" tech where the bugs had been worked out, the abilities were well known and so forth. Proven tech was chosen to meet certain specs. There was a depth of wisdom there that more "ooh, shiny" tech lacked. I'm sure my remark could have been framed better, but I intentionally chose to leave out personal anecdotes that I started to write -- about me turning down a National Merit Scholarship and my son getting accepted to college at age 13 and then not attending -- because I am given so very much ridiculous shit when I talk about such things, even though I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN, so you would think folks here wouldn't blink at me self identifying as having attended gifted programs, having a proven track record of academic excellence and yadda. I chose to leave that remark because HN is a tech oriented crowd and I thought it would resonate with some folks here and/or be a bit of cool trivia some people would appreciate learning that has potential relevance to their interests.
mountainofdeath 7y ago
I completely and utterly disagree. In a world where everything is a zero-sum game, the top few percent in any given area will gain more and more share. Being average or even is good is no longer enough. I would also venture to say that the people who are good and something _and_ are generalists (e.g. the scientists in the article) are better in both halves than someone who is just one of those.
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- bumby 7y ago
  > Being average or even is good is no longer enough. Enough for what, exactly? What are you trying to optimize? Your contribution to society? Status? Happiness? Fulfillment? I think for some of these, average may give you a better outcome than others depending on what you want. And I also think people tend to change their goal over their lifetime
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    I was just thinking about this. I have some elderly grandparents that spent their lives as elementary and high school teachers with a home farm. They lived modestly and have collected retirement pensions and farmland for many years. So they are actually very well off. They want for nothing financially. They have lived long, storied, beautiful lives. Billions of dollars of wealth and power would make no difference to them. Because they already have more than they need. In fact, it would probably just bring unwanted attention and stress. I'm sure at a younger age, more wealth and power would have been nice. Perhaps to take away the more stressful, tedious parts of work life, but something about going through those moments make the better moments that much sweeter. Spending your life trying to accumulate wealth for the sake of wealth and power alone will do nothing but create stress and headache for yourself.
- rb808 7y ago
  more and more what though? I work with a lot of people that are intelligent and worked super hard their whole lives and are in the 0.1% but I really dont want to be like them. They are really boring. Meanwhile the janitor in our building has some health problems but 15 grandchildren and always has a joke ready.
chriselles 7y ago
I have a son who developed intrinsic interest in a Rubik’s Cube I purchased as a gift for him at the age of 9. He voluntarily attacked it with an incredible investment in time and focus. I wouldnit call him an intellectual prodigy, but he consistently expressed outlier intrinsic motivation. We supported him in his cubing competition pursuits. He competed to a high standard making it to recognised national level competition twice, reaching the semi-finals the 1st year and clearing semi-finals the 2nd(but immediately knocked out in finals). We openly discussed the commitment required to achieve national success, repeatedly covering the concept of diminishing returns. We discussed that whatever he decided his family would support him. He committed, he succeeded(to an extent), he recognised the need to redouble his commitment to achieve the final step up to the apex, and he decided he wanted to continue cubing for joy, rather than singular pursuit of competitive excellence. We try to parent with a roughly 50/50 mix of “tiger parenting” and “hippies in joyful pursuit”. Be disciplined in what we NEED to learn/do. Be joyful in what we WANT to learn/do. We think he’s a happy and well rounded kid We think we did the right thing by him. Too soon to tell?
- behringer 7y ago
  He'll be drinking at 40 in a lonely bar reminiscing about how he was almost there. He had it within his grasp... He could have been national champ!
  - yhoneycomb 7y ago
    Looks like you got a lot of downvotes for what was clearly a joke. I thought it was funny!
    - behringer 7y ago
      I don't post for the upvotes :) Have an upvote!
    - knolax 7y ago
      Jokes at the expense of a child aren't funny.
dnprock 7y ago
In Vietnam, they say you're blessed if your child is more capable than you. Everyone says it but it takes a long time to sink in. My dad told me that. I used to think it's kinda silly. Why have low expectation? Now I understand how hard it is.
docker_up 7y ago
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- rabidrat 7y ago
  > He worries about death but has said more than a few times he wanted to die or kill himself. As a 2 sigma gifted kid (I guess), I had some of this same tendency, starting around the same age as your son and becoming all but unbearable my freshman year of college. It took me another 15 years or so to develop the emotional intelligence to cope more effectively with the trauma of existence. The one thing I wish I had discovered earlier, was Buddhism. Not as a religion, but as a mental practice, and an existential framework. Some of the most profound insights I've gotten about existence have come from Buddhist writing and teachers, and with all due respect for other religions, these insights seem uniquely Buddhist. Other religions do touch on the same topics, but either more obliquely or at a more esoteric/advanced level, whereas they are foundational to Buddhism and often stated in a very plain and concise manner. For instance, that inner pain your son feels, that makes him want to die? That's the unavoidable discomfort of existence, which is literally the "First Noble Truth" of Buddhism. And if we look deeply enough, we can see that we simultaneously crave both existence and non-existence: we want to live forever but often can't bear the immediate experience we find ourselves in. We torture ourselves with contrary ideals that can't possibly coexist, and it's not like we even have any choice in the matter anyway! Gifted children are not unique in this regard; only their precociousness and sensitivity to it. I could go on, but my specific and personal lessons aren't all that relevant. Aside from the existential framework, the main thing I hope you do for your son, is to give him the gift of "___". Normally Buddhist advocates would say "meditation" in that slot, but I prefer to put it like that, because while I would personally recommend the practice of meditation, that's not the only method of getting this value. Alternative words are prayer, silence, breath, sitting, peace, stillness, non-judgmental self-reflection--these are all part and parcel of the same core skill. Which is the cultivated ability to receive the experiences of life, as wonderful or as terrible as they are, with equanimity, knowing that the experience is the point and this too shall pass. All other aspects of emotional intelligence stem from the metaskill of being able to "sit" with the profound and inescapable discomfort of one's existence. Best of luck to you and your son. I don't envy either you or him, but ultimately it just is what it is and we all end up in the same place anyway. Hopefully this helps make the journey a bit easier.
raphlinus 7y ago
I was a child prodigy, now living a life that is a fairly natural extension of that experience. I started programming at 6, took college classes (mostly math and physics) from 9 to 13. I had a semi-successful software business with my dad from 14 to 22, then decided to go to grad school, which was a fantastic decision, as it both helped me sharpen my intellectual skills and develop better social skills. These days I do independent CS research and open source development, and still enjoy learning. One of my latest projects involves programming GPU compute, and I find it very exciting to grapple with a new computing model. I don't talk about my early experience that much, but in this thread, feel free to AMA.
- sieabahlpark 7y ago
  I've always wondered if it was just talent or you know how to learn really well. Any strategies you employ when it comes to reading? Does it come down to mostly practice or can you read a whitepaper once and implement it the following day? How much of the effort is just memorization? I've been programming since elementary school, always curious what other people do to quickly pick up engineering.
  - raphlinus 7y ago
    I'm of the camp who believes it stems from motivation - for whatever reason, I've found computers (and math) fascinating and have found the motivation to spend a lot of time understanding them, without it feeling like effort. I'm not sure I'd say I picked this stuff up quickly, it's been many tens of thousands of hours. I'm not sure I have any useful advice regarding reading, other than doing quite a bit of it (though these days a lot of it is net stuff, which is varied in quality). Lately I've been reading a whole bunch of papers on GPU, both 2D rendering and how GPU's work (the Citadel stuff is a good read). A couple years ago I read a ton of stuff on CRDT's, and while it obviously grabbed my attention at the time, I look back and kinda regret the effort spent on it. Hope this is at least interesting, if not helpful.
    - sieabahlpark 7y ago
      Oh I read plenty, currently I'm on a financial interest reading through books on technicals and options. I agree a lot of what people call "smarts" is just a lot of time spent truly understanding what interests you. It's just interesting to hear it from another person. Reading isn't all that special just gotta do a lot of it and keep yourself engaged.

85 points by mindgam3 7y ago

I want my kids to be ordinary, middle of the road, happy kids. Not famous, not super incredible, not mega successful. Just normal urban kids. If they're happy and find their own purpose in life that's all I could hope for.

ebg13 7y ago
And if they're rich enough to be able to retire young while buying everything they want, even better.
ativzzz 7y ago
As an ordinary, middle of the road, adult, I wish my parents pushed me harder. Sure, I can do it myself now, but after 20+ years of building habits, it's very hard to change track, and so far I've been unsuccessful. Basically I have the desire to do "more", but lack the mental and emotional skillsets to be able to execute.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Mental and emotional skill sets can be improved. What do you want to accomplish that you aren't accomplishing? What seems to be the holdup? I'm sure plenty of people here can point you in the right direction to dramatically up your game in relatively short order (possibly including me).
  - ativzzz 7y ago
    > What seems to be the holdup? Primary issue is my lack of self-discipline to be able to override desires for short-term pleasures.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      "Lack of self discipline" is very often code for one of two things: 1. Unidentified problems, such as minor health issues. 2. A signifier of being Twice Exceptional, which I highly recommend you read up on because average performance that the individual finds frustrating while longing to do greater things is a standard hallmark of being 2e. Some resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm I raised and homeschooled two Twice Exceptional sons. One was a B student. The other made straight As. The B student has both a higher IQ and a lot more handicaps/other issues. I briefly did pro bono work for The TAG Project: http://www.tagfam.org/ http://www.tagfam.org/
      - ativzzz 7y ago
        Thanks for the reply > 1. Unidentified problems, such as minor health issues. What kind of minor health issues? Physical or mental? > 2. 2e I really don't think I fit in this area, just one example being because it's not > average performance that's my problem, because when I do something when I put in any amount of "effort", I nail it. The only time my performance is average, is when I don't do any work and just throw something together last second because I spent all my time playing video games. The problem, of course, is that I find the majority of things I do fall into that latter camp where I can't muster the drive to put in effort.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Any number of things can trip one up if they haven't been identified, so aren't being proactively managed. It could be as simple as "I have allergies and I don't know it, so I can't connect the dots that when I do X, I am exposed to something I am mildly allergic to and then I accomplish a whole fat lot of nothing." The problem, of course, is that I find the majority of things I do fall into that latter camp where I can't muster the drive to put in effort. Please just start reading the resources I pointed you to. There's also this, which I am the author of, though there isn't much there currently: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/
- Alex3917 7y ago
  How old are you? In the same way that most teenagers enjoy playing video games more than doing work, most people in their 30s enjoy doing work more than playing video games. If you're only in your 20s or early 30s then at some point your brain may just flip on its own.
  - finder83 7y ago
    Is that because they stopped playing video games or because they were part of a generation where it just wasn't as common? My brain never did that flip (though I don't mind work so much). I kind of expect to see video games start appearing in nursing homes around the time I have to go to one.
    - ddoolin 7y ago
      As an anecdata, I played games heavily as a kid, until my early 20s. I didn't stop completely, and I wouldn't say I enjoy working more, but I prefer many other things before I reach for a controller/mouse+kb. I don't know if the brain flip is accurate as it makes it sound sudden, but for me I just developed more interests all of which fight for ever-shrinking time.
      - tombert 7y ago
        I'm the same way; from ages ~5-21 or so, I played video games almost-daily, but now I tend to keep myself entertained by programming something...not necessarily for my employer, but also not necessarily not for my employer. I can't quite tell if it's because I like programming more, or if it's because as I get older, I have trouble justifying stuff that I know won't help with monetary or intellectual fulfillment.
        Alex3917 7y ago
        I think this is accurate. As you get older it’s more obvious that video games are kind of an artificial happiness, similar to doing mushrooms or something. It’s not that they’re not fun per se, but it’s hard to actually feel good about spending lots of time doing something that’s not going to contribute to your long term wellbeing.
- ddoolin 7y ago
  Interesting. I'm the same way in the first regard. 27 y/o for reference. I always wished my parents had pushed a bit harder, but now I live in Irvine (SoCal) where everyone here is busy trying to push their children to prodigy-dom. I get an intense window into this because my partner is a private piano teacher and I have to say, I'm quite thankful they never pushed me like _that_. There's definitely a middle road and as a parent of two, I can empathize with this being somewhat difficult to nail. I spent a lot of time feeling like you, wanting more but not executing. That said, I have been pretty successful in the last two years, learning those things on my own. I learned/am learning how to be a very proficient dev, play classical guitar, snowboard, dive, and surf decently, and even now fly planes. I'm not the best but enough for some serious personal enjoyment. For me it was the catalyst of flipping my world upside down, moving far away and starting over. Drop me a line if you ever want, maybe I can offer some assistance.
  - ativzzz 7y ago
    I'm the same age, and I agree, I am NOT saying that I wanted to be a child prodigy, but I wish there was a bit more push than the Laissez-Faire I got. I've thought about > flipping my world upside down, moving far away and starting over but I have too many good people in my life where I am to do this, even if it means sacrificing ambitions. Note that these are good people who inspire me to do better, but that inspiration fades when push actually comes to shove.
- systemBuilder 7y ago
  Parents don't push kids. Kids push themselves. I was an EE/CS professor at a top 20 school. The only push was the example my parents set, as far back as 2nd grade. They never asked me to do my homework, work harder in school, or get better grades.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Parents don't push kids. Yes, they (often) do. With positive or negative effects depending on the approach and how well it is adapted to the kid. > Kids push themselves. Yes, they often do. The two are not mutually exclusive. > I was an EE/CS professor at a top 20 school. The only push was the example my parents set, as far back as 2nd grade. Yes, parental modelling is a powerful mechanism for influencing childhood behavior and, while it's not the only tool in the kit, by itself a powerful rebuttal to your first claim.
- ddebernardy 7y ago
  > I wish my parents pushed me harder. Think twice about what you wish for. Parents pushing kids hard are not a panacea, and you might not have gotten as far in life if your parents were like that. > Basically I have the desire to do "more", but lack the mental and emotional skillsets to be able to execute. FWIW what usually holds people back isn't what their parents did or the education they received at school. Rather, it is the importance they put on their parents' eyes and on their peers' eyes. Just move on and do.
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TheBeardKing 7y ago
I sense a prejudice towards the bucolic.
sdegutis 7y ago
We just had a discussion with our kids yesterday about this, when I explained that the pat answer I tend to give them when they ask "can I..." before they've earned it, of "anything is possible if you try hard enough and believe in yourself" is actually flat wrong. Not everyone is good at everything, or even can become good at anything. Not everyone is built for every type of job or career or vocation. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and we must all accept both of these aspects of ourselves. I told them that I had decided some 15 years ago that I am intelligent and capable enough to go to Harvard, so therefore I should go, and that within hours of making that decision, I realized that it was the stupidest idea that had no basis in reality, so I never even applied. The point I was trying to teach them was that what a person will become in 5 or 10 years is opaque to them now, and that time will reveal it, so that instead they should just focus on living now correctly, practicing discerning what they should and should not do, and focus entirely on that. They might be a CEO or POTUS, or they might be a janitor of a broken down gas station. Every role is needed in life and someone is meant to fulfill every role. Greatness doesn't lie in what career you have, what college degree you have, how much you make, how many people know you, how many books you've written, how young you learned this or that skill. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that one should settle for a vocation that wastes their natural abilities. If I were to try providing for my family by being a janitor, I would be wasting the software talents that I cultivated into skills.
- Konnstann 7y ago
  Not to come off as offering parenting advice, but how old are your kids? Not everyone can become Bill Gates or Usain Bolt, but for healthy individuals above a certain level of intelligence, passion and grit determine success more so than inherent characteristics. I wanted to be a lot of things growing up, and only through pursuing those dreams did I understand that I wasn't cut out for them, or didn't find them super interesting.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I wonder passion and grit aren't also inherent characteristics. Or, at the least, wondering if a ceiling on these traits is inherent.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Why do you want them to be urban in particular?
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- moneytide1 7y ago
  Why did this simple, unassuming question get downvoted I wonder? Interesting to see that there is a negative connotation associated with questioning an urban life.
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  - mercutio2 7y ago
    They are urban kids. The parent wants them to be normal. He was not expressing a judgement about kids who are not urban. The question about an urban bias seems hyper defensive and inappropriate in response to a very personal wish.
- andrewstuart 7y ago
  It's just an expression of the ordinary. What I mean is - it's up to them what they want to be. I don't see fame or being incredible as valuable things to pursue. Solid human relationships, kindness, satisfaction in work - these are the things that matter. Doesn't mean that pursuing financial success isn't valuable and worthwhile - as long as that's what you want.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Solid human relationships, kindness, satisfaction in work - these are the things that matter. You can get all these things in rural communities as well.
Retra 7y ago
Yeah, but what do they want to be?

mindgam3 7y ago

Former chess prodigy here. I earned NM title at age 10, had my 15m of fame and briefly flirted with the idea of training to be one of the greats, then realized by around age 12 or so that the future wasn’t so great for chess pros. Went to college, did a bunch of startups, still love chess but never regretted my decision. I wholeheartedly agree with this article’s emphasis on developing generalist skills. I do think it’s also really valuable to have the experience of mastering one subject. Gaining mastery forces you to learn discipline and push through psychological blocks, both of which translate to any other domain you wish to pursue. But mastery != prodigy. There are very real downsides to the pressure to develop extreme talent at a young age. It can cause a kid to value achievement over everything else, create false sense of self that ignores real feelings, etc. Eventually this leads directly to the “troubled genius” archetype. We have enough of those already. Tl;dr: no on prodigy, yes on focus/mastery if the passion is there.

ProAm 7y ago
Has much of your experiences as a child transferred to your life as an adult? 10 is super young to be a prodigy, how much such awareness and actualization did you have then of your skill/talent? Did you willingly or knowingly apply your chess skills to life from that point forward? Hope these questions make sense?
- mindgam3 7y ago
  It’s been a double-edged sword. Main benefits: 1. confidence knowing that I was really good at something, even if it is one of the most otherwise useless skills in the world. Whenever I’m down because I feel like I suck at something, I have a data point to remind me that at one point I had some competence. 2. Unexpected, but was really valuable when I raised money for my first startup: VCs like people who can beat them at chess. I think it’s because pitch meetings for them are basically like an endless series of dick size contests. I played the chess prodigy card hard, and it worked. YMMV Downsides: 1. Typical geek social isolation, multiplied by 10x because chess is way more useless than coding, robots, etc. 2. All the usual narcissism/invincibility/insecurity that comes from having people tell you that you’re special when you’re young. Same mindfuck happens when you have all these twenty something tech millionaires. Super unhealthy mindset and required a lot of failure + soul searching + therapy to emerge reasonably intact.

jaden 7y ago

> Athletes who go on to become elite usually have a “sampling period.” They try a variety of sports, gain a breadth of general skills, learn about their own abilities and proclivities, and delay specializing until later than their peers who plateau at lower levels. There's so much for kids to experience as they grow up, it's a shame when a child is made to specialize in a single endeavor before they've had a chance to try other activities.

hirundo 7y ago
A kid who goes deep on a particular skill learns a great lesson of her own powers of discipline and mastery. That lesson applies to whatever other skills she pursues in life, earning herself a high opinion of her own agency that colors most important life choices.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  I think the ideal is for someone to have a very deep knowledge of two different fields, or areas of interest, while also having broad general knowledge. This gives people an idea both of how deep human knowledge runs, and how wide. With only one area of interest, some people might come away with the idea that one area is somehow unique and different. With two, there's more reason to conclude that other areas are just as deep.
  - Benjammer 7y ago
    You can also try to counter your bias by always remembering the adage: "Specialists will tend to underestimate how well a Generalist can specialize, when they choose to specialize. Generalists will tend to underestimate how deep any given specialty goes."
    - stcredzero 7y ago
      I'll have to remember that one. In a way, I'm advocating for everyone to be at least two kinds of specialist and generalist at the same time.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

hence the Game Boy’s thoroughly dated tech specs. What they left out: It made it extremely stable and reliable and had features that mattered to the players that bleeding edge tech couldn't compete with.

bqqyz 7y ago
Seems like you posted this under the wrong article.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  No, I didn't. It's a quote from this article. I have two very smart sons who are very into games. They talk a lot about the gaming industry. I learned from them that the Game Boy was brilliant because it was "older" tech where the bugs had been worked out, the abilities were well known and so forth. Proven tech was chosen to meet certain specs. There was a depth of wisdom there that more "ooh, shiny" tech lacked. I'm sure my remark could have been framed better, but I intentionally chose to leave out personal anecdotes that I started to write -- about me turning down a National Merit Scholarship and my son getting accepted to college at age 13 and then not attending -- because I am given so very much ridiculous shit when I talk about such things, even though I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN, so you would think folks here wouldn't blink at me self identifying as having attended gifted programs, having a proven track record of academic excellence and yadda. I chose to leave that remark because HN is a tech oriented crowd and I thought it would resonate with some folks here and/or be a bit of cool trivia some people would appreciate learning that has potential relevance to their interests.

mountainofdeath 7y ago

I completely and utterly disagree. In a world where everything is a zero-sum game, the top few percent in any given area will gain more and more share. Being average or even is good is no longer enough. I would also venture to say that the people who are good and something _and_ are generalists (e.g. the scientists in the article) are better in both halves than someone who is just one of those.

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bumby 7y ago
> Being average or even is good is no longer enough. Enough for what, exactly? What are you trying to optimize? Your contribution to society? Status? Happiness? Fulfillment? I think for some of these, average may give you a better outcome than others depending on what you want. And I also think people tend to change their goal over their lifetime
- jjeaff 7y ago
  I was just thinking about this. I have some elderly grandparents that spent their lives as elementary and high school teachers with a home farm. They lived modestly and have collected retirement pensions and farmland for many years. So they are actually very well off. They want for nothing financially. They have lived long, storied, beautiful lives. Billions of dollars of wealth and power would make no difference to them. Because they already have more than they need. In fact, it would probably just bring unwanted attention and stress. I'm sure at a younger age, more wealth and power would have been nice. Perhaps to take away the more stressful, tedious parts of work life, but something about going through those moments make the better moments that much sweeter. Spending your life trying to accumulate wealth for the sake of wealth and power alone will do nothing but create stress and headache for yourself.
rb808 7y ago
more and more what though? I work with a lot of people that are intelligent and worked super hard their whole lives and are in the 0.1% but I really dont want to be like them. They are really boring. Meanwhile the janitor in our building has some health problems but 15 grandchildren and always has a joke ready.

chriselles 7y ago

I have a son who developed intrinsic interest in a Rubik’s Cube I purchased as a gift for him at the age of 9. He voluntarily attacked it with an incredible investment in time and focus. I wouldnit call him an intellectual prodigy, but he consistently expressed outlier intrinsic motivation. We supported him in his cubing competition pursuits. He competed to a high standard making it to recognised national level competition twice, reaching the semi-finals the 1st year and clearing semi-finals the 2nd(but immediately knocked out in finals). We openly discussed the commitment required to achieve national success, repeatedly covering the concept of diminishing returns. We discussed that whatever he decided his family would support him. He committed, he succeeded(to an extent), he recognised the need to redouble his commitment to achieve the final step up to the apex, and he decided he wanted to continue cubing for joy, rather than singular pursuit of competitive excellence. We try to parent with a roughly 50/50 mix of “tiger parenting” and “hippies in joyful pursuit”. Be disciplined in what we NEED to learn/do. Be joyful in what we WANT to learn/do. We think he’s a happy and well rounded kid We think we did the right thing by him. Too soon to tell?

behringer 7y ago
He'll be drinking at 40 in a lonely bar reminiscing about how he was almost there. He had it within his grasp... He could have been national champ!
- yhoneycomb 7y ago
  Looks like you got a lot of downvotes for what was clearly a joke. I thought it was funny!
  - behringer 7y ago
    I don't post for the upvotes :) Have an upvote!
  - knolax 7y ago
    Jokes at the expense of a child aren't funny.

dnprock 7y ago

In Vietnam, they say you're blessed if your child is more capable than you. Everyone says it but it takes a long time to sink in. My dad told me that. I used to think it's kinda silly. Why have low expectation? Now I understand how hard it is.

docker_up 7y ago

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rabidrat 7y ago
> He worries about death but has said more than a few times he wanted to die or kill himself. As a 2 sigma gifted kid (I guess), I had some of this same tendency, starting around the same age as your son and becoming all but unbearable my freshman year of college. It took me another 15 years or so to develop the emotional intelligence to cope more effectively with the trauma of existence. The one thing I wish I had discovered earlier, was Buddhism. Not as a religion, but as a mental practice, and an existential framework. Some of the most profound insights I've gotten about existence have come from Buddhist writing and teachers, and with all due respect for other religions, these insights seem uniquely Buddhist. Other religions do touch on the same topics, but either more obliquely or at a more esoteric/advanced level, whereas they are foundational to Buddhism and often stated in a very plain and concise manner. For instance, that inner pain your son feels, that makes him want to die? That's the unavoidable discomfort of existence, which is literally the "First Noble Truth" of Buddhism. And if we look deeply enough, we can see that we simultaneously crave both existence and non-existence: we want to live forever but often can't bear the immediate experience we find ourselves in. We torture ourselves with contrary ideals that can't possibly coexist, and it's not like we even have any choice in the matter anyway! Gifted children are not unique in this regard; only their precociousness and sensitivity to it. I could go on, but my specific and personal lessons aren't all that relevant. Aside from the existential framework, the main thing I hope you do for your son, is to give him the gift of "___". Normally Buddhist advocates would say "meditation" in that slot, but I prefer to put it like that, because while I would personally recommend the practice of meditation, that's not the only method of getting this value. Alternative words are prayer, silence, breath, sitting, peace, stillness, non-judgmental self-reflection--these are all part and parcel of the same core skill. Which is the cultivated ability to receive the experiences of life, as wonderful or as terrible as they are, with equanimity, knowing that the experience is the point and this too shall pass. All other aspects of emotional intelligence stem from the metaskill of being able to "sit" with the profound and inescapable discomfort of one's existence. Best of luck to you and your son. I don't envy either you or him, but ultimately it just is what it is and we all end up in the same place anyway. Hopefully this helps make the journey a bit easier.

raphlinus 7y ago

I was a child prodigy, now living a life that is a fairly natural extension of that experience. I started programming at 6, took college classes (mostly math and physics) from 9 to 13. I had a semi-successful software business with my dad from 14 to 22, then decided to go to grad school, which was a fantastic decision, as it both helped me sharpen my intellectual skills and develop better social skills. These days I do independent CS research and open source development, and still enjoy learning. One of my latest projects involves programming GPU compute, and I find it very exciting to grapple with a new computing model. I don't talk about my early experience that much, but in this thread, feel free to AMA.

sieabahlpark 7y ago
I've always wondered if it was just talent or you know how to learn really well. Any strategies you employ when it comes to reading? Does it come down to mostly practice or can you read a whitepaper once and implement it the following day? How much of the effort is just memorization? I've been programming since elementary school, always curious what other people do to quickly pick up engineering.
- raphlinus 7y ago
  I'm of the camp who believes it stems from motivation - for whatever reason, I've found computers (and math) fascinating and have found the motivation to spend a lot of time understanding them, without it feeling like effort. I'm not sure I'd say I picked this stuff up quickly, it's been many tens of thousands of hours. I'm not sure I have any useful advice regarding reading, other than doing quite a bit of it (though these days a lot of it is net stuff, which is varied in quality). Lately I've been reading a whole bunch of papers on GPU, both 2D rendering and how GPU's work (the Citadel stuff is a good read). A couple years ago I read a ton of stuff on CRDT's, and while it obviously grabbed my attention at the time, I look back and kinda regret the effort spent on it. Hope this is at least interesting, if not helpful.
  - sieabahlpark 7y ago
    Oh I read plenty, currently I'm on a financial interest reading through books on technicals and options. I agree a lot of what people call "smarts" is just a lot of time spent truly understanding what interests you. It's just interesting to hear it from another person. Reading isn't all that special just gotta do a lot of it and keep yourself engaged.