If you are very clever, how did your parents help make that happen?

[rainbowfairylights]

Background: I have been with my DP for a couple of years now. Whilst we are both intelligent people with careers we are proud of, DP does seem to have a bit of an air of... I don't know, she's definitely more clever in the sense that she knows a lot.

There are huge differences between our childhoods - I was raised in a family of borderline neglect, didn't have any extra-curricular opportunities and went to an inner-city low ranking school. DP went to one of the best schools in the country, had a variation of extra-curricular going on from sport to music, and their family spend a lot of time doing things like general knowledge quizzes, playing board games, etc etc. I left school at 15 with a mix of grades, DP left at 18 with straight A's at the highest level possible.

I suppose I'm trying to figure out how much of a difference the things DP's parents did with her made, vs how I was raised. We are both successful now and I actually have more higher education success, but as I said, DP is definitely still the more intelligent one. If you have a similar type of intelligence to my lovely DP, can you pin it on childhood experiences, is it a luck of the draw, or more of a mix?

@SlothinSpirit it’s interesting isn’t it. Me and all but one of my best friends at school are May and July birthdays. We are/have been doctor, lawyer and scientist. July one is very sporty and quietly confident, doctor very confident, lawyer more reserved but good all rounder. October born friend isn’t confident or sporty at all but did well academically although never really pursued a career due to confidence issues. But we all had very similar backgrounds, supportive parents etc So from my own unscientific study, I never worried about when in the year to have my own DD’s as I think so many other factors come into play that are more important. But SIL was adamant that if she didn’t have her DC in the September to December timeframe, they’d never succeed in life!!

I think it’s down to fostering a sense of curiosity from a young age; having a supportive parent, and lots of reading.

I think this is so important, and it goes along with what someone said upthread about always answering kids' questions from a young age, and treating them seriously, and making it ok not to know stuff, but to go and find out together.

And we just do a lot of general chat, particularly when we're out and about. With my kids I also try really hard not to dismiss their interests and what they want to talk about - I find Minecraft and football pretty mind-numbing but it's no less valid than stuff I find interesting, and it fosters a sense of sharing information with each other, rather than it just going one way.

And books books books. We've found some of the Usborne books such a great way into general knowledge for younger kids and helps kids to explore what their interests might be. Eldest is now a 20th century history nerd, youngest is mad about the ocean (which has always been a blank spot for me so I'm learning loads too).

Just googled who composed the four seasons and got it right!

I was the first in my family to go to Uni (although my Dad had been to teacher training college).

I would say it is:

• Foster a love of reading
• Build curiosity
• Help kids learn through doing - museums, zoos etc
• Talk and discuss things - let them practice and test out there points of view/ challenge them
• For us, with our now adult children, an evening meal together, round a table, discussing our day, the news, current affairs, etc was really important
• Also being surrounded with like-minded intelligent friends, especially in the teenage years, and ensuring that knowledge, education, achievement are celebrated and not mocked or belittled (for us, this was a huge benefit of private school)

My young adult daughter is 25 and has won yet another poetry competition. I'm an older Mum at 64, and was really pleased when she 'thanked' me for reading poetry to her at bedtime - and she apologised for always pulling the covers over her head and telling me to go away! :)

I reckon FIl may have a high IQ and yet he's the most narrow minded limited person I have ever met, who has openly said he was never a book reader, he can't talk about any subjects except a small few usually involving money, and has no breadth of depth on anything else.
I reckon my DF would score less on the typical IQ test, be able to converse on any subject, can quote reams of shakespear, understand nuances which FIL cant, many deep interests in subjects from literature, to geology to cricket, rugby, football and golf..keen sportman himself - fil zero and fil also has zero interests ( aside from money ) and literally talking in %, the top, bottom, x percent for everything.

Both successful business men...

" but I'm also a self starter. It's actually quite a nice feeling knowing that you are where you are because you made it happen against the odds!"

Unfortunate = that's a huge key isnt it. I dont think that can be taught its how you are - lucky you

To those discussing "confidence" I think it is the "confidence" to see yourself as interested, and to discuss ideas. One of the key things those form private schools and/or parents with higher levels of education have as an advantage, and which can be confused or conflated with "intelligence". For example children growing up in homes where nobody has ever taken them to an art gallery would be more likely to feel out of place, that they don't "belong" in one, should they ever go. They won't know how to talk about art, or how to talk about the gallery, or the artist etc. Similarly the child who hears family discuss a film, a play, a book, a newspaper opinion piece versus the one who doesn't. (And guess who feels more comfortable in a university entrance interview?)
I really think social conditioning, background and aspiration (as well as the material comfort to enable all of these things) are are play much more than "inherited" or "natural" intelligence.

Imho the biggest gift you can give a child is to foster inquisitiveness, support critical thinking skills (which are objectively rare skills in modern society) and encourage a love of learning. With these gifts they will be able to hit the ground running.

There are so many ways that the richness can be brought into a child's life, many of which don't cost money. Just time, in put/interaction and patience. But most of all shutting the damn devices off and actually living life.

Also if you never stop being inquisitive, critically think and to just keep learning. If you foster it, your kids will absorb it.

But i also echo previous posters who say that the kids have to want this, because if you hoist interests and experiences on them that they really don't want to engage with; the likely result is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve and resentment may be the ultimate conclusion.

I think these days it's also important to influence (and control/limit?) the media young children consume. I grew up listening to a lot of R4 and watching documentaries with my parents (as well as the usual kids programmes).
If children are left to their own devices they will naturally gravitate to the easy , silly, entertaining YouTube stuff. There needs to be a balance - some of the David Attenborough programmes are fascinating and children will love them if you watch them with them, but they're unlikely to choose them themself.

A little girl was sat in front of us. She clearly was hearing the conversation and started to kneel up on the sit to see what we were talking about. Her mum snapped at her “ sit down..there’s nothing to see outside”! I was really disturbed by that. A little girls inate curiosity snapped out .

I had one of those moments in the tea room at Corfe Castle years ago. I remember it so vividly, the kid was lovely and not nagging but asking polite, interesting questions and every single question was just shut down by her mother.

Obviously it was only a snapshot and it might have been a tough day for the mother, etc. But I did feel for the little girl who just wanted to know stuff about the amazing place she was visiting and the people who lived there.

My DM worked as an au-pair for some families who were very heavy on the 'cultural capital' and so although she and my DF were straight up working class, they massively influenced her approach to parenting.

We went to the theatre (and not just the musicals), I had masses of books, every weekend we were going out somewhere - the zoo, a museum, into London, for a walk, a stately home, anywhere! It also turned out my DM got bored easily in our small town so was always on the hunt for free activities.

I had loads of interests and was encouraged to pursue them and just be myself.

And my parents explained stuff - how to sew, how to knit, how an engine worked (I don't actually remember that one), which wildflowers were which and so on.

Compared to my DH who went to a v similar private school to me and knows none of this stuff.

In my family we have two of us who have double firsts from Oxbridge and very good general knowledge, my brother even more so than me, then another sibling who wasn’t very academic but was still encouraged strongly by my parents to succeed in her areas of strength and has a great career. So it definitely isn’t all nurture as we were treated very similar, but a lot is about helping your child to achieve their potential and having high expectations while recognising each child has their own unique talents.

My parents definitely focused on the below:

• Reading to us
• sending us to the right school for our talents, not just the closest one or the one our sibling went to
• private/grammar schools definitely helped
• high expectations for achievement and diligence (while recognised not all of us would achieve the same result in the same subjects)
• supported us in taking us to extracurricular enriching events particularly theatre, museums etc. They weren’t that big on more general extracurricular activities but still supported us with sports etc.
• very strong support for identifying our unique interests and helping us nurture them, particularly when it was an area my own parents weren’t strong at, they’d help find a really inspiring and committed teacher

Just remember intelligence and general knowledge isn’t the be all and end all, in my view it’s much more important to figure out your child’s unique talents and really nurture them. I love that me and my siblings have completely different talents and careers but are all top of our fields, it’s the biggest accolade to my parents that they were able to identify and support this.

I was born in December and was one of the youngest in my year 🤷🏼‍♀️
In Scotland though if that makes a difference

I'm highly intelligent (99th centile for verbal reasoning, 75th centile of graduates for numerical reasoning and full of bullshit facts). I got straight As at O and A level.

I come from a privileged background (though neither parent was university educated). My older sibling and I were all privately educated throughout, same parents (obvs), offered the same opportunities for travel, music and sport.

My sibling struggles - they left school with 6 O'Levels (none above a grade C), doesn't read much, doesn't do well at quizzes, has little interest in the world outside their borders, works in a manual job.

My sibling was adopted as an infant (in the sixties, so due to the mother being unmarried rather than neglect) . Appreciating that this is a statistically insignificant sample, I would therefore say that genetics has more to do with it than anything else. (Interestingly, I was at school with two others with the same family dynamic, though my friends were each the adopted sibling. One definitely had a younger sibling that was a higher-achiever).

My dh is genius level smart. His parents always bought him a book if he saw it in a shop and wanted to read it. He read lots of non fiction and fiction as a child and teenager. Lots of books in the house generally. Conversations and debates (often heated) around the dinner table every evening. Opportunity to meet lots of different people and visit new places.

I think different children need different things to be able to thrive.

My eldest needs space, privacy, and freedom to follow her own interests, she doesn't like parents getting too involved. If given space she thrives and is doing brilliantly at school - has been put on gifted and talented list for Art - neither of us have ever provided any input in this area, nor have we ever paid for a class for her! She wouldn't like that anyway - she likes to do her own thing. I suppose we have supported her by buying her a procreate app on her iPad and an apple pencil, and drawing materials, but that is kind of it.

My youngest likes to be praised, to receive attention and help/support. He is very motivated by grades and results. He loves parental involvement and is keen to make us proud.

I did it myself by reading enormous amounts and being a sponge at school. This was 1970s/80s so no national curriculum, tiny primary school where we spent a lot of time doing sewing and sub par unaspirational comp. I was academic, competitive and had a lot of flack from other students at school but genuinely didn’t really care. When I wanted to apply to Cambridge my English teacher told me I wouldn’t like it and gave me no support whatsoever. I did the entrance exam with no prep and got in. Middle class family were pro education but very laissez faire and just accepted the school was rubbish. My younger sister left with two GCSEs. So reading and a desire to learn stuff.

I spent my childhood in museums, watching news, discussing current affairs, watching spitting image (from way too young).

That said, my general knowledge (names mostly) is dreadful because my brain isn’t wired like that but problem solving is my thing. Dh has a photographic memory, didn’t have the upbringing but picks stuff up quickly so in a pub quiz he’s fab - can’t remember where he put the hammer when he tidied the garage though!

Poor background but my dad is a biology fanatic, no question ever went unanswered and he really instilled a curiosity for the natural world in us that I think helped a lot. Lots of reading, plenty of documentaries, but done so we never felt as though we were learning or being taught. He did terribly at school and went to a poly, but is bright and was keen for us not to repeat his mistake of laziness at school, and told us so.

Little things like pointing out a type of algae and then explaining simple conceptions like respiration, never telling us we were too young to understand. Rinse and repeat, with anything- birds, things like latent heat of evaporation when you're boiling the kettle, osmosis when rice swells in water- it's so easy to incorporate and kids absorb it like a sponge.

By secondary school, the science syllabus was easy, as I already understood most of the basic concepts and absolutely flew through my O-Levels. Challenge your kids, they really can understand more than they are given credit for.

My parents weren't rich or readers. What they were was INVOLVERS. Whatever they were doing (apart from in the loo haha) we were there doing it with them...answering, explaining. Our interests, whatever they were were encouraged and praised and we were allowed to try things and say that's not for me. All three of us turned out differently...I am a reader, I have sib who is a family person first although she too has a professional career, and a sib who is a traveller. All of us are 'clever" in our own ways, all made our way to senior posts in our careers. I don't see quizzes as a sign of intelligence...I mean you either know the fact or you don't. I can "do" quizzing provided its not sport or current celebs. The only pub quiz i ever went to was with a friend, we were put in an odds and ends team of folk who had come without enough people to make up a full team and we won first prize much to the disgust of the regulars..that's not clever, we were all old and knew stuff because we had lived through it.
OP I do think you are over thinking this. Love your child, praise your child, do stuff with them, encourage their interests, teach them to think of others and enjoy and value their lives and the lives of others. Good humans are worth more than clever ones....and i say this as a clever one!

For me, my parents just encouraged anything I was interested in that was educational, particularly reading. They were always happy to buy me a new book. They also paid for musical instrument lessons for me if I wanted them, but equally would have done that if I've chosen a sport instead. They praised me when I got good results, but not too much.

I also remember that they did take us to more grown-up things like museums and the theatre, rather than always the things we probably might have chosen all the time, like the park and softplay etc.

Other than that though, I don't think there was much. I was never pushed, never tutored and had the same opportunities as my sister who was much less academic.

I'd say the most important thing is to encourage interests and expose children to new things rather than sticking to their comfort zone all the time. Then if they have natural ability they are able to explore it more confidently themselves.

I don't have time for a full answer, or to rtft sorry, but an early PP is right, it's called cultural capital and intersection to look up x

I have a very high IQ (99.97% percentile) and I agree there's a difference between intelligence and cultural knowledge.

In my case, my parents read a lot to me, and as soon as I learnt how to read myself I would devour books.
I was raised trilingual, though not on purpose (my parents' language + 2 co-official local languages), and got started on my 4th language by the age of 5. There is scientific evidence that learning multiple languages from an early age is extremely beneficial to the brain.
We didn't have game consoles or a laptop, and I'm early 20s so they were definitely around. Family PC was purchased in 2010, by which point I was about to start secondary school, so had no exposure to screens throughout my childhood.

If you were bored, you were encouraged to find a new book, play with your siblings, clean something, or go to the library to work on some imaginary project. It wasn't my parents' job to entertain us. One summer I learnt the Greek and Hebrew alphabets out of boredom. I spent weeks writing my journal in Greek or Hebrew characters, or came up with an entire fake system.

My parents are both working class, very low-income people, but they tried to expose us to as many activities and topics as possible. Museums, zoos and farms... Big exposure to the arts, which challenges the artistic and creative sides of the brain (music in my case, which was thankfully free and state-subsidised in my home country).
We were always spoken to like adults, so from an early age we would discuss the evening news, current events, sports... Family finances were discussed openly at the dinner table.
We used to take a road trip every summer across Europe to visit my grandparents, and from the age of 6-7 we could confidently read maps and figure out a route through X country on our own. My mum would teach us the correct pronunciation of each language of the countries we were passing through, she read up on the basic rules of each one of them.

We didn't go to private school so the exposure to sports and social networking wasn't there. I'm actually quite inept when it comes to middle/upper-class social events. I don't know how to dress or what the table etiquette is.
I'm not an avid public speaker but we went to church every week and were always involved in the children's programmes, choir concerts, then did readings when we got older. That gave us confidence.

I got into university at 15 and moved abroad a few months later, after finishing school 2.5 years earlier than normal. Now as a young adult, I try and expose myself to everything we didn't have access to as kids, because like I said earlier intelligence and cultural knowledge are two different things. I definitely still lack in the latter!

Another point about reading fiction is that it can stretch the mind if it prompts thoughts like 'why did that character say that'? Or even 'What would I have done'?

I am somewhat disappointed that neither of our two darlings are 'curious'. Both intelligent but they accept facts and seldom seem to look around or beyond the fact. Some of the really intelligent do this.

Also intelligence comes in all different forms.

I am technically more "intelligent" than my husband. Ie straight A's at school and college, degree etc. He didnt do very well at school but he is incredibly talented at tech and problem solving. He rewired our whole flat once without any training, can pretty much turn his hand to anything practical which ties me in knots! Also I am supposedly very good at maths and my grades back that up, he is just as good but he just hated school and exams so didnt do so well grade wise. I put together a financial excel at work the other day and he understood it in 5 seconds flat without any training in it.

We come from very similar backgrounds, what I would say was that his mum pushed him too hard in his school years at academic subjects which made him resent school and probably didnt reach his potential. My parents were quite laid back and just gave us all the opportunities.

Nurture is key i think, and understanding that intelligence doesnt just mean academia... I was guilty of being a snob about this until a few years ago. If my daughter inherited my academic brain and his practical brain she will rule the world lol.

If you are thinking about this already you will be a great parent :)