Is it possible to have a bright child and not be a pushy parent?

[Enid]

What happens if you just leave your bright child to get on with it? Do you HAVE to do extra work with them at home or lobby the school for G&T?

yes Scummy, on average clever parents are likely to have children who are regressing (slightly) towards the norm. And dim parents are likely to have children (slighty) cleverer than them.

That's interesting, fennel. I'm definitely dimmer than my parents. Partner is a super bright under achiever and cleverer than his folks, imo. So our kids could be on either an upward or a downward trajectory!

PPH, it's wonderful that your ds1 is getting all he needs at school from empathetic teachers with high expectations and only a few children to teach. I'm actually quite happy with ds's education myself. He has a class of 30 but one teacher and two classroom assistants so a similar ratio, is given free choice of books, is being taught his three and five times tables and lots of other 'extras' and he gets to work by himself on the computer. But I hear awful stories of children who don't get any of that, the children are bored and disruptive and parents naturally want to help their children.

Oh, that is interesting fennel. I thought (and you can now tell me that this bollocks) that intellect was inherited from the mother. I remember an article saying "men, if you want clever kids marry a clever woman" kind of thing

Girls educational attainment is very highly correlated with their mother's educational attainment.

But educational attainment isn't the same as intelligence, the "regression towards the mean" theory is related to measures of IQ, not to achievement.

That article could also be rephrased as "if you want clever kids, choose a clever co-parent".

Arrgh, If that's the case my kids' trajectory will be downward, tinks! Never mind. Their sporting, procrastination and housework trajectories will be upwards which may make them happy.

I remember someone saying to us (both Oxbridge yada) before ds was born re his likely ability that "sometimes you've reached a ceiling" (ie fennel's point). Instead we got someone who is cleverer than we are - and has Problems. I'm sure these things are connected.

Dh was reading something (hope it wasn't Robt Winston) recently about ganglion development - and how the bigger your brain ganglions get the brainier you are - until suddenly they get too big and immediate consequence of learning difficulties.

Interesting again fennel- you are so clever that I suspect your kids will be on the downward trajectory too, I'm afraid. I was thinking recently that it wes amazing how similarly my mum and I did in qualification terms, despite very different educational experiences.

Does that mean I should be setting Mr Inferior worksheets, Fennel?

What on earth is a ganglion? Great word...

I am rather thicker than either my mother or her mother, I fear.

You're right Aloha.
Teachers need to differentiate. Absolutely and without question. For all children. If that isn't done then the child is being short-changed. And sticking a 'G&T' tag on means nothing. It is like sticking on an SEN tag, without defining the SEN. There are some great programmes, but many are jut there to satisfy yet another government initiative.

No- you must make him weigh the butter, mi.

It was probably in the Daily Mail fennel Intellect is so tricky to measure though isn't it? I'm sure I'd do better in IQ tests than my mother but she can dash off the AZED crossword fairly effortlessly.

I love super bright people scummy but they often seem to be under-achievers, civil service if full of them.

On the regressing towards the mean, many of our long-term friends are Oxbridge graduates too, and most of them have clever children. But it would be interesting to know, IQ-wise, whether they are going downwards. I suspect my boys might be, but my brothers' definitely are not.

I'm not sure about the pushing and the worksheets. In my case, I teach the DSs (particularly DS2, who is 5) stuff they aren't doing at school; last night he wanted to try DS1's spellings, but DS1 (8) got cross after DS2 got 'electrocution' right. Sometimes I use workbooks because it is an easy way to present new concepts for a lazy person. When DS1 was learning his tables, DS2 wanted to do some himself.

The school itself though has a very worksheety approach and I think is a turn-off for lots of the children, not just the extremely able.

I don't hold with the 'bright children will do well anywhere'. Some bright children will do well anywhere.

Oh. My apologies. Thread moved on to much more interesting things while I was typing that...

I read somewhere recently that the highest achievers (in terms of school/uni exam performance) are not the highest achievers in the rest of life, the top 5-10% of academic achievers do less well in later life than the next 10 or 20%.

I'm not sure how they measured that success rate. But there are certainly a lot of bright drop-outs around.

starts to cry. doesn't understand the english school system, doesn't have a clue of sats and is now feeling guilty.

I do think personality and attitude and luck have a lot to do with success too.

I guess it depends on your definition of "pushy". You can have bright kids without hothousing them & just get on with life - of course you can!
Most of the really pushy mums I know seem to be madly compensating for something missing in their lives: in some cases bright children!

I think I have tracked down what dh was on about - it was the correlation between braininess in Ashkenazi Jews and Tay-Sachs etc. - see NYTimes article here , particularly with cheery dismissive final comment by researcher himself.

When looking round schools all of the classes in one particular school seemed to be doing worksheets. We chose a different school. The worksheet school have just had an 'outstanding' from Ofsted

Oh success in terms of financial rewards and even happiness is not strongly correlated to IQ at all. Qualities such as perseverance are much more likely to lead to success in life.