For those of you with 'bright' children, do you take the credit for it ....

[sandyballs]

..... or believe it's pot luck. I'm sick of hearing about a friend's 'genius' child and how it is all down to her parenting.

I know we can help by encouraging reading, blah blah, not constant screens etc, but it is pot luck isn't it really. If it's not how do you explain very different siblings, some who struggle, some who thrive academically yet have been brought up in the same way. This kid is an only btw.

I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but she winds me up and I'm curious as to what MN think.

It's not environment or genes when you look at the difference between ancient and modern humans, it's the environment determining which genes make it through to subsequent generations.

I am still lolling at word factory being the one shielding Ds from the abyss.

I have yet another meeting with school this afternoon for 12yo Ds in an attempt to do the same.

3dcs - all above average yada yada. Temperament and inclination to work couldn't be more different in all of them.

Basic ability - nature.
Inclination, habits - nature, or by sheer dint of force (or bribery, or blackmail) if you can work out how, nurture.

I think there is some weight in that theory cosikitty but I believe that the relationship between genes and environment is and therefore has always been reciprocal. We adapt to new challenges, as we do so we create new ones. Our world both in terms of the social and the material become ever more complex and of our own invention, our ability to meet these challenges depends upon intelligence.

Of course a genetic preponderance in say, something like maths, could never be pursued and realised unless that person is exposed to either studying mathematics or a task that might require maths. You could lock up the next genius born in a dark cave and subject him to illusion (read plato) and he would be suspended in a world of ignorance.

Within the last week I heard someone on R4 saying that intelligence is 88% inherited. Therefore it is important that we choose our parents carefully.

What about children who do very well academically but without any real input from parents and whose parents haven't done well academically, don't read much etc? Dormant genes passed on or cracking teachers at schools?

Probably better teaching, opportunities, social mobility etc. The older generation could well be intelligent but not engaged by school so didn't try very hard. My parents are obviously bright but only got a few O-Levels and my dad went on and got A-Levels equivalent. Just because there was no expectation that they could go to university, even though they'd have got full grants to do so, which affected their motivation at school, because their parents saw it as missed earnings opportunity for several years and that they might get above their station. Also teaching could be a mixed bag, even though they both went to grammar schools.

My parenting philosophy is (nutshell version) to do the best with the resources, financial, mental, physical and emotional, that I have and then take neither credit for the good (but to delight in it) nor blame for the bad (but to see if anything can be done to make it better).

So in answer to your op, I don't take credit for dd1 being academically able. Not do I blame myself for ds being slow to speak and less obviously bright.

DS is a bright boy, but DD is in a different league altogether. DS has the genes of two university graduates; DD (who is adopted) doesn't. I think genetics provides the basics (and even children with the same bio parents can have very different make ups), with environmental factors having an ever increasing importance as they get older. Eg reading with children, expanding their vocabulary, giving them opportunities.

Yes Mini he'd be ignorant, but that wouldn't mean he wasn't intelligent.

But if you left him in his cave and he had no need to or opportunity to adapt to the life outside then he could never make use of, or prove his intelligence. If once in a while you gave him some stones to count, he would see what we all see, a group of four or five (we all see the same as long as there is no more than 5 without actually counting) but without learning the concepts, or the language he couldn't extend upon his intuition, to learn anything else through its application to other things. I think he would be both dim and ignorant if left in there and his IQ would not be measurable.

IQ tests are also culturally relative, the sort of intelligence and the degree to which one might need complex concepts, theoretical knowledge and reasoned/abstract thinking rather than just empirical and learned response will differ according to culture. Those born in the middle of a tropical rain forest far from all other cultures will have little need for the sort of intelligence that can be measured on an IQ test.

Erm it would get on my tits too I think!

My DS was described as highly intelligent in his salt assessment today as part of his ASD assessment. Neither are a product of my parenting - just a product of his genes. (Which I can take credit for )

Realise is a tangent, but is a pretty hefty one. Those words "do you take credit for it" imply (and this is IME a pretty universal view) that being 'bright' is 100%, unquestionably and with no faults at all, a GOOD. THING.

I am 'bright' although had car-crash of an upbringing (which could, in theory, knock out the 'nurture' bit), but was always surrounded by books.

IMHO being 'bright' - aka 'very clever' - really isn't a 'simply great trait to have and with NO downsides. I was 'bright' in primary school so kept being 'put up' years. Meant I did last year of Primary School 3 fucking times. Parents (who should never have been allowed to even breed) would then boast that their DD got 1/1/1 three years in a row.

Didn't ever mention that 'bright' cuts both ways, that their DD who got 1/1/1 three years in a row was ALSO bright enough to know the shit that was going on (not gonna go into detail other than was v def not pretty or nice).

Same now an adult. Have an IQ of 151 - yippeee!!! Not. It means NO-ONE can ever given me a 'surprise' gift (genuinely, have also fathomed it by their movements or odd words over the previous cpl weeks). Means have a BS radar like a forcefield (guess that's mainly good, but can sometimes be damaging).

Have 3 DS's, all are stupidly 'clever', but so so different to each other. One is in music business (but loathes 'business'); other is at Oxford (chucked in 11 GCSEs at A and 4 A-level with 3 at A and t'other 'just; an A); and third is just as 'bright' but feels dwarfed by the Oxford one (who also happens to be a total dude, really 'fit', and quick with a line).

I thing the sole thing I did for them was to teach them manners; ensure they grew to love books; and that they 'get' that they are really fucking lucky to have an educaiton which enables their 'brightness' to translate into whatever it is their passion is.

OP - I'd tell your friend to do one.

1: if she thinks 'bright' is genuinely 100% 'upside' only then she's as thick as shit (so thus cannot be 'credited' with DS's genius);

2: if she thinks his innate IQ is anything other than something which can be 'swung' up or down depending on opps and nurture; she is also as thick as shit,

In fact that IS my summary - your mate is at thick as shit and her DS's 'brightness' has got jack to do with her unless she has encouraged it to flourish via reading and, vitally, an understanding (a humility IYKWIM?) that not everyone is as intelligent as he may be is. Latter, given lame 'boasts' kinda suggest she's failed at that too.

Ergo, your friend is thick as shit and her kid happens to be bright would be my considered opinion

PS Another 'downside' of stupidly 'bright' - you can learn stuff absurdly quickly and which can make you look like a total twat. Witness post above which is product of fact I can type at over 100pm, but actually, genuinely does just make me look like a total twat for essay length post.

ENDS.

BTW, AngelWithSilverWings? You sound frickin awesome

iWasBornThisWay, being bright has many downsides, not least the fact that it easier to find fault and quickly analyse everything. I am not certain that being very bright leads to happiness and tolerance.

I've never thought about downsides of being bright. It means only about 1 in 10 people can I really stand to talk to. The rest are too slow. Obviously I can smile and tolerate them but I get bored.

There is that old saying is it better to be a happy pig or an unhappy philosopher? As I'm also happy I feel I hvawe the best of all worlds. So are my siblings and I bright because our parents were ( very clever, state grammars, first generation at university, had professional careers) or because they used their brains also to help us "get on"? It's probably a mixture. By the age of 3 children either know loads of word because their parents use them or many fewer. That is environment not genes.

The couple opposite our house (lawyer) had 2 adopted children who barely passed GCSEs I remember. Was that because of the genes or did the family also not encourage them at home - they were both sent to boarding school whilst our parents paid school fees and concentrated on us at home in day schools?

My view has been 5-0/50 but the more we research into the human genome the more I think genes come to the fore so I might even say 60/40 in favour of genes nowadays. Be careful who becomes the father of your child. In fact traditionally women married dull providers who would stick around and had their children with exciting bright men, the dull providers never knowing they weren't the father. Thus the children had the genes of the bright but the day to day sticking around of the duller less bright man (although of course you can stick around and be bright and do stuff with the children as a father which also helps them).

Pot luck...have 3, 1 works incredibly hard and finds nothing easy (average/good results), 2nd works almost as hard and gets near the top of the class always, 3rd works hard-ish but finds everything easy and flies at the top. Nowt to do with us (past encouraging a good work ethic)

I understand that about IQ tests, that's why I said how flawed they are. There's still a difference between what IQ tests are trying to measure and stuff that has been learned. AFAIK prehistoric babies (if not from too far back, and assuming comparable nourishment prebirth), taken out of that environment by time machine and brought up in ours, would also be able to learn as much as the average modern child, because their brains aren't that different to ours. But an ancestor baby taken from much earlier in our evolution wouldn't be able to do that - even if you gave them the same environment.

DoublesAllRound, so are you saying that intelligence is acquired by just environment now? because if its weighted towards the genetic, would it not follow that some selection takes place?

No I'm not saying it's acquired by environment, I'm saying intelligence is to some extent an underlying potential, an ability to learn, that may or may not be made the most of depending on the environment.

Having 2 bright children and one who's bright-ish, I don't really get why so many people yearn after their child being bright.

I think there's far too much pressure and expectation on bright children however much you try to play it down.

I believe that people of average ability end up having happier lives in the long run. Just my view though.

I am 'very bright' and very 'clever'. Also have the slightly unusual combo of both of those as well as very 'streetwise'.

I would rather be the happy pig than the unhappy philosopher any day of the week is the utter truth, and I genuinely do not understand why others would see someone stating - as a matter of very simple fact - that they are 'clever' as a 'boast' of some description

THAT is just nuts IMO as it's not saying "I'm great!" or "I'm awesome" any more than someone stating that they have ginger hair or possess two elbows (you get gist) is also simply stating any given fact about their make-up.

FWIW, I would BEYOND happily trade 30 IQ points down to a more reasonable 130 than the 160 I have been 'blessed' cursed with. Would still be way above 'average' IQ but maybe without some of the, many, downsides.

A friend once said to me that if you have manners; a love of books; and a credit card with enough space on to ensure your flight home, then the world is your oyster. I think she was spot on. Quite genuinely, I would not wish - and yet even as WRITE this, I know that even writing just this per se could somehow invite a flaming given how precious or 'judgemental' some folks are about this stuff (usually those who for some mad reason instantly see it as a 'boast' when in reality the very opposite is true) - my 'level' of 'intelligence' on anyone.

That really is the God's honest truth of my feelings on the subject. Now, as a child, and throughout all inbetween.

Dancer YY

meh, people that boast are twats. Therefore their children cannot have got it from them

Its a mix of nature, and nurture though

DD is cleverer than me so I can't take the credit can I?!

Wow never had so many replies. Lots to read, very interesting.

AmGrowingAnAwesomeTree I know exactly what you mean and I know it isn't a boast. Being at the extreme end of any scale may seem like a positive if it's a scale of something desirable but there's something about the extremity of it that is more affecting than the quality itself. It's less lofty heights, and more outer periphery.