Only 3% of gifted children fulfil their potential

[minimathsmouse]

I have just read an article in the Mail this morning on pg 5. Professor Joan Freeman has found in her research with exceptionally gifted children that only 3% go on to fulfil their potential.

What are the implications for the economy and wider society? Does it worry you and in what way?
Do you worry about your child meeting their potential and what support do you think gifted children most benefit from?

I worry endlessly and sometimes feel that I have a huge responsibility for and towards DS, that with an average child I might not feel. I have one gifted and one bright but average achiever, my little average achiever gives me the most joy and the least worry! I know he will be happy and fulfilled come what may.

Sorry, but I think it's rubbish. The article has failed to acknowledge that people develop at different rates, and at age 6-7 you can't necessarily tell which children are going to be 'gifted' adults.

I think EVERY child needs to meet their potential, not just ones labelled as gifted. And believe me, parents need to feel responsibility for all their kids, not just the one marked out as 'different'. How can you know that your 'bright but average' child will be happy and fulfilled? Do you have a crystal ball? No-one can know that.

Every child deserves support to fulfil their potential.

I'm not sure how we could tell what their potential is. And what percentage of 'non-gifted' people fulfil their potential, anyway? It's probably not much more than 3% - if we could work out exactly what we mean by potential.

I have not read the article but it depends very much on what is meant by gifted.

We have recently been told that ds is "highly gifted", in the top 0.1% of people. I guess this means that he may be gifted by the Mail's definition.

However, the reason that we were told any of this was because he was being assessed by an ed psych as a result of a lack of social integration with his peers. The ed pych's evaluation was that he experienced difficulties common to children with his level of ability. He does not understand what motivates his peers and wants to dominate situations.

Given all of this, I am not sure what his potential actually is. He does not currently have the ability to lead or manage people and that seems to be one indicator of success in our society. He probably does have the ability to be a good accademic or scientist but I am not sure how we perceive the non-nobel prize winning scientists as a society. I think this is probably the situation that many "gifted" children are in and we wrongly assume that because they are bright they necessarily have the potential for a glitering career in all fields of endeavour.

I'd be interested to see the actual research - how does someone decide what a persons potential is? The fact that someone is far ahead of their age group at age 5 or 10 only means that they are an early developer, and doesn't give any indication of whether they will then plateau while the others catch up. And even if someone continues to be very intelligent, how do you measure that? IQ tests and exam results give a very specific measure of achievement which doens't always reflect what someone is really like.

LilyBolero, calm down, I can see steam. I only speak from personal experience.

Why do you think EVERY child needs to meet their potential. Why children, the study tracked the children into adulthood.

The point I am making is that our economy, our schools, scientific and medical institutions, universities and banks, need the very best brains. When a gifted child does not reach their potential as an adult, not only is it most acutely felt by them as invididuals, but as a society.

I would like to know how many of these children also had SN/SEN.

"The ed pych's evaluation was that he experienced difficulties common to children with his level of ability. He does not understand what motivates his peers and wants to dominate situations." That could of so easily been written about my DS. It hasn't because rather than assess we have taken a step back from peers and school to Home Ed for two years, by which time socially, his peers may have caught up. Well we are hoping.

I wonder if personality and work ethos play a larger part in successfully fulfiling potential than giftedness. I know some children are driven individuals (I wasn't, but as an adult I am)I worry that DS has started to tune out. He was bored at school, had been from year 1. We followed the schoold advice, watch and see, but all i could see, was his energy, ideas and quest for knowledge, litterally falling away. I am very angry at myself for not doing more.

dh would count as one of the successful ones - gifted mathematician who was never pressured into it (his parents actually said at one point 'You don't have to go to university you know; since you're also so interested in naval architecture have you thought have doing a ship-building apprenticeship?) and ended up a professional mathematician.
There was a boy at his school who was also apparently gifted at maths but whose parents piled on the pressure and completely put him off it; this boy, who was supposedly better at maths than dh, failed some exams, did various resits and ended up a GP. In maths terms that makes him a failure, obv, but I wouldn't like to argue he's done less good to humanity, and he will be earning way more than dh!

how on earth do we define success?!

I also would like to know how fulfilling potential is defined.

Moreover what is the definition of success or 'fulfilling Potential'? Surely it depends on the individual and his or her personality and interests or ambition?

Malcolm Gladwell says that in terms of worldly success (perhaps flippantly but memorably) that an IQ of over 120 is a waste. Which gives hope to many of us..

oh now that's interesting Riven.
Some research on the extent to which children who excel at the subject which is non-stereotypical for their gender are conditioned into not liking it would be worthwhile, if we're worried about 'our economy, our schools, scientific and medical institutions, universities and banks'.
There are so many messages out there saying maths isn't for girls (bloody Simon Baron-Cohen and his 'male and female brains', for instance) - I guess this is going to impact on girls who are gifted at maths just as much as those who are normal at it .

(this isn't an attack on you wrt your dd btw - I am talking about conditioning from the whole of society, not suggesting you had any hand in what she did at uni, or that there is a particular problem with her doing English - how cool that she was brilliant at more than one thing )

how many non gifted children fail to reach their potential?

Joan Freeman has an agenda, she is not exactly impartial on this subject.

"Why do you think EVERY child needs to meet their potential. Why children, the study tracked the children into adulthood."

This sentence doesn't make sense. I think every child needs to be SUPPORTED to fulfil their potential. And it matters if any child is failed, not just one who is so called 'gifted'.

I'm perfectly calm btw, I just find the whole 'g&t' thing very unhelpful, and this sort of article always seems to suggest that somehow 'gifted' children have more of a right to educational support than others.

Being successful career-wise is much more complicated than just 'who has the highest IQ'. You need application, empathy, leadership, organisation, drive, motivation - any number of things that may be lacking in anyone, having a high IQ does not also give you these qualities.

Actually I agree with you LilyBelero, every child needs to be supported to reach their full potential.

For what it is worth I am rather sceptical about alot of Professor Freemans writing and research. She seems to have an agenda and she shouts very loudly.

I wonder if personality plays a much larger part than intelligence in success. That's why I am quite relaxed about DS2, my little Mr average. He is already succeeding, socially. I think people skills maybe more useful in determining success, as is hardwork, drive and vision. I don't think he will need to be an expert in his field to have some happiness in life. DS2 is already clear about his overall objectives, has a really clear plan in mind, he's only 9 but I wonder sometimes what will happen between now and then.

oh I totally agree, parents' job to allow that and not pressure, but I don't believe any child is ever completely insulated from stereotypes, even if home-edded. (Unless they are raised on desert island etc.)

well obviously there is no point in me arguing with you about your dd who I have never met and know nothing about!
but as a general point I don't see how we can ever separate societal influence from how someone is, when the influences start from birth and come through such a range of channels from outside the family that as a parent you can't control.

you don't sound boastful at all.
Just that you have a dd with an incredible range of talents. Hope she has a fab time at Cambridge.

If I had to be ever so worried about the child who seemed gifted at 5 and has not turned into anything wonderful by the time he is 30, what about the children who seemed nothing special at 5, but who suddenly blossomed in their late teens? Should that be an equal problem? Or does it not rather suggest that predictions are awkward things in the first place.

After all, the number of places at the top (whether academically or in business) are limited: if they should all be filled by the children who seemed bright at 5, there then would be little room (few postgraduate posts, little research funding, not enough well paid jobs) for the ones that were playing at 5 and only started working at 15.

And how does one, indeed, define success? Dd is gifted in academic terms, but I do not see her as a potentially high earner, because her dreams are not the kind that usually lead to worldly success. So should I try to discourage her from fulfilling them?

"The point I am making is that our economy, our schools, scientific and medical institutions, universities and banks, need the very best brains"

And how do you define the very best brains? Speaking from a university perspective (which is the one I know best) to get anything like success, you do not just need to have a brain-the-size-of-a-planet. You need to have a great deal of planning capacity to organise and fund your research, you need to be very good people skills (teaching, finding sponsors for research, leading research teams, communicating results to colleagues), you need to be emotionally resilient to cope with backlashes (no funding, projects folding, results failing to materialise), you need to have endless patience to do tasks that are boring and easy but time consuming (the thinking part of research is an minute proportion).

I object to the OP on so many levels, i think I may have misunderstood it! or rather, the OP and I are so far apart in our outlook on life that its hard to know how to respond!

Many good points already made, especially about what happens to "gifted" 5 year olds later on...so many things can affect a child's development and decisions, and so many children change so much as they grow, to worry about society because "gifted children" don't fulfil their potential seems pointless. Some people are doing well and filling the top jobs, so it hardly matters whether they were deemed gifted as youngsters. Perhaps the wrong people are in those top jobs, but it doesn't mean that the "gifted" children would be the right people!

What you end up doing in life is so much more to do with what influences you, what experiences you have, your motivation and your drive, your personality, than whether you learned to read at an early age or were a whizz at maths. And one person's fulfilment is another person's pugatory.

Your final para, OP, I found the most bizarre:

"my little average achiever gives me the most joy and the least worry! I know he will be happy and fulfilled come what may."

..not only is it patronising but also very naive....why will he be happy and fulfilled come what may...because he's not bright enough to know the difference? This sounds brutal, but you don't have to be gifted and talented to feel frustrated and disapointed about life!

Really don't want to attack you OP, but bewildered by where you're coming from!

Cory, years ago I saw the film, a Beautiful Mind and recently I read the book. I'm interested in maths. John Nash showed no early interest or precosity in maths and he did fine, but sadly probably never reached his full potential because of mental illness. So I concur, some are late starters, as was the great man himself, Einstein, who apparently prefered playing the violin to maths, even though he was a very average musician.

DS has a very good friend, G&T English, who said the other day he wanted to be an astronaut. DS is gifted in maths and wants to work for the MOD designing weapons or code breaking, he stated at six he wanted to study maths at the highest level and asked if a PHd would give him a doctorate . All of which fit with his talents. What I do wonder though is it healthy at 9 years to be so certain about career choices. I wonder which child is most likely to fulfil their potential, not just in terms of career but in the happiness stakes.