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.

MMM - my dh had a conversation with his colleagues in a uni maths dept about the precocity issue and they reckoned that about half of them showed signs of having a particular maths talent in childhood, half of them didn't.
I was surprised the 'didn't's were so high!

Hi MrsBabookaloo,
Yes you have misunderstood my original post. I quoted the result from the research as it was published in the Daily Mail. I have not read the research paper, but I will when I get time, have a look for it.
Like you say, personality, life experiences, influences and motivation will all effect personal and professional fulfillment. I have already said this in previous posts, if you read any of them.
In terms of my Mr Average, yes I am fully convinced that this happy, socially gifted but academically average child, who is creative and happy within, will find his way in the world. People skills are probably the most important skill to have in life, whatever career you choose.
My main concern is DS2, who although socially aware, polite, well behaved and functioning several years in front of his peers, may never reach his full potential, if this research is anything to go by. So should I be concerned for him. As a tested gifted child(me) who never had any support at home, no encouragement, who did, just about OK, should I be doing more to support my son?

Oh, I forgot to add, to "should I be worried about my son?", Does anyone else have similar concerns and in what way should gifted children be supported. If these very clever children, do not reach their full potential does this have any consequences for society and the economy?

minimaths, I thought my second dc was going to be a happy average fulfilled person; that was so very obviously his personality as a baby, as a toddler, as a 5yo. At 10 his personality has totally changed - follow the diagnosis of a chronic and crippling joint condition. He is angry, bitter and does not want to try doing anything any more.

These days, I feel much more confident about dd who was always the volatile, dramatic, gifted child with a strong tendency to depression, but is now finding ways of coping with herself.

Of course, ds may change again. I hope so. But average intelligence is no guarantee that you are going to cope with life.

But you can't know when they are little which child is going to be ok. Out of us 4 siblings, it is the sunniest ones who developed depression issues as an adult, and the quirky one (very gifted in one area) with the childhood problems who has become the rock we all lean on. And the one who is most average in intelligence (I would say) who has struggled most with relationships in later life. Life is unpredictable.

Cory, my god, now I shall worry myself half silly. Life is unpredictable isn't it. I just feel that DS2, while bright, is not exceptionally so, but he glows with happiness and warmth, whereas DS1 is brooding, serious, demanding intellectually, difficult to get a long with, tiring and generally prone to too much thinking! He's sat beside me designing the covers for the christmas chocolate boxes on the other PC.

I get the bit about volatile, DS1 is very strong willed and volatile.

But it could just as well go the other way, minimaths. The child that seems to be brooding and difficult at 10 may grow into himself by 25.

Intelligence and academic accomplishments are not the only gifts

an inate confidence and a pushiness and desire to succeed leads to far more "fulfilment of potential" than pure intelligence

some of the stupidest people I've met have been the most academically intelligent with no capacity to succeed in the real world

and any article in the Mail would by it's very nature be not worth quoting

Cory my nephew has juvenile arthritis and sounds like he went through a similar incomprehending, personality sapping phase - I am pleased to report that down the line (at 24) he is now a pleasant, calm and accepting individual who has acheived amazingly - please do not give up hope

Thank you, activate, that is very comforting.

Can anything in the Daily Wail possibly be correct! The Professor has seemingly proved the obvious: many so-called "exceptionally gifted children" turn out to be average adults. This whole G&T thing seems frankly a bit spurious. Do we really believe that age 5 we can tell who will/won't turn out to be a brilliant scientist, great author or future Prime Minister? What nonsense.

As an anecdotal, I was considered "gifted" as a child. Top of my class in all subjects, my reading, writing and maths light years ahead of my class. Bottomline is that by university I was pretty average (despite working my guts out). Good but not "gifted". I've become a decent lawyer.

Now compare that to my DH. At primary school bright, perhaps top 10%, but not top of the class and definately not "gifted". But by sixth form he cruised 6 A's at A level. Double starred first in Maths (Oxbridge), top of his year obviously. PhD in Quantum Field Theory. Intelligence services, top Inv Bank, Hedge Fund Trader etc. Annoyingly he doesn't even try, though his ability to absorb and process information staggers me.

Was I was one of the 97% who didn't fufill my potential? Rubbish, I can accept I didn't have that potential. For example in maths I found it easy until about 17 when I just ran into a brick wall. Just got too abstract. My DH found that observation common in Maths. People who were initially as good as him just seemed to drop by the wayside as the complexity and abstraction exploded.

Also while my DH may be "gifted" at maths, I'm far better in social situations, probably have more self-confidence and am much more fun to be with! Which is better?

minimathsmouse - just returning to this thread, and I must say that I understand where you're coming from now that you've expanded a little on your children's personalities etc. Sorry if it seemed that I was attacking you.

However, the trouble with "gifted and talented" threads in general, is that they always have a not very hidden agenda. Usually, supposed concerns for one's gifted child are just an excuse to broadcast their talents and the parent's pride to the wider world, which is actually completely understandble, but I wish people would just post "Check out what my amazing dc can do, i'm really proud of him/her" rather than feeling they have to cover it with weird non-issues. Hope I'm not sticking my nexk out however when i say that central to this thread is the OP's frustration at being a gifted child who was not supported.....

Things have changed, and his situation will not be the same as yours OP.

Of course I wish both your DCs the best and hope that they are both happy and fulfilled.

I think that the key to keeping GandT's on track is to normalize them. My middle D was one of those small kids who scared adults. Figured out how to play peekaboo at 4months. VERY early speech. Whole sentences at 13 months. Reading (figured it out from watching her older brother) two months short of her 3rd birthday. But, she was starting to use her intelligence against her peers at her nursery and had only one friend (just as gifted). She is very young in the year and being taught separately from the rest of the class (the advantage of a private nursery) and the fact that she was unwilling and unable to engage on the same level as her peers all started to look problematic.
We sent her to a school that only takes the top two percent of ability at reception and she became a very happy child. She became something close to normal in that setting and had loads of friends whose minds worked the same way. Stretching one's self and is the norm at this school and the pace is very brisk. They all get 'it' the first time 'it' is taught and move on. DD is still one of the top scorers (no grades posted or revealed at school as they'd all eat each other but, they do talk amongst themselves) and she can work beyond what is asked of her for FUN! Now in year 8, we have never pushed at all! I'm quite delighted when she finds something a challenge because hard work matters as much as the gifts one is born with.
She has a friend from a well regarded state primary who's parents were told in year 4 that they had no more resources for her as she'd finished the curriculum and she should bring in books and sit in the corner. Had that girl not been moved, she probably would have ended up one of those disaffected and burnt out kids. Incidentally, DD's best friend at nursery spent 3 largely friendless and naughty years at school before joining DD.
If you can possibly stretch to afford it, get GandT's into selective schooling as soon as possible. It may not accurately reflect the world they will live in, but it has been worth every penny for my daughter to feel normal at school and not top of the class at everything. Then, as parents, we can back off andlet them flourish,

Hi Horsemadmom, I have also found that DS likes to be around children who function at a similar level. Its grounding for them to realise their strengths and weaknesses.

We are home educating for two years and then hopefully he is off to a selective at 11. Its nice to hear that your daughter is benefiting from a selective school. Lots of people seem very anti, on what I suppose is social and political ideas of equality. Its a shame that Grammar Schools are few and far, because that does at least offer equality to bright children. True equality would take into account individual needs. I'm not sure that G&T provission in state schools is any more than a box ticking exersise.

MrsBook, I'm fine thank you. In the words of the Philospher and economist John Stuart Mill "rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" in our modern liberal and capitalist world, we need people who question not people who answer. Being happy might be linked to being fulfilled,might be just economic, might be that in order to question anything, we must have at least a modicum of dissatisfaction. This is why I wanted to make the point that I do feel a sense of responsibility for and towards my son.I asked if others felt a similar burden of responsibility.

The outcome is the same as the finding in all Freeman's other books. This article and those in the Indy and Telly are to promote the new tome. Yet Freeman herself is willing to be on telly identifying children as gifted in the very way she claims will harm them....

Her standards for success are pretty stringent. Ruth Lawrence is a failure, apparently, though she has two u/g degrees and a D Phil and is a university professor with four children.

how do you know if you child is g & t??

Well, I think Freeman is pretty much a fan of IQ testing. Unlike me.

I am not in favour of grammar schools, minimaths, because I know so many children who have blossomed in their teens. Like my brother who was nothing special in primary school but got all As at the end of secondary and did a very good PhD, and is now head of humanities at his university. I have read some of his work and he is seriously bright. In fact, he has done much better than me and I was the one who seemed gifted when I was little, I was the one who would have walked into grammar school.

Under a grammar school system, db might well have ended up in a comprehensive with all other gifted, or even bright, children whisked away to grammar school.

And my dd, who I think is gifted or at least bright, was ill a lot during her last year in primary school so probably couldn't have coped with the 11+. She is doing very well at her secondary and predicted high grades- but I doubt she could have got coped with the 11+ at the age of 11. It just seems very early to decide what someone is going to be like.

"Gifted" doesn't mean well adjusted. It doesn't mean ambitious. It doesn't mean fun to be with. It isn't even a requirement to be truly original in thought, so far as I'm aware, in order to be described as gifted, provided you are exceptionally quick at picking up concepts (already thought up by someone else...) and applying them. And it doesn't have to mean you are good at controlling your thoughts and directing them towards something constructive.

Gifted people are not brains on legs, so of course many will not fulfil their "potential," if to do this means focusing on only one aspect of their identity. Would 97% of people identified as gifted really say that they were unhappy in life and should have achieved more? And if many actually are happy with what they have done in life, should Society get involved and get peed off with them for not using their gifts in a particular way and accuse them of failing to live up to their potential? And what of those gifted people who actually found their giftedness a source of great anxiety - always worried about their achievements, never able to enjoy their abilities, always putting pressure on themselves? Did they let themselves down by taking a step back from it all, or were they merely recognising that personality and mental health have in many ways a far greater role in achievement and "fulfilling your potential" than intelligence? Should society be propping up a lot of flaky "geniuses"? Not having read the article, I can' help wondering, in fact, what the statistic about 3% of gifted children not fulfilling their potential is actually trying to say? Statistics irritate me. They are generally far less meaningful than people try to imply.

IQ testing would establish intelligence only, what about tallent.

A few years ago Freeman was on TV, she was IQ testing children of 3 years old. I don't believe that can be very healthy! I have never had DS1 tested. Children develop at different rates, a bright child at 3, might eventually be an average child at 10.

Just as Cory illustrates in her anacdote, a seemingly average child, might overtake their peers later on. What I think this research questions, is why this happens. Is it something that simply happens because children peak and trough, develop at differing rates, or is it that gifted kids are not nurtured.

Cory, I do believe in Grammar School and make no appology for that. If state comps can not cater for the needs of all students, classes often disrupted by behaviour, antagonistic teachers who dislike bright kids(I've met a few!)a curricullum dumbed down, a timetable that inhibits creative planning and a socialist agenda that equates equality of opportunity with equality of outcome then Grammar School can bridge the gap for bright kids from poor backgrounds.

minimathsmouse - I know what you mean about the sense of responsibility. Some children inspire concern in their parents!

I have one ds (ds2) who is exceptionally bright for his age, good at everything, inquisitive, empathetic, and happy. He is relaxing to be around because you can see how his brain works and what interests him and he is happy in himself. I have no reason to worry about him at this stage in his life - he finds challenge where it isn't given to him on a plate, so does not get bored, and whilst preferring older children, is generally sociable with his classmates.

Ds1 has a different sort of intelligence and a very different personality. He just seems to understand things without any apparent input from anyone and has an unusually vivid imagination. I have never understood how his mathematical brain works - he just seems to know the answer to things without anyone being able to fathom how he worked them out. However, he is less curious about the world than his brother - he lives in his imagination and pays little heed to the reality going on around him. He gets stressed by things that he doesn't instantly understand and is terrified of failure. He is also very anxious socially, and as a result of a connective tissue disorder, has been slow developing some physical skills (although no problems with co-ordination, just strength, so a diminishing issue as he has got older, except to the extent the early difficulties had an effect on his self esteem). As a baby it was horrible to watch the frustration and fear of an obviously intelligent child stuck inside a useless body (he could be propped up to do peg puzzles and shape sorters, but couldn't get himself to sitting, let alone crawl about and explore his environment). Basically, I am anxious about him because he is an anxious child who has suffered from very uneven development - he is profoundly gifted in some areas, but almost disabled in others. His vast intelligence does not help him feel less anxious about things - it just serves to exacerbate his natural tendency towards an anxious state. Of course his brother has been dealt a better hand in many ways - being a good all rounder is much easier than having an intelligence that can mask your disabilities (or disabilities that mask your intelligence).

So, I don't think gifted children are necessarily hugely failed by not being given constant challenge (some have the personality to get on fine regardless), but some are failed because no-one realises how hard they are having to work to mask their weaknesses and what a huge effect this can have on their self esteem and achievement.

Oh, I am also in two minds about grammar schools. I went to one myself and have to admit to having been a bit relieved to get away from some of the children I went to primary school with, but only because the 11 plus generated such bad feeling amongst my peers that children who used to be friendly towards me started telling me I was posh and stuck up, because I was expected to pass and they weren't (as made obvious by the fact that the two children expected to pass that year were sat on the same table at the back of the class...). I hadn't changed, but their attitude towards me had. The majority of the other children at the Grammar School were still less academic than I was, anyway, although it was nice to have a slightly wider pool of slightly more like minded people than I'd mixed with at primary school - and people who didn't hold against me things that I couldn't even help...

I know very little about comprehensive education, given my background, but if everyone were going to the same school, that pool of brighter people should still be there to meet (except, of course, some will have been creamed off by the parents who don't trust the comprehensive system, to be sent to private schools, which may not have happened if a grammar school were available). However, I do think that the style of teaching in grammar schools tends to be different from the style of teaching in comprehensives, maybe because more can be taken for granted in a class of children who have all passed the same type of exam to get in. If comprehensive schools are less good for the brightest children, then it seems that it is quite hard to adjust your teaching method and style in each lesson to suit different groups of children, even if they are all streamed into different ability groups within the school. But does that have to be the case? And what of the children who were failed by the grammar school system? The alternative to going to grammar school in a grammar/secondary modern system, after all, to which at least 75% of children went, was considered inferior by most people, rather than different, and a colossal proportion of children with potential were written off at an early age as unacademic.

When it comes down to it, though, I will always do what I think best for my dss, regardless of what anyone else thinks about the morality of the existence of a particular type of school, or what I would like the situation to be.

And that was a fun monologue!!!!!

ps I have a significant group of friends from my grammar school who felt hugely let down by the education they received. It turned out that whilst very bright, they were not remotely academic, and left school bitter that the school had not supported them in, eg, taking courses to learn to touch type, or other more practical subjects...

pps as you've probably gathered, I grew up in an area where everyone was expected to take the 11 plus and either go to the grammar school or the secondary modern (which would then finish at age 16). I am very confused by the idea of grammar schools co-existing with comprehensives, if comprehensive is going to mean anything at all...

"If state comps can not cater for the needs of all students, classes often disrupted by behaviour, antagonistic teachers who dislike bright kids(I've met a few!)a curricullum dumbed down, a timetable that inhibits creative planning and a socialist agenda that equates equality of opportunity with equality of outcome then Grammar School can bridge the gap for bright kids from poor backgrounds."

Thankfully, most of the secondaries around here are not like that. Certainly dd's school, from a socially very mixed intake, is nothing like it. I have always attributed this to the fact that we do not have grammar schools in this part of the country, so not the same two tier system. The only poor secondary I know of locally is an academy which is badly managed by a large international religious group: it had very good results and was a much loved school while it was still a council run secondary.