Superchildren

[sigh18]

How do some children find time to ace academics, music, sports and drama? Where do they find the hours to practice or are they naturally gifted at everything? Though I am not sure how anyone can progress in music and sports especially without practice?

My DD comes back home, knackered, and just about manages to finish homework. She does a few activities over the weekend - an instrument and a sport- but that’s about it.

How do others manage to excel at so much?

@notquitetonedeaf she plays four instruments and sings so indeed it was a third instrument (woodwind) when she took it up. Her teacher asked us to get the Grade 1 exam pack after the second lesson - she probably practised for about 2 hours a day the first few weeks but now it's more like 20/30 mins per session 4/5 times a week. Everyone assumes that she spends every waking moment doing schoolwork or practising = 'pushy parent', when it actual fact she also reads, plays sport, plays computer games, watches TV; if I say this though it's even worse. @ItsRainingTacos79 she also loves maths.

Planning, consistency and effort from parents.

There is a lot to be said for 'wasting' time though. I often try to work on the train but I suspect I'm better off on the days when I stare out of the window for an hour.

Genetics/naturally comes to them. My eldest never revised for an exam in his life but all As at GCSE & A levels. Knew his colours at 10 months old, began reading by himself at 1 year old, can assure you i had no idea what I was doing i was led by him! If he was told something once he retained it. He was also expert in ' wasting time' as he got older😂

This requires a mixture of the child being both motivated and capable, and parents who are in a position to facilitate financially and practically. Eg as a lone parent working ft my child simply won't be one of these children however talented she is.

began reading by himself at 1 year old

right

On the 9 year old grade 8 musicians - I have sat through so many music festival classes where tiny kids have appeared to play advanced repertoire (very badly) and the adjudicators have pulled them apart so I wouldn't necessarily see the advanced grade as something to think is important.

it depends what you mean by reading. someone got DC1 a set of toys which had letters / numbers on them when they were around 18 months and before turning 2 (so technically still 1) they knew their (phonic) alphabet and were "reading" in that sense. They were blending short words at 2 and went into nursery, just turned 3, reading fairly fluently.
You need someone to "unlock the code" by telling them that the "A says ah" - after that it can snowball on its own. Also, children's TV for early years is (deliberately) loaded with info on phonics.

I do remember sitting in the reception of the nursery near the start (just turned 3) and DC reading out a sign - "smoking is prohibited in this area - why does it say that, Mummy?" and the other adults in the room looking rather startled. The ability to read graffiti / street art also led to some interesting moments.

I agree to some extent, but ... not all of them.

When someone comes out with the guff that there is no such thing as gifted child, only pushy parents (which happens fairly regularly in the UK), they should be forced to watch this.

If you read the book Outliers it has a bit on how basically its lots of practice. I guess the difference is the motivation levels and reward some children feel from practicing is more than others.
But there must be differences in energy levels too. I have very different energy levels to my sibling

the scientists on whose work the book was purported to be based disowned it as grossly distorted and mostly wrong, and other researchers have found that amount of deliberate practice accounts for only a small amount of the differences between individuals, so "Outliers" has been rather thoroughly debunked (but made its author quite a lot of dough, so he's presumably happy)

https://www.salon.com/2016/04/10/malcolm_gladwell_got_us_wrong_our_research_was_key_to_the_10000_hour_rule_but_heres_what_got_oversimplified/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7461852/

Thats a shame. I liked that book. Although to be fair, that was only one bit of the book. There were lots of other bits too.

It depends on the child as much as anything.

Dd1 liked doing things, but didn't have the energy for too much. She did a few things during the week but never more than one thing after school. She loved doing workbooks and settling down to do something. When she did something she focused well and always wanted to do it to the best of her ability.

Dd2 would have loved to go to as many things afterschool as possible. She would have happily done 3+ things in the evening if finances and time had allowed. Time at home was boring and a waste of potential fun! She wanted mostly to have fun and enjoy it, and wasn't particularly into putting effort in.

Ds did not particularly want to do things after school. Homework was something best ignored and as for the thought that he could do something else voluntarily that put pen to paper, he'd have thought I had cracked up if I'd suggested it. he put effort into what he enjoyed and couldn't be bribed to do it if he didn't.

There's also number/spacing of children to be considered. Dd1 did a week long run of Annie which she auditioned for. All the other children who did it (and some came from a long way away-for her it was up the road) were either only children, the youngest child by a long way or their sister was in it too.
If ds had wanted to do more activities what he could do would have been limited by time round his sisters, or they'd have had to stop something they already did.

God just avoid this type. One mum mused how lovely it was to be woken in the morning by the sound of her teen practising her second instrument. This is so far from my own experience I had nothing to add. Find normal friends and their kids and hang out with them. Far more fun than the perfect Peter brigade and their violins and Duke of Edinburgh awards.

Undiagnosed ADHD and hyperfixation. At risk of sounding a bit cynical, this was definitely my own experience. My parents never pushed me into extra curriculars but I ended up doing about 6-8 activities and clubs outside school time. I had activities every single day of the week after school and genuinely loved them. They were great dopamine boosters as I hated routine and got bored easily at home. I was a typical high-achieving, high-masking undiagnosed ND girl. Looking back it all made sense, but at the time I wasn't consciously trying to be the best but just addicted to the feeling of certain activities (particularly art, technology, crafts and writing related) and the endorphin relief of ADHD symptoms following physical activity. So I ended up doing a lot of creative stuff as well as sports, and invariably ended up as an all-rounder kid just due to all that extra practice.

Even as an adult I still have a tendency to do loads of things at once and get obsessively fixated into certain activities or sports. My work is closely related to my hyperfixations so I ended up fairly successful later in life (basically exactly where most people expect all-rounder kids to end up). But I think many people underestimate the effect that neurodivergence has on behaviours that are apparent as children. Many "superchildren" are not necessarily the result of great parenting or lucky genes, but high-functioning NDers who happen to love a certain sport or art. You don't need to "find" extra energy to participate in an activity related to your special interest. You live and breathe for that activity. It GIVES you energy, which makes it much easier for kids to do so many things after what is perceived as a stressful school day.

I wasn't going to respond to the poster who was calling me a liar but yes, similar. He learnt his letters from Blockbusters,which is showing his age, and he used to sit in the supermarket trolley reading the signs over the aisles, tea, sugar etc. People used to turn and stare (he was also nearly bald til 2 so he looked younger than he was😂). I just thought it was normal as I was young and he was my first until my mother commented that he was reading the street names in his buggy when she took him out at 20 months and that wasn't 'normal'. He was reading chapter books at 3 when he started preschool (naughty amelia jane were his favourites and the faraway tree) and could do sums in his head or written down in the hundreds, tens and units at the same age.

my dd was academically gifted with very little effort needed to complete and retain educational material.
she figure skated at a fairly high level which involved being at the arena at 6am as well as 4-7pm most days of the week. was able to fit in some spring theater often getting the leading role, plus excelling at track and field (most likely due in part to the extensive figure skating training which led to good cardio, fast twitch muscle development and ability to focus.
close proximity to facilities, split shifts and time to shuttle kids around, money to pay for private coaching. safe community which meant that my presence was not often required.

I was one of those kids, no pushy parents or anything, I just found most things easy and I was good at the things they can mark you on in school.
It hasn't really meant anything as an adult, except giving me unearned confidence to attempt DIY projects.

For me, it was no amazing talent, just decent ability at a younger age. If you can perform two or three years ahead of what is expected then you are automatically 'good at everything'.
It was just a lucky combination of skills that were applicable to most childhood pursuits - memory, logic, patience/focus and well developed fine and gross motor skills. All of which would have been probably average a few school years above.

It evens out when the world stops only comparing you to people exactly your age and your youth stops being the main factor in why something is impressive.

Having a mumager.

When a parent dedicates their time to making sure their children do all of those things. Plus motivation from the child or discipline instilled by the adults.

When I think about it, I had plenty of time as a child and my aunty spends time resting etc after school or reading, playing with friends etc. All of the time our children spend doing kiddie stuff would be replaced with rehearsals, travelling to places, practicing etc.

Whilst organisation, early habits etc are important I do think that natural aptitude can have a lot to do with it as well. One of my dc is just naturally much better at learning and picks things up very easily, therefore always had energy at the end of the day and easily managed things like additional sports, and instrument and hobbies.

My other dc finds all kinds of learning much more of a struggle and is shattered at the end of a day, often just needing to decompress. We kept the extra curricular activities quite sparse until they felt able to cope with them...even now they are mostly sport related as that seems to be the best fit.

Mine were home by 3.20 if not in ASC and not much primary homework and I'm juniors didn't go to bed til 9-10pm so oodles of time.
At younger ages it was just about planning time and both mine did instruments & a sport or beavers etc most nights.

Dh was a super child. Lead in school
play / county level at his sport / only child from his school to get into Cambridge. His parents both left school at 16 blue collar workers and were supportive but the opposite of pushy. They always seem slightly shocked and baffled by what they have created! God knows what would have happened if he had had pushy parents!

I'd suspect grade 6/7 from scratch in 1.5 years is rare, though, and needs more than 30 mins/day.

I agree. I did grade 8(D) in 3.5 years on a wind instrument. No prior music training but I was 12 when I started, had an amazing teacher and nothing else to do of an evening!
Very different to a small child learning a string instrument at the age of 4. My Yr2 DD is learning one (from aged 6) and every time she has a growth spurt she has to spend a week readjusting working out where to put her fingers! I don't think this is her instrument, but she's happy enough on it for now and can swap to a wind instrument when she is older.
Not impossible to excel at such a young age but definitely the exception rather than the rule.
Ditto sport, they need to grow into their bodies and for some that just takes longer. They can be chubby-runners one minute, gangly and uncoordinated the next and then 'bam' all in proportion and they are off!).

My DCs do a lot. I imagine they will reduce and focus on the instruments/sports as they get older and they need to practice more.
No TV during the week, lots of activities ticked off at school (before, during and after) and lots of ferrying to-and-fro on the weekend (Saturday is honestly my least favourite day - but DCs favourite).
Not having any issues at school, and a willingness to give anything a go without moaning, helps too.

I read that book, years ago.
Not arguing with you about the 10,000 hours but my take home was that it was about opportunity at the right time. There was something about Bill Gates (or maybe Apples Tim Cook) and his town offering coding or computing when he was young and computing was in its infancy. So he became an expert before others of his age had even heard of it.

It was also about position (month of birth was cited as important for excelling in sport). I do think that if you are second fiddle to someone else in your school and never get the chance to lead then it doesn't always motivate you to work harder to be better. Sometimes someone who isn't as talented as you, but gets to lead in another school, may well end up advancing further than you as there are no obstacles in the way and they get more opportunities to shine.

For sport it was about being physically bigger as an autumn born. I'm not convinced about that as I recall seeing some massive and strong summer borns and some tiny, clumsy September borns in KS1.

Anyway - gone a bit off topic - but I don't think it's all just down to practice or even level of talent. Luck at finding the right instrument/sport at the right age plays a big part too.

Honestly a tonne of it is genetics and being fortunate to have parents who facilitate a wide range of different activities to try. I have 2 (of 3, sorry DS1!) who have taken the best of their parents DNA somehow and become children who fly through music grades are good at maths/science and compete at a national level. We aren't pushy parents but facilitate them to do what they want. It is pure pure luck on their parts to have bodies like their dads that pick up any sport in a flash and my ability to play any musical instrument without a whole heap of practice.

Watch and wait though, a lot of these toddler polymaths start to fall by the wayside as they move through their teens, not many of them are motivated enough by 17 and quite a few rebel completely against their parents pushing. Only one of mine is still achieving independently, DS3 would rather play football and gaze at his girlfriend much to the dismay of his maths teachers who know he would excel if he would only pick up a book.

Generally they all turn into slightly flawed adults like the rest of us.