Determination and hardwork vs G&T

[KatyMac]

DD is G&T (apparently)

She works bloody hard, concentrates and plans, practises and learns what she is taught

Which comes first I wonder the ability or the determination or do they grow symbiotically?

I think it's often a bit of both - though not always.

I cruised through a lot of my school work, did my homework in the break before class (if at all ) and was still top of my class- though admittedly I did a lot of work at home on other subjects (learning languages that weren't taught at school for instance) so not doubt that spilled over.

Have been told my mother was the same and always did her homework on the tram to school- but from what I know of my mother she will have spent all her spare time reading other things anyway.

Dd is G&T; she doesn't put a vast amount of time into her schoolwork, though she reads obsessively on all sorts of subjects that nobody's asked her to.

Read something a while back which said that in order to get to the top of your field, you had to spend 10,000 hours doing that thing, music, tennis, writing, whatever. And unless you really really "had" to do it, like say a writer wl always write, a musician will always make music, regardless of what else is going on; then you're not going to be a le to put in the hours of practice needed to get you to the top. If you just like it, there will be other things which grAb your attention.

So it's a both I think, the ability and the determination- you can have just one, but have to accept that you are only ever going to be pretty good at whatever it is, or both, in which case you have a chance of doing really well.

Apologies for typos, it would seem my dedication to drinking wine while typing with fat fingers on a phone isn't enough to even make me proficient

I've wondered this too. Does an early interest in a topic develop the neural pathways that cause one to be good at it, and then early success leads to more interest and so the cycle continues and the child gets better and better, or is it that an early natural talent in a topic is the seed for the same cycle.

ds is good at maths - he used to ask lots of maths questions as a toddler, but I've no idea if natural talent or natural curiosity sparked it.

It's complicated isn't it

The things DD has given up to dance are many & vast; but she doesn't see it like that. & she is certainly thriving on the new regime (15hrs plus of class/practise a week)

She read that you needed Grade 5 music theory & some 'high' ballet grade to get into PA college, so at the beginning of the summer she booked herself Theory lessons (someone coming to the house so it was 'safe') & nagged me to arrange ballet lessons (DD going somewhere so I had to do it as she wouldn't be able to get there by herself).

She has now planned 4 (fairly respectable and possible) alternative careers for herself

Working on the West End in a musical
Owning/running a dance school
Teaching in someone else's school
Teaching dance in a high school

I'm a bit confused by it all; it seems very determinded

My DD never does well at VR, NVR or CAT tests etc that are supposed to show those G&T, but she works blimmin hard, is very motivated and went on to do amazingly well in all exams (except the 11+!!).

They often prove the experts wrong, don't they?

I guess it's the conflict between

"Oh your DD she is so good, how talented she is"
&
The actual hard slog and concentration that she puts in

I agree so much with you Katymac. This country seems to fixate on "natural ability" more so than other countries. I think there is a difference in "base line intelligence/ability" but this varies less than is often emphaisized and that hard work makes the difference. My son's pino teacher is always so please at his progression -he gets up at 7 am to practice each day for 15-20 minutes (quite a bit for a young child). This is what makes him good. Likewise reading he practises ( reads !) loads and in maths he makes up questions for himself or asks other to.

Typos galore, sorry.

Also work in one area helps others eg reading, mental arthmetic, logic problems will help thinking else where.

What is it they say 1% inspiration & 99% perspiration

I think enthusiasm really came first with us. DD1 was easily bored even as a baby. This led to lots of interaction and changing activities even at 6 months she hated facing the same toys for too long. She seemed to like books and being read to, but never fell asleep while we read, so we read even more! This meant she picked up language quickly and had brilliant understanding. This meant that we spoke to her in a less baby manner, more small child iyswim. This meant understanding became more advanced which led to more advanced questions and greater knowledge of the world and enjoyment of problems, puzzles etc.

Sorry to babble but I think it is a two way flow of the childs enthusiasm, combined with the adult responses which encourage or discourage drive and hard work.

this country is a little obsessed with natural ability, whilst where I come from it is the opposite ie people think it is all about effort and I think it is probably 70% effort and 30% natural ability. I remember growing up the people at the top of my class where either superbright or just plain hardworking, the result being the same, ie being at the top of the class.

It seems almost a sin nowadays if your children work hard, especially when they are young - it is immediately assumed they are suffering, that their parents are dragon-style and pushy or that they are being deprived of a childhood. I instead notice that when the children find an interest and are encouraged to work at it, they seem to thrive on the challenge and the satisfaction of getting good at something.

"that their parents are dragon-style and pushy or that they are being deprived of a childhood"

Yes, I think I have enabled DD, but she knows if she gave up I'd be OK with it (or possibly happy - she works so hard)

Mind you at the same medal test I had a parent tell me she did too much, followed by a parent tell me I was wasting her talent & I should get her more classes

Determination and hard work definitely.
The Genius in all of us is a fab book on this very subject.

ds1 is doing very well with his music and people say "He's so lucky! He's so talented!" Yes, he is. But he also spends a lot of time at it and practices piano and singing every single day

& Saturday brings another 6 hours of class plus 4 hours of travel; that's sheer talent that is ?

Of course it's not, Katy. She evidently works hard. But then again there are plenty of people in the world who could put in those hours and still not get anywhere near where she is.

I think what people usually mean when they say "talent" is not "something that gets you things for free" but "something that means you can get somewhere really special with hard work".

There were hundreds of composers who worked as hard as Mozart, some of them worked themselves into their graves. They none of them wrote his music. But evidently, Mozart himself had to work like a packhorse to write Mozart's music: he couldn't have done it if he had never gone near a piano.

Some writers have spent every day of their life writing and still produced crap at the end of it. Talent is the bit that gives you hope that the end product won't be crap. In my humble opinion.

What people are envious of is that promise, that hope of something special that may be missing from their own lives.

If you think of dancing alone, there are hundreds of young girls who spend every available moment dancing and still won't get a ballet school to take them on because their back or feet are the wrong shape. Happened to the best student in dd's ballet school: her back wasn't straight enough.

My brother worked for hours every day for many years practising his violin and spent every weekend on a 10hr round trip to learn from a world class maestro at the Symphonic Orchestra: after a year at the conservatoire he found out he would never make it to soloist standard because of the way his fingers were shaped.

Obviously without all the work he could never have got into the conservatoire in the first place- but the ones who did make it professionally were the ones whom combined the same amount of hard work with the natural gift of having exactly the right finger shape. (Noone ,clearly, made it without the hard work.)

I don't think db regrets the work he put in though: he has since had a very successful career elsewhere, and there is no doubt this is partly due to his disciplined work habits.

I'm sorry Cory; I guess I just don't know how I feel about the dancing atm

It's all a bit new I suppose

I thought there was a certain ambivalence coming through, KatyMac. Tbh I think that's inevitable with this kind of very demanding but at the same time very unpredictable kind of choice.

Then again, your dd is doing something she really loves, she is doing it well and presumably getting satisfaction from knowing that she does well- does it matter what other people think? Does it even matter, for now, whether she will make it big time in the end or not- for all we know the planet might blow up next month or get eaten by a Giant Goat. The important thing is that her life feels worthwhile to her now.

Oh I don't know; it's a massive amount of exercise, during a period of change & growth. I am scared of the physical toll on her body never mind the emotional

Tho' as you say "The important thing is that her life feels worthwhile to her now."

I am sure my mum had the same fears about my brother- not the exercise, obviously, but the time put in and the emotional toll. And it was a bad shock to him when it all came unstuck- though fortunately he had done well at school and was able to walk straight into a uni course. But he got over it and at least he had tried; he wasn't left to live with regrets of never having given it a chance.

Sorry I'm being a miserable old bugger aren't I?

I agree with roisin. I've been interested in this subject and pretty much come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as "natural talent".

Fundamentally it is about the hours put in. There are, however, some other factors that muddy the waters a bit and make it not appear like that to most people:

1. The QUALITY of work is as important as the quantity. It needs to be on the right stuff, in the right way, guided by the right sort of experts. Not everybody has access to the best guidance, and some guidance is useless of even negative.

1. The best kind of work always comes from the INTERNAL MOTIVATION of the child. As all children have different personalities and interests, progress therefore depends a lot on how sensitively these were picked up and treated by the adults around them.

1. There is quite a lot of evidence for the existence of CRITICAL PERIODS in some subjects - particularly music, dance, languages and some sports. ie there are some things that really need to be learnt before certain windows close in childhood development, and an adult or even an adolescent coming to the same things will never learn them as well, even if they put equivalent hours in.

1. INFORMAL LEARNING is incredibly important. All the "stuff" that children just soak up from their environment. Whether their parents read to/with them, listen to music, what they play with etc. Whether they have a secure quiet atmosphere in which to explore, and what they explore...

I think "talent" is just something people have invented to account for all the differences between peoples' achievements that can't be easily and directly explained by work, due to the infinite complications of these factors (and probably many others).