4 ms·

I sometimes wonder if academically talented kids also just burn out, in the same way many musically, athletically, etc. gifted kids do. I grew up playing instr

I sometimes wonder if academically talented kids also just burn out, in the same way many musically, athletically, etc. gifted kids do. I grew up playing instruments on a higher level, and met A LOT of wildly talented kids in my younger days. Anecdotally, I did observe that many such kids started quitting around the age 18-20. Some quit altogether, others just started pursuing other interests, and didn't do much to maintain their skills. You spend 10-15 years of intense work reaching the 80% mark, and then spend the rest of your life trying to complete the remaining 20%.

HPsquared 2y ago
It really depends on why they were doing the thing in the first place, and if they actually enjoyed it.
holyknight 2y ago
They surely can, you get burn out because you get constantly frustrated for long periods of time in your daily tasks. It can be caused by overwork, underwork, underperform, overperform, etc.
helboi4 2y ago
yeah I had that. For me I had an early childhood like these kids except my parents weren't even that active in accelerating me. My dad gave me a science book for middle schoolers when I was 4 and taught me my times tables. That, along with my incessant reading that got me reading history and literature at an adult level by the age of at least 10 meant that I was years ahead for most of my school career. I felt like I was wasting so much time to be in school, and all I got from it was being relentlessly bullied, to the point where I stopped engaging at all out of protest. I started to take pride in being as lazy as possible and getting top marks anyway and teachers who told me to work harder to reach my potential pissed me off because I knew everything they wanted me to work hard on was just too mind numbing to be worth it for me. In classes where I was too objectively ahead to be ignored, like Latin where I had literally already completed the first two textbooks they were using, they deliberately held me behind for everyone else to catch up. So it just seemed like a fucking scam when they told me to "reach my potential" I crashed and burned at about 17 because of this. Suddenly more long research projects that required discipline that I had purposefully thrown away were required rather than just acing exams effortlessly. I got moved to a private school where the kids around me had actually been receiving a proper education and the standards were higher. And I took one of my worst subjects as a higher level class (maths) and failed exams for the first time in my life. My identity was so tied to being a genius and I was so unused to not succeeding effortlessly I pretty much gave up. Like this shattering of my reality just made me full on depressed. Since then I've actually become stupider from the extra lack of effort and now I have severe issues dealing with frustration when not being immediately good at things and maintaining discipline or any focus whatsoever. I have so much resentment for the schooling system because I truly believe if I had been moved 2 years up as a kid I would have relished the challenge, kept gaining new skills and not created this learned helplessness for myself.
- jddj 2y ago
  I've been trying to address this recently in my own thinking, as I have the same tendency to overvalue the idea of effortless success. It has coloured far too many interactions and decisions in my life. I've made some progress recently by trying to gradually tease it apart: who is this performance for, anyway? Why is it more important to me -- the monkey juggling in front of the mirror -- that the ability comes naturally? Surely the self-esteem that can be milked from some innate aptitude is limited compared to what there is from demonstrated improvement through conscientious practice. Learned or not, it's a lazy, shallow and fragile foundation for one's identity. Success without effort is too much of a cheap endorphin shot to qualify as worthy of more than a passing thought.
neomantra 2y ago
I was at a talk that Po-shen Loh (https://www.poshenloh.com https://www.poshenloh.com), a math education innovator, gave to parents while their kids were in a math competition. Much of it spoke to this point and beyond. He was giving advice related to college admissions and how kids are pushed these days. My distillation won't do it justice, maybe it a form of it is online somehow. He described the "freight train" mentality where kids are pushed to do things because that's what is "needed" to get to college. Advance math and science as much as possible. All the honors and APs possible. All the competitions. Do thing X because that's what they think a college will want. Complete academic focus heavily driven by the parents. They can't change direction or slow down. When he interviews for undergrad/grad/teams, he asks questions related to the candidate's intent and narrative, rather than the tally of accomplishments. Also, he asks things like "you've finally sold that company" or "licensed your award winning research breakthrough", then what will you do? [touching sorta on the remaining 20% you note]. What he's teasing out is their passion and character (of course, capability has to be there too). Because he is composing a team/cohort who will fulfill the mission of the organization, and that person will need both to think for themselves and to collaborate. Soul-less people who churned because their parents forced them too won't make a great team. It relates to burnout. It relates to lack of passion once the parent influence is removed. It relates to tunnel vision and years without agency. A person in the audience said they were considering their son quit as captain of the swim team to get a marginal improvement in their Calculus grade. Dr Loh disputes that and a corporate recruiter in the audience chimed in agreeing -- the parent was completely missing all of the benefit, direct and meta, of that athletic and leadership activity. Another metaphor he used was between a "black hole" and a "star" with respect to the attitudes and tendencies of students. The two are energetically very different, despite working with the same physical principle of gravity. Contractive versus emanative. It gets to be pretty limited what can be done with that contractive energy, but emanation has so much creative potential. He's built these mental models after teaching and interviewing many people. Pulling all that together to say, maybe kids won't burn out if they aren't on a freight train and given agency (combined with mentoring) to advance themselves optimally. [Also noting that in that model, it's totally OK to be intensely devoted to something and then pivot when it makes sense for you.]

HPsquared 2y ago

It really depends on why they were doing the thing in the first place, and if they actually enjoyed it.

holyknight 2y ago

They surely can, you get burn out because you get constantly frustrated for long periods of time in your daily tasks. It can be caused by overwork, underwork, underperform, overperform, etc.

helboi4 2y ago

yeah I had that. For me I had an early childhood like these kids except my parents weren't even that active in accelerating me. My dad gave me a science book for middle schoolers when I was 4 and taught me my times tables. That, along with my incessant reading that got me reading history and literature at an adult level by the age of at least 10 meant that I was years ahead for most of my school career. I felt like I was wasting so much time to be in school, and all I got from it was being relentlessly bullied, to the point where I stopped engaging at all out of protest. I started to take pride in being as lazy as possible and getting top marks anyway and teachers who told me to work harder to reach my potential pissed me off because I knew everything they wanted me to work hard on was just too mind numbing to be worth it for me. In classes where I was too objectively ahead to be ignored, like Latin where I had literally already completed the first two textbooks they were using, they deliberately held me behind for everyone else to catch up. So it just seemed like a fucking scam when they told me to "reach my potential" I crashed and burned at about 17 because of this. Suddenly more long research projects that required discipline that I had purposefully thrown away were required rather than just acing exams effortlessly. I got moved to a private school where the kids around me had actually been receiving a proper education and the standards were higher. And I took one of my worst subjects as a higher level class (maths) and failed exams for the first time in my life. My identity was so tied to being a genius and I was so unused to not succeeding effortlessly I pretty much gave up. Like this shattering of my reality just made me full on depressed. Since then I've actually become stupider from the extra lack of effort and now I have severe issues dealing with frustration when not being immediately good at things and maintaining discipline or any focus whatsoever. I have so much resentment for the schooling system because I truly believe if I had been moved 2 years up as a kid I would have relished the challenge, kept gaining new skills and not created this learned helplessness for myself.

jddj 2y ago
I've been trying to address this recently in my own thinking, as I have the same tendency to overvalue the idea of effortless success. It has coloured far too many interactions and decisions in my life. I've made some progress recently by trying to gradually tease it apart: who is this performance for, anyway? Why is it more important to me -- the monkey juggling in front of the mirror -- that the ability comes naturally? Surely the self-esteem that can be milked from some innate aptitude is limited compared to what there is from demonstrated improvement through conscientious practice. Learned or not, it's a lazy, shallow and fragile foundation for one's identity. Success without effort is too much of a cheap endorphin shot to qualify as worthy of more than a passing thought.

neomantra 2y ago

I was at a talk that Po-shen Loh (https://www.poshenloh.com https://www.poshenloh.com), a math education innovator, gave to parents while their kids were in a math competition. Much of it spoke to this point and beyond. He was giving advice related to college admissions and how kids are pushed these days. My distillation won't do it justice, maybe it a form of it is online somehow. He described the "freight train" mentality where kids are pushed to do things because that's what is "needed" to get to college. Advance math and science as much as possible. All the honors and APs possible. All the competitions. Do thing X because that's what they think a college will want. Complete academic focus heavily driven by the parents. They can't change direction or slow down. When he interviews for undergrad/grad/teams, he asks questions related to the candidate's intent and narrative, rather than the tally of accomplishments. Also, he asks things like "you've finally sold that company" or "licensed your award winning research breakthrough", then what will you do? [touching sorta on the remaining 20% you note]. What he's teasing out is their passion and character (of course, capability has to be there too). Because he is composing a team/cohort who will fulfill the mission of the organization, and that person will need both to think for themselves and to collaborate. Soul-less people who churned because their parents forced them too won't make a great team. It relates to burnout. It relates to lack of passion once the parent influence is removed. It relates to tunnel vision and years without agency. A person in the audience said they were considering their son quit as captain of the swim team to get a marginal improvement in their Calculus grade. Dr Loh disputes that and a corporate recruiter in the audience chimed in agreeing -- the parent was completely missing all of the benefit, direct and meta, of that athletic and leadership activity. Another metaphor he used was between a "black hole" and a "star" with respect to the attitudes and tendencies of students. The two are energetically very different, despite working with the same physical principle of gravity. Contractive versus emanative. It gets to be pretty limited what can be done with that contractive energy, but emanation has so much creative potential. He's built these mental models after teaching and interviewing many people. Pulling all that together to say, maybe kids won't burn out if they aren't on a freight train and given agency (combined with mentoring) to advance themselves optimally. [Also noting that in that model, it's totally OK to be intensely devoted to something and then pivot when it makes sense for you.]