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The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Nov 29, 2007 07:55 AM
from the the-most-smartest dept.
from the the-most-smartest dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has an interesting article on the secret to raising smart kids that says that more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings. In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. One theory of what separates the two general classes of learners, helpless versus mastery-oriented, is that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different "theories" of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount. Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Mastery-oriented children think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating offering opportunities to learn."
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scool (Score:5, Funny)
Chemicals (Score:5, Funny)
Tried & Tested (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tried & Tested (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Tried & Tested (Score:5, Insightful)
- Start reading to them VERY YOUNG.
I was reading on my own before the age of three and have had a life long adoration for literature. How did I learn to read? Simple. My mom read a book to me EVERY NIGHT as far back as I can remember (and then even before that) and let me follow along with her as she pointed to each word she read. Eventually, I didn't need her to do that anymore and I would toddle off into a corner with a stack of books on my own.
- Read books yourself. If your child sees you reading books for enjoyment and paying attention to the newspaper, your child is more likely to do the same.
- Allow your children to engage you in intellectual conversations. The worst thing you can do is, when your child starts a conversation or asks questions or wants to give you their thoughts on a topic, is slough it off or reply with only the vaguest of attention. No, you can't give your child constant un-divided attention. Your child needs to know that talking and debating and sharing thoughts and opinions and information is valued, encouraged and important. If all you engage each other in is conversations about last night's episode of your favorite sit-com, your kid is going to learn that consuming entertainment and keeping your mouth shut is what matters.
- Give your child freedom. I was able to bicycle and walk around the neighborhood (and beyond) when I was seven and eight years old. I was able to take the bus about fifteen miles into downtown Portland to explore the city, hang out at Powell's City of Books and practically live at the central library. I has a yard bigger than a postage stamp that you could almost get lost in. I built tree forts with my friends, invented games, dug giant holes and tunnels under ground. Played with my grandfathers carpentry tools to make stuff. Had a chemistry set. Had a library card. Had time to myself. Today, kids have their whole life planned and structured, are often restricted to a small area of freedom, can't roam anywhere on their own, and can't play with anything sharper than a spoon. As a kid, I smashed my fingers, sprained my hand and foot, cut my finger to the bone (and would have needed stitches, if we weren't camping 200 miles from the closest city at the time), hammered my finger, burned myself, cut myself with a handsaw and lots of other stuff. At twelve, I went down to the local car body shop and they let me have a chunk of steel. A simple rectangular block of it that I ground, sanded and shaped into an actual knife all on my own. Then I learned how to make a handle and rivet it all together, including using an expensive (and maybe dangerous) heavy duty drill press. Did I do lots of dumb stuff? Did I probably avoid serious harm many times, just by the skin of my teeth? Probably. But god damned, if I didn't learn a lot in the process and develop a lot of character through my inquisitiveness.
Parent
Re:Tried & Tested (Score:5, Insightful)
But, what you can do to increase the chances that someone will be SUCCESSFUL in life is to encourage and reward effort and work. For instance, if you kid gets an A, say "wow, you WORKED REALLY HARD to earn that A, great," and don't say "Wow, you're so smart!" Because if the kid later fucks something up, you want their mental arithmatic to be "I need to work harder" -- which anyone can do -- and not "I am a dumbass, which can't be changed." -- which doesn't encourage success. Ditto if they're failing: "you need to work harder at math" is what you should say, according to the latest research (which TFA is about, although I didn't read TFA, but rather another about the same study).
Some of the most successful people (CEOs, high achieving and famous game designers, etc.) I know are not super smart, they are just very motivated and work very hard. Some of the biggest failures I know (suicides, guys actually living in their parents' basement, etc.) are incredibly smart. As I get older, it seems that motivation, effort, and the skills needed to apply effort are way more important than raw IQ.
Parent
Re:Tried & Tested (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister had accomplished the second. She was 10 years my senior, I was in 4th or 5th. I still remember that moment seeing my sister(sitting on the sofa and reading the third book from the Belgariad series from David Eddings. My attention was captured when she laughed and I looked up to find a huge grin running across her face. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued and I just had to know what was so entertaining, but she said there was no way I could understand without reading the book. Sure enough, I ended up reading my way through her shelves, starting with that series. This probably contributed to my growing up into a nerd given her particular areas of interest.
Thanks to their influences there was a stark distinction between my reading comprehension and vocabulary compared to my K-12 peers who had never discovered the joys of extracurricular reading. They instead found reading to be an annoying and stressful exercise since every association they had with reading stemmed from either a boring textbook or assigned reading forced upon them. Furthermore, both forms of reading involved deadlines, followed by tests. They couldn't understand why I found reading to be enjoyable, but given their only encounters with reading, I could hardly blame them.
Parent
Implicit Critique (Score:5, Interesting)
This is also an implicit critique for those in certain fields of biology, who, unwilling to question their genetic reductionistic assumptions, continuously attempt to explain everything about humanity in terms of genetics or selection pressure, as though their particular field exists within an epistemological vacuum.
Re:Implicit Critique (Score:5, Interesting)
There have actually been studies showing that when shown the results of a psychological experiment, most people think the results were obvious. And yet - when people are asked to predict the results of those same experiments, they're no better at it than chance. Hindsight is 20/20.
Parent
Re:Implicit Critique (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: Tortoise & Hare again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody else just kept rolling their eyes since they already knew(or at least thought they knew) the answers to what was being asked. Then when test time comes around, the grades were what mattered, and while some of those people rolling their eyes actually did know the answers already, the majority didn't know them as well as they thought, or at least not as well as the students who were constantly hounding the teacher with questions and studying for hours to make up for any lacking areas of comprehension.
So we'd repeat that phrase to remind ourselves to never forget that lesson in hubris, and if we ever doubted our potential to get a good grade, we always had the opportunity to ameliorate our shortcoming with time and effort in the same way that those students kicked our asses.
Parent
The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
example? sure. My daughter can code html very well. I sat down for a few months and showed her how to get going and now she sells myspace templates for $15.00 each to kids at school. She also understands how a car works because I made her come out and help when I was working on the car or my project hotrod. Explaining things to her and answering all her questions. She also can use a GPS (real one not these fluffy naigation toys) as we are always geocacheing every sunday. One year we went geocacheing without a GPS, only topo maps and a compass. she loved the "low tech" approach. She is one of these Abercrombie wearing socks and flipflops in the winter stylish cheerleader types. yet she get's her hands dirty, can change a distributor as good as any certified mechanic and knows when to set aside prissy for fun and work.
She can do things that 99% of her friends can't. she has a higher automotive education than most girls, etc...
THAT is the solution. School will not teach your kids, you have to. Sadly most parents today do not want to bother with teaching their kids.
Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to have done a great job making sure your daughter is open to traditionally gender-inappropriate areas of interest, and to have challenged her and stimulated her in positive ways. Often, though, parents will say, "C'mon, you're smarter than that" or something similar when their child fails. As failures mount (and they will, learning is a process that requires failure), the child begins to believe that they really aren't that smart, and that a lack of intelligence is why they fail.
What I've taken from the article is that a better way to handle that would be to say, "C'mon, let's figure out how you can be smarter about that problem next time." This implies that intelligence is malleable and trainable.
How have you handled your daughter's failures?
/For the record, I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject lately, as I'm a fairly new father of a girl -- and I'm always looking for insight.
Parent
Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
I asked her to change the manual transmission oil on my Sidekick sport, no instruction at all just a command and acted like I was doing something.
when she opened the book and crawled under the car with a breaker bar to remove the oil drain plug I almost snickered... I let her get covered in old 90 weight oil, I then quietly slid the oil pan under for her and said, "need this?" she cleaned up the mess and finished the job and I said " good job! Mistakes make you better at what you do."
Expect kids to make mistakes and praise them for making them.
Parent
Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once, when he was very young, he spilled a pitcher of juice (milk?) all over the kitchen while trying to serve himself a drink. Instead of yelling at him, his mother helped him clean it up. She then filled the pitcher with water and took him outside and told him "The way you did it before didn't work very well, how else can you hold and pour so you don't spill?"
In the speech, he thanked his mother for helping him win the science prize by teaching him to try new approaches when his attempts failed... and not to fear mistakes.
I really liked that story when I first heard it (and try hard to practice the same type of teaching with my own children). I wish I knew which prize winner it was so I could read or listen to his entire acceptance speech (and see if I'm remembering that story correctly)
Parent
Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just in case you thought you were fooling everyone.
In the future, consider not replying at all, or (gasp) conceding that someone may have a point. It doesn't actually kill you.
Parent
Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents did pass on most life skills to me: cooking, cleaning, leatherworking (Dad's hobby), writing a check (my mom would let me fill out her checks when I was young), sewing, etc. But most parents can't even do this right now. One weekend I went back home I heard that the Home Ec teacher's daughter was Paying people to do her laundry at college because she didn't know how.
There is a good deal I picked up on my own or in Boy Scouts. Auto repair is a huge one. My parents didn't touch cars, even for oil changes. It took me my first car and my first oil change to replacing turbos and heads.
I'm with you. I can't wait to be a parent because in my mind, I get to duplicate all my knowledge that took me years to compile to someone who can pick it up in a short time.
I hate to say it but look around you. Look at your peers. I'm not talking about slashdot. I'm talking about a majority of America (from what I've seen). Do they really care what their kids know? Heck I can think of a dozen kids that their parents didn't plan on them (in Highschool). These people don't even have the life skills themselves, some barely passed highschool (if they ever did). What are they supposed to pass on to their kids? Plus most think it's the school's job. Heck most think that parenting is the school's job.
IMHO most of it's come from treating kids like people that must be protected instead of little learning machines. I've spent a fair amount of time around kids (cousins) and nothing is more annoying than when adults talk to them like kids. I've held fairly decent conversations with 4-5 year olds and they full understand what I'm saying without a cute voice and broken English. 200 years ago these kids were helping to hunt and garden. Most people would flip a lid if you wanted to put a gun in a 5 year olds hands. I bet that if you took a 15 year old from 1850 and a 15 year old from 2007 and dropped them alone *in their own environment* the 1850er could probably find his own food, cook his own meal, etc. Unless it was made out of plastic the 15 year old probably wouldn't know how to use money. Unless there was a microwave I bet most wouldn't even know how to make food. I had a friend in college whose stay at home mom always did everything for her. She burned Macaroni, who knew you needed water. You can't just dump it in a pot and turn on the heat.
Except my daughters are going to learn PHP9 none of that HTML Fluff. But thanks again for being the parent you are and I only wish that we had more people like you out there. Proof again that we shouldn't need a license to drive, but a license to have kids.
Parent
I am so smart! S-M-R-T (Score:5, Interesting)
If you allow your awareness to lapse and fade, you will become a victim of your own overconfidence. - the book of five rings
Uh-oh, the ground is trembling, (Score:5, Funny)
All the birds have taken wing.
The hordes of self-proclaimed geniuses who wander the halls of Slashdot approach.
This is a secret? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other thing I've seen research on is that praising kids in general ways such as "you're smart" isn't very helpful. Being specific with your praise, such as "you've got a good memory and learn spelling words well" is more effectively motivating.
Ignorance as Opportunity? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be scuba diving, or building a house, making cookies, or solving fractal matthematics, but the answer was always "I've never tried it."
This is why you must allow your children to fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Last night's On Point [onpointradio.org] featured Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist who funded Netscape, Google, AOL, and so on, and he said something that struck me-- he said that he has failed often, but that his successes outnumber his failures. He also said that his firm has a reputation of betting on the entrepeneur who has failed once before. The entrepeneur who fails, learns from it, and tries again is the kind of guy he wants to invest in.
Re:This is why you must allow your children to fai (Score:5, Insightful)
The theory, apparently, is that if you don't keep score, the little snowflakes won't get their feelings hurt by losing.
That's not to say that winning is everything; in fact I think kids can learn more about hard work and perseverance from losing.
Just wait until these kids start applying for colleges and jobs, unaware that reality deals harshly with those unprepared to earn their place in the world.
Parent
hard work - prodigies, eg Tiger Woods (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientific American ran some articles last year on child prodigies and expert minds (eg, Expert Mind [sciam.com]). The general idea was that child prodigies are not necessarily ``smarter'' than their peers. Instead, they are so passionate about a particular task that they practice significantly more than their peers. That is, hard work accounts for a lot. Being slightly gifted at some task and doing well can be more encouraging than failing, but that just gets the ball rolling. For example, Tiger Woods played hours of golf--he would practically beg his parents to take him out to play.
People aren't born knowing chess openings or golf swings. Helping children find activities that really interest them can be hugely rewarding-- not because they should become child prodigies, but because then the process itself is satisfying, too.
Students NEED challenge! Schools don't challenge! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't help those who are fast learners to sail through anything, yet the American educational system ignores the so-called "gifted", or just piles on more homework instead of making things challenging.
The result, children like the Jonathan of the article. They crumple at the first difficulty and never recover.
I don't think the bulldozer parents, those who shove all obstacles out of their children's way, help either.
Article makes sense to me (Score:5, Informative)
1) Intelligence is not a fixed, immutable property.
2) People who believe it IS fixed and immutable tend to avoid intellectual challenges.
3) People who avoid intellectual challenges learn less, and more slowly than people who seek them out.
Therefore, in order to raise smart children, we should:
1) Teach them that intelligence can be increased. (E.g., "Einstein was a great mathematician because he worked really hard at it for a long time" rather than "Einstein was a born genius.")
2) Assign responsibility to effort rather than innate ability. (This works both ways; if the child does well on an assignment, you can say "That's a good job." But if they do poorly, you can say "You didn't put in enough effort." Either way, the problem is with the child's actions, not with the child's identity.)
This makes a great deal of sense to me. I have observed that I learn more from trying things that are hard than from repeating things I find easy. I think the same thing probably applies to other people; so in order to encourage learning, we should encourage people to believe that it's a good idea to try out things that are hard to do and see mistakes as opportunities to learn.
Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
True that (Score:5, Insightful)
7 years down the road, thanks for the open university (www.open.ac.uk), an establishment that gives not a shit about league tables but instead actually cares about learning, education and research you know, the things Unis are meant to be about I am now a first class honours computing and mathematical sciences graduate. Not only that but I achieved this whilst working full time and in 3 years, so around 40 - 45hrs work a week and around 32hrs studying, I also feel that what the article suggests is true, that intelligence isn't something that's entirely fixed - some take things in easier than others certainly whilst others have to work hard but I do not feel any more that there's many areas beyond my grasp if I have the time, money and inclination to learn them. This is why I'll soon be starting my second degree in Physics which I will follow up with a Masters and hopefully eventually a phd. Why you ask? Because when you're not forced to learn, and when you're learning because you want to learn, learning is fun and there's little you can't do if you have the raw motivation of wanting to learn behind you.
Fuck the people who tell you you're stupid, it's them that make you stupid. Don't let them get away with it - defy them and learn anyway so that you can come back and gloat about how wrong they were.
Re:People are different (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Re:People are different (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I think you missed the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:I think you missed the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I think you missed the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't think of physical strength or athletic ability as "fixed", just waiting for us to "learn to use it." We need to think of intellectual activity in the same terms that we think of physical activity.
Parent
Re:I think you missed the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a better way to put it would be, "The absolute most important factor of success is effort." When I was in school, I got top scores on all the standardized tests without working a bit. Because of this, I got all kinds of rewards and accolades for "my hard work". Instead of teaching me to value working hard and challenging myself, it taught me to expect honors and recognition without having to do anything for it.
I think it was lucky for me that:
At college I gradually had less accolades for not doing anything special, and gradually had to work harder to do well; so I never "hit a wall" where I thought I was dumb. I did feel jealous for awhile of other people who got rewards for actually going over and above; but I just had to suck it up and tell myself that they were rewarded because they put in extra effort, and I'm not being rewarded because I didn't.
Parent
It's about motivation and success, not being smart (Score:5, Informative)
From what I've seen of the world, motivation is far more important in determining success than intelligence.
Parent
You fail it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Consistently telling a kid that (s)he is stupid will cause the kid to believe he is stupid. Wow! such insight!
Wrong-o. Consistently telling a kid that successes are due to being smart will cause them to believe the opposite as well - namely, that failures are due to *not* being smart. On the other hand, telling a kid that successes are due to hard work will lead them to believe that failure can be turned around through diligence.
Read it slower next time.
Parent
Re:You fail it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of us here are the people described in the article, and we hold "being smart" as the highest possible attribute. We worship "smart" here. Ironically, of course, since one can't claim any more honor from being born smart than from being born handsome or good at sports, traits that are scorned here.
Parent
Re:You fail it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of us here are the people described in the article, and we hold "being smart" as the highest possible attribute. We worship "smart" here. Ironically, of course, since one can't claim any more honor from being born smart than from being born handsome or good at sports, traits that are scorned here.
Well, that's the focus of the article, isn't it? I totally agree with you, by the way - there's nothing to be proud of in relying on abliity alone to outperform the less talented if you're still underachieving.
I was certainly one of the ones that got the 'wow, that kid's smart' a lot. Probably more in school than from my parents, who emphasized work over talent. And I was an underachiever (relatively) until I realized how shameful it was that I was getting grades without any effort that my friends had to work their asses off for. And some of them resented it. I came to realize that a great deal of unused talent isn't something to be proud of; it's something to be ashamed of, if anything.
I've got kids now, and they're young, but they seem pretty sharp. And while I'll never tell them that they're dumb, praise comes through recognition of hard work - not talent.
Parent
Re:You fail it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:You fail it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The second (taller) should be easily verifiable and out of the realm of argument.
The last (smarter) is the most easily debated of the three. It's offensive to most because you have judged yourself to be the smarter one and the other party may not agree. Furthermore, the first two describe where you are helping someone. The last example describes a situation where you may not be helping at all.
You may be stroking your own ego.
You may be judging them as stupid.
You may be impeding their growth by forcing them to continue to be dependent on you rather than helping them learn how to do said task.
You may be asking them to "trust" you more than they're willing. I can immediately see proof if you're able to lift said object. It's not nearly as clear for a great number of situations how to assess so quickly if you're truly as smart as you think you are. Furthermore, "smart" people are often very sloppy in their ability to document or to state clearly the reasons behind their conclusions. You may think faster, but it may not mean you think more clearly or more correctly.
Parent
R T F A (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually really interesting stuff.
Parent
Re:Mental Disabilities (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA. It's not about mental ability. It's about how open children are to changing their abilities.
Children with mental disabilities can find ways around it if they have had the sort of upbringing/education that has told them they can. If they have been told that their mental ability/disability is fixed then they won't.
Parent
Re:Mental Abilities (Score:5, Insightful)
"Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and Cézanne were not simply born with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained effort."
That little prick was writing operas by the time he was 4 years old. How much "tremendous and sustained effort" can a 4 year-old have made?
Why are we so unwilling to admit that some kids are born smarter than others? From high-school on, I always found tall, slender, smart girls hot. I married a tall, slender, smart girl. My daughter is now a tall, slender smart girl. I am not particularly smart (except for when it comes to picking a mate). Who wants to bet that Britney Spears' kids probably won't win a Nobel prize in physics, even though they are probably go to fancy private schools and will have every advantage (except a stable home life, of course)?
All I'm saying that if you want to have really smart kids, it's good to start with at least one really smart parent. Beyond that, the affiant sayeth not.
Parent
Re:Mental Abilities (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the real point is that environment can spoil natural intelligence if the intelligence is not fostered with a good work ethic. I doubt many on this forum would deny the genetic predispositions to intellect.
-l
Parent
Re:Mental Abilities (Score:5, Insightful)
That little prick [Mozart] was writing operas by the time he was 4 years old. How much "tremendous and sustained effort" can a 4 year-old have made?
The article isn't saying that everyone is born with the same intellect - the article is saying that everyone can develop their intellect through "tremendous and sustained effort."
If Mozart had been a lazy SOB and retired at age 4, and I hadn't been a lazy SOB, the article suggests that I could lap Mozart despite starting much lower than him.
Parent
Re:Mental Abilities (Score:5, Informative)
Gifted children are taught by their parents, pushed by their parents, and learn to please their parents by doing what their daddy wants them to do.
quoted from wikipedia
Also he didn't write an opera at age four, he's first opera was written at about age 11.
Parent
Re:Mental Disabilities (Score:5, Funny)
But you know where the shift key is, and you placed your apostrophes correctly.
--BK
Parent
Re:Mental Disabilities (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is found in the opposite, that if you don't believe you can improve yourself, you will never bother trying, and it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As Homer Simpson would say, "The lesson we learned here today is never, never try."
Parent
Re:Mental Disabilities (Score:5, Funny)
Do you see where I'm going?
Your just not a all rounder.
I'm the same.
I never picked up another language after spending years on it yet given a month I can master a programming language.
Frustrating yes but it does have advantages.
Although I do try to keep my spelling/grammar impeccable on the net just to try and hold back the wave of IM speak.
Parent
Re:Mental Disabilities (Score:5, Funny)
>Although I do try to keep my spelling/grammar impeccable on the net
I see it's not working out so well.
Parent