For those with high achievers - how (honesty please!)

[1AngelicFruitCake]

As the title! Inspired by the thread about why people don’t confess to tutoring their children. If your child is in the ‘exceeding/above expectations’ range then what is it you do at home to help?

My children don’t read. There i said it. I have tried and tried and tried and since the age they can read themselves they refuse to pick up a book. I read constantly. It’s my greatest pleasure in life.

My eldest has straight 8/9 at GCSE and 3 xA* at A levels

Middle is on track for similar.

Youngest knows everything

They learn most of it on you tube. I have high expectations of them. Doing their best is a given and I have tutored where they need help. We have travelled and I talk to them about their interests and always have talk radio on so they’re exposed to lots of news.

DS is very bright, mainly because he puts the hours in and works extremely hard.

I have always said to him that if he wants to succeed in life (and he does) he has to roll his sleeves up and work hard while he's at school & Uni, as the reward, i.e. great career/lifestyle will last far longer than the effort to get there.

It's one of those things that is easy for me to say, but it's kind of stuck with him, and he knows it will be worth it when he's on the other side of it.

Talking, cultural visits (museums, zoos, parks - whatever sparks their interest). DD hated reading but loved art and and also loved listening to music (any) and learning an instrument. She learnt a language which was through necessity but it has opened up so many doors (not imposed as such or extra curricular) Mainly just being there and present. Too much emphasis on "reading" per se in my opinion - though as a bookworm it took me a long time to realise that! Listening, engaging have developed critical thinking skills. To note we have never been "well-off" or had advantages - most of the above were free. Find something that sparks and interest first and the rest may follow

DS is very bright, mainly because he puts the hours in and works extremely hard

Nope. He's either bright, or he isn't. Those others things enhance his brightness and enable him to achieve his utmost.

Too much emphasis on "reading" per se in my opinion - though as a bookworm it took me a long time to realise that!

I have to agree with this. Mathematicians don't have to "read" a lot to be bright!

@Hoppinggreen

Dd just got all 9s at GCSE and I can honestly say it was down to her. She was alert and curious from birth (and never bloody slept), she was always mentally very busy. We read to her a lot and talked to her about all sorts of things but she is just naturally very very clever. DS is different, very chilled and easy baby. Above average but lazy and does enough to get by. As far as MH goes he has a much easier ride though

Exactly the same for my house - I actually could have written this myself except I have a younger DD not DS. My very high achieving daughter is wonderful but it's definitely very stressful supporting her well-being too.

My sister has high achieving children. She made them do extra Maths every day for most of their childhood. They all excel in Maths. Eldest daughter was average to below in Maths as at primary school and is now going to university to do Maths.
Her middle daughter spent the whole of year 11 revising, by choice. She made constant revision notes. She also followed, every bit of advice from teachers about exam technique and about what would come up in the exams. She has just got ten 9s at GCSE.

DS 9 loves learning, school, reading, science and will push himself to do better all of the time. We encourage him but also focus a lot of his 'off-duty' time to be focussed on sport, leisure and social/recreational activities to promote a well-rounded approach to life. He has consistently achieved 'greater depth' from reception class onwards, and scored 100% on all of his Y2 SATS.

Nothing structured like tutoring but I guess we read a lot, visit interesting places, discuss things we’ve read or heard in the news, encourage critical thinking. A lot of it depends on the nature of the child I suppose, both of my children have loved learning so it hasn’t been difficult. Also my youngest has her much older brother as an example to follow and she idolises him.

I think reading is useful because you're learning while you're doing it; not just about the subject matter but about language and the culture it comes from. If you enjoy reading then what you're enjoying is learning, and that sets you up nicely for academic success. I don't suppose it's the only way to get there but it's a clear route (I do think mathematicians have to be good readers/writers though, but I take your point because computing experts probably/ possibly don't).

Rethinking this as I have just realised many posters still have school age children - are you “declaring” high achievers now (as in SATs, Year groups, GCSEs etc …) or later such as post 18 and adulthood?

My immediate response to your question was "nothing". But then I thought about it... I'm still resentful that my mum did absolutely nothing to help me or encourage me through school. I'd say I'm fairly smart, but I certainly did not reach my potential, and my mum did nothing, in fact I was kind of just ignored my whole life.
I was determined to not do the same with my kids.

So, when my first child showed interest in reading, I bought him books. Building things; I bought him Lego and made craft structures with him. When he was madly into science and asked for a microscope, I bought one. Bought experiment kits etc. Took him to museums. I also congratulated him when he did well at school, went to award ceremonies when I was able, then put the awards on the fridge to display. If he said school work was easy and he finished it so quickly then was bored, I would get him to practice how to ask the teacher for more work.
We are a poor family so it's not like I had lots of money to buy these things, it's just that I would prioritise my kids wants/needs over everything else. A lot of these items were birthday/Christmas gifts too, and I would get extended family on board with it too.

I mean I thought all the above was just 'normal parenting', but yeah, when I think back to my childhood... I guess not everyone parents the same.

I agree that lots of it is just something they're born with. I could tell you how I've encouraged my high achieving teen, but it feels irrelevant when I can't explain why her younger sister is struggling so much at school.

Surely a lot of it boils down to having the financial means? Museum entrance fees (and the travel involved), music lessons, paying for sports clubs and language lessons? Heck even books cost money

Would also be interesting to see how many of the posters are around to do school pick up/drop off and spend an hour or two on homework after school. All fine saying 'oh we read together and have discussions around dinner and play academic games' when lots of the 'squeezed middle' are literally crawling towards bedtime after being out the house for 12hrs already (in my case teaching other peoples children! ) definitely a difficult balance between being money "rich" but time poor sometimes.

Also not even taking into account the sheer dumb luck it is having children without additional needs as well. My DS is male (obviously), dyslexic, left handed and the youngest in his class by 3 months. He's literally a recipe for disaster when it comes to being an 'ideal pupil'.

He is happy and healthy and very clever but he finds it difficult to translate his 'smarts' to paper. Such a shame that our children's successes in life are still being defined by exam results.

I suppose you are right in a way @YerAWizardHarry that as soon as my eldest started highschool I went part time, we are not well off at all but we made do with the bare minimum so as to make this a possibility for our family.
It meant I was able to sit with the children and make sure their homework was complete, teach them the old way of solving math problems instead of what felt like long and complicated new methods. I did the same with all my older 3 but there's still a difference between them. The boys are super bright, my DD has to work at it.
At the end of year 6 my eldest was told that had he sat the maths GCSE he would have got a C, and when the head came to congratulate me at pickup I was a little embarrassed to take the credit really as it was really all down to Ds. He's like a sponge, he surprises me still with his ability to remember even the minutest of details.
He's very shy and reserved though so it kind of all equals out, he spent most of the summer working on his computer science coursework for college and turning down holiday job opportunities.
I can't take any credit for his achievements, regardless of what his tutors say, besides giving him a stable home environment I haven't really done much.

I'm curious about what you mean by high achievers? Do you simply mean academically successful? Or do you mean sporting achievements or career or music achievements?

Being a high achieving child does not automatically guarantee a 'high achieving' adult, depending on what your definition is and what you hope your child might achieve in life.

Many of the things mentioned by pp are pretty standard in most middle class homes eg reading, museums, discussion on current events etc.... so in some ways, sadly, it's probably got a lot to do with how fortunate a child is to have engaged parents with a love of learning. Even them there is no formula for academic success.

Sometimes it's just up to the child. I'm in my 40s with all standard grades at 1 and 7 scottish highers at A but they're was no chance at forcing motivation on me. I only done what I choose to and not much would have made me changed my decision on what I was doing

@fiveminutebreak

I took from the comments that people were generally referring to their children being 'all rounders' on top of their academic success (e.g. sporty and musical too)

I'd suggest reading the book Mindset by Carol Dweck which talks about how to help your kids develop a growth mindset

Those who say reading is important .. I agree, however my kids (10
and 12) hate it, I've spent a fortune on books!

What now? 😬😬

Despite what some like to believe, pressure to achieve more isn't going to make your child smarter. Sure, you can spend 20+ hours per week (evenings and weekends) drilling them on material above their grade level, and that will make them learn that material sooner than most of their classmates, but that's not the same thing as actually being smarter. It's easy to outwork everyone else early on, because most eight-year-olds don't spend all that much time per week studying (nor should they, IMHO). But as they get older, their classmates will spend more and more time studying, and outworking them all stops working because you run out of hours in the day.

For most people, that happens around the university level. I know several people who got into prestigious schools by spending 60+ hours per week studying, then got good grades once there because they continued to work that hard. Those good grades enabled them to get prestigious and well-paying jobs, but the problem was that at those jobs, working 60+ hours per week was expected. They couldn't just outwork everyone else like they'd been doing up to that point, because there's no way to work 100+ hours per week without quality dropping off massively. But they'd been taught since childhood that they had to be the best, and that the way to be the best was by working the hardest. Their identity was completely tied up in it, to the point where they all had some kind of mental breakdown when they were no longer the best. They'd have been much better off if they'd been left alone to choose a path that suited their innate levels of ability and ambition, rather than conditioned to believe they were a failure if they weren't sufficiently high achieving.

This is a really interesting thread. I don't have kids myself so am speaking from my own experience.

I was lower average at (private) school with teachers telling my parents I was lazy & could do better. I struggled academically & wasn't particularly nurtured at home, quite the opposite in fact..parents probably felt it was up to my school to do that. I failed all my O levels.

40 years later, I am a high achiever in my career . I don't think I was lazy at school, it just wasn't the right environment for me and I lacked the nurture and support I needed both at school and at home. What I've achieved, I've done through my own determination and sheer hard work, nothing to do with my parents or early education!

Long story short, and with a smattering of other factors, it's mostly about reading.

If your DC can read at a level above their actual age by the time they get to secondary school, they can access everything they're given and more.

I work in a secondary school and unfortunately, if pupils find reading to be difficult, it affects their development in every subject and within weeks/months of starting school, they will develop avoidance behaviours to cover up how difficult they find the work.

Read to your babies and toddlers every night. Read with them until they can read independently. Once they have discovered books, keep providing them and encouraging them to always have a book on the go which they read a bit of every night.

It's almost impossible to develop the required fluency, vocabulary and general knowledge without books.

@Remmy123

Those who say reading is important .. I agree, however my kids (10 and 12) hate it, I've spent a fortune on books!

What now? 😬😬

Audio books? I think some libraries do them on loan now so you don't have to buy them loads. Or indeed libraries for books so you can find what books they like without spending a fortune.