to get titsed off with parents believing their children are the academic elite?

[tallyhoho]

I am fed up with those people who bleat on about how children are either talented academically or not and about how IQ is largely inherited.

I believe extreme talent someone may be born with eg that 16 year old black swimmer, however, all you need to do is look at private schools to see that drumming exam technique into someone will lead to good grades.

I believe there are some children who are genuinely academically gifted but they are few and far between. All other children fall somewhere on a spectrum where given the right encouragement and environment can do well.

Our children are all doing well at school but I don't believe it is down to me and DH.

It's pretty obvious to me that IQ of offspring and their academic achievement is highly correlated with the brains/achievement/social status of the parents.

So what? Plenty of exceptions to those rules, and anyway, brains don't guarantee success in life.

I must have a masochistic streak. I love to encourage parenting boasters, and to reveal their very unrealistic high expectations of their offspring -- like any other outcomes would be a tragedy. It's like opening a window into a parallel universe. And the best bit is when they're done boasting and finally remember their manners and ask me a question about my offspring's achievements, and I get to look puzzled and reply "Oh... my kids?! My kids are completely ordinary!"

EffieB - excellent post. There are some hilarious posts on this topic.

runnybottom, how can I be "wrong" about being titsed off by something? Seriously though, I was making the point that I dislike children being given "labels" and also boasting parents. EffieB says it all really.

I think there's been a narrowing of what is considered an intelligent profile for a student - they all have to learn and pass tests in a particular way. I like coming across people who think and learn differently, even if they're not those who would get the most praise from teacher in the current system.

Cheers tallyhoho, I think you're getting some slightly unfair responses in this thread.

RedDragon, I think you're right. Most tests measure your ability to do well (or not) at that test on that particular day. Surely it's uncontroversial to think the coached and prepped child surrounded by adults who are familiar with the tests likely contents has an advantadge that is likely to result in an (inflated) score?

Yes, I'd have thought so. There's no easy way to level the playing field but I think it's quite cruel to teach children how to jump through hoops to the extent that sometimes seems to happen.

I used to babysit a child with aspergers whose response to 'odd one out' questions was brilliant - always perfectly logical, I got so irritated that his teacher just marked them wrong without listening to his point of view.

"It titses me off when people believe that the reason their children are "academic" is purely down to them (not their environment etc and numerous other factors). Also, I don't like people labelling children as I have previously posted."

Right. So you believe that cleverness is down to a child's environment? Because that's just entirely mistaken. Cleverness or academic ability is normally distributed and regresses to the norm.

And secondly you don't like labels. Fine. So don't label your children. Problem solved (or half of it, anyway).

Quattrocentro, OP doesn't say it is only down to the environment. She says that it annoys her when people believe it is 'purely down to them'. Or that's how I read it.

Links please, Quattro?

Quattro, what is there to get to the bottom of?

a) Boasting about a child being "academic" based purely on inherited ability titses me off.

b) I don't label my children but other posters feel it is fit to do so (not my own children , you understand)

c) I agree wholeheartedly with EffieB's posts.

d) I don't believe "cleverness" is down to the environment and have never posted that.

But you can clearly damage a developing brain by the wrong environment in extreme cases (eg. the Romanian orphanages) - what is the argument against, is it just a standard nature/nurture thing?

Defining a child in terms of their academic ability titsies me off full stop. But remeber, this is the internet - people tell porkie pies and just because they say Jonny is reading Chaucer aged 3, doesn't actually meant that it is so

But i am LOVING my new word 'titsies'

My conclusion is that you are very definitely titsed off but you can't quite work out what it is that you are titsed off about.

Quattro, you're being a bit mean. She pretty clearly outlined a few posts above what bothered her (in response to you asking)...

Really? I understood what the OP was titsed off about

If two very clever people marry their children tend to be a bit less clever. If two people with an IQ of 80 marry their child might well be ab ove 80 but not a huge amount. But Qu is right that IQ tends to the mean but only generally a bit like I said above so you still need to pick your child's father with care.

Iv'e always thought it was about 50/50 genes and environment so parents shouln't beat themselves up about it. I love having 5 children and seeing how different they are in lots of different areas despite having similar upbringings but I know 25 years into being a parent that parental influence also matters.

Studies show that even by age 3 children born families with a low IQ who do not know many words or are just plain poor and have never heard a word like.. cannot think of one now -... but we could all think of examples, words in our vocabulary which certain types of people hardly know and the childn in the atmosphere exposed to many hundreds of different words by 3 or even 5 knows many more words simpyl because their parents utter them. If you've never heard a parent even say "if I were you" rather than "if I was you" or they say f ucking x as their only adjective you learn just that. So it's certainly the case that environment has an effect but so it does in terms of internal contentment too. Presuambly most people don't want damaged children with perfect school scores. Most of all you want them to feel loved and I like mine to learn to be bored and not have much on and become self sufficient and use their imaginations so they don't do countless after school activities and may be they suffer for that but it gives me mroe time sitting around reading the paper so taht's a jolly good thing and makes me and probably them happier.

That said they do do a reasonable amount of music and sport at school and home so perhaps I've over stating my lazy parent stance.

The English tend not to boast about their children. It's our natural character to be self deprecating. People always love to hear about the glorious failures of others so I'm pretty good at majoring on those. Somwe nationalities are completely different and are total show offs. The English don't have much time for that.

OP i can say that these people DO exist. I have some of them right now in my house . Bil and sil are here, staying for one week and they are the reason i spent Easter weekend on mn (pretending to work).

They go on and on about their Ds playing the guitar and reading books and it is down to them and blah blah blah. It is irritating and boring.
And Xenia, they are not British. I agree with your last paragraph.

Xenia is right that 'intelligence' is a mixture of genes and nurture. Genes will determine your potential, but only the environment that you're brought up in will determine if that potential can be reached.

My dc have all been born into a family that values academic achievement. It has been important both for dh's family and mine, through generations. Probably one of the reasons what dh and I got together in the first place, common ethos etc.

It appears that, through their genes, our dc are all reasonably intelligent, probably with high IQs (although not tested). Because of their home environment, and the type of school we chose for them, they should have every chance to fulfil their academic potential. I don't think any of this should strike many people as novel or controversial. There's no boasting involved.

agree with kitkats - i think it's pretty safe to say that if your parents are university educated and you grow up believing that you too will be university educated, and to veer off that path will mean massive grief and disappointment in the family, then you will probably muster up the academic ability to get to university yourself.

boasting is something else - probably just projecting what you want to happen for your children.

I was talking to some people about this the other night. I bet in both families there were very good musical and IQ genes. In my family the careers took one path and in theirs another. I am certain their children did what they did (and ended up I hope as happy but with less money) because of the family environment and mine because of mine etc etc. The baker's son becomes a baker. The actress' daughter acts. The doctor's daughter is a doctor. It's very hard to move out of the mould and if 99% of your class at school will spend their lives on the dole and no one would even contemplate university or even work then you're not likely to either.

(Well you're a pink mouse and I've no idea who the swimmer is - it's just s way to identify someone; you might equally say the 30 stone woman or the man with one leg; and their are some racial and gender differences in terms of sporting abilities and if it ever becomes illegal to talk about those it will be a sad day for science)

(well I've no objection to being called the short freckled white one. I don't nkow if lots of 16 year olds who are black are top swimmers but if there were only one I don't think it would matter to call her that particularly).

Right.

Xenia, it DOESN'T follow that parental IQ tends to be close (in your example generally slightly lower) that child IQ. Often, parents with learning disabilities for example go on to have children who are of average intelligence (however that is measureed).

You're right in that we inherit a genetic potential; but that potential is massively shaped, both positively and negatively by our environment.

kitkatsforbreakfast, you say 'My dc have all been born into a family that values academic achievement [...] It appears that, through their genes, our dc are all reasonably intelligent, probably with high IQs (although not tested). Because of their home environment, and the type of school we chose for them, they should have every chance to fulfil their academic potential. I don't think any of this should strike many people as novel or controversial. There's no boasting involved.'

With the greatest respect (and a dose of humour!- and I'm sure I've sounded similar myself on occasion), it does sound quite boastful! I guess that's partly the OP's point, when we're all stating what to us feel uncontroversial facts about our dc's bright future, the parents around us might be rolling their eyes a tad...

Effie - it's not boastful. I carefully worded it to make sure that I gave the bare bones of our family, and my dc. ANd, fwiw, I would never say anything in rl.

Why should it be boasting to say what I said? It's so British to be totally self-deprecating. My parents were so careful to make sure my siblings and I never felt super clever that I think I was rather surprised when, as an adult, people are impressed when they discover all 4 of us went to Oxford or Cambridge Universities, and we all except 1 have doctorates (and the brother who doesn't is a lawyer). I think in many ways it's rather sad that people can't/won't celebrate academic achievement for fear of being accused of being boastful. And I'm guilty of that myself. My elder 2 children have academic scholarships to their schools, but don't know about it themselves. I didn't want them to boast.

Just to point out again - this is not a topic I would ever talk about in rl, only in the anonymity of the internet.

SugarMousePink, I am half Kenyan and I refer to the swimmers skin colour because it is referred to in the press. No white man has run the 100 metres in below ten seconds and no black swimmer has ever represented Britain in the Olympics.

kkfb I value education and don't believe in self deprication and have never indicated otherwise.

You really only need to look at some of the threads on here to see what my point is.