The Prodigy Problem: why talented people fail to learn

There is a pervasive undercurrent in Western society -- at least the bits of it I get to see. I think a Sylvan Learning Centre ad put it the most succinctly:

A little girl, probably ten, going flaming red at the front of the classroom as she stutters over reading the word 'island.' Oh, the shame. Then she goes to Sylvan and can read quickly and easily out loud in class.

Oh, my yes... the Sylvan way: learning things and then doing them; instead of the more commonly expected way, which is: know everything because you're talented, without ever having to learn it at all...

The undercurrent about learning is that talented people know things without having to learn them. That actually creates the prodigy problem. Let me describe:

Shirley Temple was an amazing dancer. 

For a three-year-old. 

She was a remarkable dancer for an eight-year-old. 

She was quite an ordinary dancer for a thirteen-year-old. 


As an adult, she was bright enough to do something other than trying to dance. 

You see, being naturally talented at something is a bit of a problem... it stops people from knowing that they need to learn how to get better at things (if that's what they want to do.)

When I was spending a lot of time at the dance studio, as my children were taking classes, the prodigy problem was visible. The children who were good dancers before they were 10 (some of them had been great dancers at 4 or 6) were appalled by how fast my kids learned to dance as well as they could. When they noticed, and it was impossible not to, they either got angry and left dance entirely or got extremely competitive at my kids.

The thing is, having up to that point relied on 'I don't have any idea how I learn this stuff,' when they get to the age with everyone else who's got 12 or 13 years of 'I have figured out how to learn things' they are surpassed and they have no resources for how to deal with that. If they've thought of themselves as 'naturally talented' (which they probably are), they have no idea how to bring 'intentional learning' to the task.

And herein lies a problem that is dealt with in some detail by Carol Dweck in Mindset: the new psychology of success: the fixed mindset. If someone (or the entire culture they find themselves in) feels that 'this is it' in terms of talent or ability, they will approach any problem or opportunity facing them with a simple response: I can or cannot do this, and there is nothing I can do about that.

The alternative is the 'learning mindset' -- the one that says 'everything people do, they learn to do first, so I can (if I want to, and apply myself, and do what it takes) learn anything people can do.'

Guess which one makes for a happier, more effective, high-self-esteem life?

Sleep: babies and teens and changing needs

My strange, noticing brain noticed something again. 

Parents spend a great deal of time and effort researching and experimenting and seeking advice about how to stop their babies from waking up in the night. Or, more accurately, how to stop babies from waking parents in the night.

Fast-forward 13 or 14 years. Now parents spend a great deal of time and effort researching, experimenting and seeking advice on how to stop their children sleeping so much.

First we teach children how to do things (follow orders, make choices, sleep on command, etc.) and then, in just a few years when the children really get a handle on that, we ask that they stop. Don't take orders, think for yourself. Don't make choices, do what I say. Stop sleeping all the time and get something done.

More cynical parts of my brain make comments that are uncharitable, like: parents really don't seem to like children very much, and; this seems to be about what is expedient for the parent in this moment, not what is best for the child or society. I don't know that I'd go a long way to contradict either of those sentences, but I will create a little more compassion than that:

I understand:

• there are a squillion pressures, messages and 'experts' about childrearing, most of whom have no more idea what they're doing than the parents who are listening


• parents never (not once) ever get up in the morning thinking 'how can I screw up my kid today?' (and children never go to bed at night thinking 'how can I piss mom off tonight?')


• like most other egrigious mistakes, this is about a lack of knowledge and understanding, not foul motives or vile feelings ... even when the mistakes look like they have selfish motives, or the feelings that arise are vile

There seems to be a war going on: parents sleep on one side, what children need in the night on the other. Parents want to meet the child's needs 'now and forever' for the whole night before the child goes to bed. Which is a little like trying to eat 'once and for all'.

A child can't be made 'full for the night' or even 'sleepy for the night' by any means before bedtime. They cannot be made to feel secure for the night, the right temperature for the night, comfortable for the night, or adequately unlonely (what is the opposite of lonely?) for the night.

Those needs can only be met as they arise.

If the child is lonely in the night, there is nothing for it except to assure them, with a parent's presence, that she is not alone. If the child is hungry in the night, nothing will stop the hunger until he is fed. If the child is uncomfortably warm, cold, wet or sticky, leaving it until after the sun comes up will only let the child know which is more important: his needs or the location of the sun.

And, in 13 years, there is nothing except sufficient sleep that will make a rapidly-growing adolescent be well-rested. And, what outside 'expert' is going to know for this child, based on how fast she's growing, how much exercise she got and what kinds of stresses there were today, how much sleep that takes?

Just meet the needs as they present themselves...

Drug Education for Kids

There is a lot around these days... anti-smoking propaganda, 'Just Say No' campaigns, websites that may be excellent resources or condescending tripe aimed at kids, their parents or, let's be honest, other people who already agree with the position of those writing them. 

Recently, we received a web survey asking what the teenager in the house thought of some written materials aimed at teens. Oh, man. Where to start.

The overall tone of the material was, not surprisingly, "You are stupid, we know more than you and you will never understand this well enough to make sensible choices. Just do what we tell you to do, then you too can be 'cool.'"

Do you remember being a teenager and being faced with one of those adults? You know, the desperate ones who want to be seen to be cool by the teens? Arg! I swear, this material was written by them. You can smell the desperation, the need to be looked up to, right alongside the utter certainty that the adult is right and the teen is a zombie.

My kids, without any difficulty at all, have found out everything they want to know about drugs -- to the point that they can tell me all kinds of interesting things about words I'd never heard of, like ketamine. They found web sources and books and experts they believed in without having to resort to watching a 20 second commercial telling them what to think.

Have you seen the anti-smoking garbage as of late? My goodness, there are so many people dying of the effects of cigarette smoke -- people who haven't been in regular contact with it, or been smokers themselves, sometimes for decades are somehow crammed into the statistics of 'deaths from smoking' and 'deaths from second hand smoke' -- it's almost the #1 worldwide killer, probably above the most basic 'all people will die of something' cause. Sometimes the deranged side of my mind suspects that everyone who isn't shot or run over by a car, who is old enough to have ever been in a restaurant when smoking was allowed, dies of 'smoking-related illness.' It's a simple leap for a propaganda writer, after all... It goes kind of like this:

1. Tobacco, when burned, released 4000 chemicals (we'll talk about that piece of b.s. in a moment)


2. Several (between 6 and 200, depending on who you're listening to) are carcinogenic


3. THEREFORE anyone who has contracted cancer who was ever anywhere near tobacco burning has suffered from the effects of tobacco smoke AND


4. Heart disease and lung disease are both known to be correlated to smoking and second hand smoke


5. THEREFORE anyone with lung or heart disease who has ever been around burning tobacco is suffering from the effects of tobacco smoke


6. ERGO, anyone who dies after having contracted any of those (cancer, heart or lung diseases) can justifiably be said to have 'died from' the effects of tobacco smoke.

Ha ha ha ha. Oh sure.

Back to that '4000 chemicals' bit. I like this part, it's the funny part. 

Just for comparison's sake: anyone have any idea how many chemicals are released into the air when spicy battered fries are fried? Just for comparison, I mean...

No?

Hmm... perhaps 4000 chemicals released is a lot. Perhaps it is not. Who would know, with nothing at all to compare that isolated fact to? But 'chemicals' is a term that comprises... well, everything. Any compound (like gold-silver alloy) is a chemical. So are all vitamins, all minerals that aren't in their pure elemental form. Oh, and all elements. 

Some folks have managed to pollute the word 'chemicals' and really mean 'dangerous

compounds' but, since the 'list' of 'chemicals' released when tobacco burns includes both carbon and oxygen, the whole thing is just silly.

And that, unfortunately, is where almost all anti-drug stuff goes. In an atmosphere of fear, and lacking any trust in the people receiving the information, the anti-drug folks (including the anti-tobacco crowd) are provoked to propaganda.

What is the difference between propaganda and, say, marketing? Well, for one thing, anti-drug campaigns don't have to meet any standards for 'truth in advertising.' They can tell people that marijuana is a 'gateway' drug without having to restrict that statement to any part of reality or define the term. 

The research is clear: the vast majority of people who use marijuana (like tobacco and alcohol) do not ever progress into 'heavier' drugs, not even for experimentation. 

Gateway to nowhere, perhaps? Why is that term used? 

To invoke fear and to maintain ignorance.

Propaganda also has a level of invective that borders on the evangelical. It's not unhealthy to try pot -- it's immoral. It's not illegal for minors to use alcohol, it's an indication of someone's lack of character. Strong, upstanding people don't do these things, weak and amoral people do. And today, with the No Stank You and The Truth ads, people who smoke are ugly, stupid, socially-unacceptable and smell worse than decomposing flesh, apparently.

Propaganda is most obvious, though, when the lack of trust in the truth really shines through. The message is 'don't just tell them the truth -- amplify and adorn the truth with hyperbole and speculation, dire warnings of doom and death.' And lots of exclamation points!! 

Drugs kill. !!!!   

Tobacco kills everyone who ever uses it, and most of the people who are ever near it.    !!!!

When parents are attempting to influence their children's choices, particularly into their 20s, when they are truly 'free' of the supervision we rely on for the first 2 decades, what can they do that will actually work?

What can parents do that will actually work?
The truth. 

In fact, the truth is quite bad enough. 

Meth is highly addictive (true) and causes unsightly skin problems (true), is illegal (true), may be tampered with to make it even more addictive (also true) and distracts users from things that are important to them, like loved ones and feeling like a capable, responsible adult (all true). 

Does everyone who ever tries meth get hooked on it? No. 
Does everyone who gets hooked on it die or contract infectious diseases? Also no. 

Is it possible to have a clean source that is easy to get and won't risk the more revolting side effects? Well, yes, maybe, for a while if no one gets caught and the people involved don't have any difficulty getting the ingredients, and have no nefarious agenda in addition to supplying someone with drugs... That's an awful lot of conditions required to make a happy life hooked to something. Not impossible, but who has time or energy to spend that much time making sure tomorrow's lunch is that safe, much less something illicit that makes 'finding out' even harder?

Another 'fact' about drug use that the anti-campaigners like to gloss over is the self-esteem connection.

People who have high self-esteem may, certainly, try out drugs that are readily available to them (caffeine, alcohol and tobacco being way at the top of the list), but the people who are 'hooked instantly' like the drugs specifically for their ability to stop them from feeling the way they always do (or give them access to feelings they walled off long ago in a desperate attempt to stop feeling all the pain). 

Self-esteem is not about being high on oneself, narcissistic or boastful. High self-esteem is based on feeling capable of accomplishing many of the things necessary in life, and on feeling lovable and loved.

Parents can help with all of those things: 

• directing children toward doing things with their strengths
• making sure they know that their weaknesses don't need to be 'fixed' 
• weaknesses are no sign of being 'broken,' just an indication of where they're always (probably) going to need other people's assistance -- as is appropriate in a cooperative society.

Make sure children know they are loved... that alone goes a long way to ensuring they do not turn to drugs as a way to live with themselves...when they don't care much if they die.

The Endless Sleep Issue

Every now and then, I receive vitriolic replies to something I've said or written, and wow... it really makes a mark! I peruse it carefully, read it over and over and re-read my original comments as context, often several times.

This stuff is just fascinating! The topics that people whip off these epistles over is hugely varied. I want to write more, just so I can get more of them. 

I don't think there is a faster way to find out what someone's afraid of than to see what provokes them to write hate mail.

The latest one was over some feedback I gave on a mom's networking website about sleep.

Man, do people get het up about sleeping issues!

I suggested:

...it is odd, no? that our culture has this obsession with getting kids to sleep, making them stay asleep and a huge resistance to dealing with them in any way when they are supposed to be asleep...

The original question came from the mother of a 16mo girl who was, probably as a result of some recent travel and routine changes, having a hard time falling asleep alone. She had previously had no difficulty getting to sleep, ever since she was 2 months old. I suggested that it was ordinary, not any evidence of a brat or bad parenting, and that if the worst-case scenario was that mom would need to lie down with the child for 45 minutes a night for 18 days, where's the bad part?

I mean, really. What exactly is supposed to be wrong with meeting a child's changing needs? 

Even if they happen to change after 3 months or 14 years of stability, needs change. So, meet them. Even if the needs happen after 11pm? Needs change. So meet them.

What has this tiny, innocent child's current fears got to do with how well she slept as a 2 month old? Who cares? That's like saying, 'he never used to be that hungry at dinner, so he can't eat that much now.' What a completely bizarre criteria upon which to judge today's needs.

'Being weak' and 'giving in' are major themes in the hate mail, and I think 'where is the strength in talking a child out of expressing her fears?' 

Where is the 'win' in intentionally not meeting a child's current needs, because of how it was last week? 

How does giving a child what she needs now become 'giving in'? What possible benefit to anyone can there be to holding out? 

To me, it is all negatives: it causes parents a lot of stress and it teaches children that their feelings don't matter, and it damages the trust in the relationship overall...

I am often at a loss for words at the pervasive child-hate I see in the world. There is such strong resistance to any generosity toward children, against seeing children as innocent. 

Is it possible that people are not able to comprehend what 'innocent' means in terms of a child's motives?

Why is there such a fight against taking children's emotional reality seriously, particularly if that reality shifts or changes over time? 

While insisting on being a free individual, unique and special in every way, so many adults look at children as if they are only allowed to be one thing, fit into one box, express themselves in one way for all time. It is presumed that nothing a child experiences is different from the way an adult experiences it, therefore, it is assumed to be true that:

• Children cannot be hungry in the night, because I'm not.


• Children cannot be genuinely frightened of anything, because I can't guess what that might be.


• Children cannot be lonely or insecure or in pain in the dark night, because I am completely numb at night.
  


• Children are constantly trying to get their own way, as are all people, I know that because I am.

What a pile of guano.

Dads & Life

Hmm... sounds like a fine thing to ramble about.

Parenting v., childrearing, see also mothering; fathering.

Funny, isn't it, how fathering means the same thing as breeding, pretty much, whereas mothering means the same as rearing. We’ve left dads out for too long, particularly in the West. Dads are important parents.

I have a soft spot in my heart for dads, here in our society. It’s akin to the soft spot I have for men, growing up where (for some reason) the way you stand declares your sexuality, and being ‘sissy’ is the worst possible insult a boy can receive. There’s a lot wrong with that... but it’s about dads, today.

I like my dad, as a person and as his ‘role’ in my life. I admire much of his character, and he is one of the most generous people I have ever known. There was that weird period when he was going from Exalted Human to A Person in my head, when he became a whole person, from infancy to old age, within and outside the realm of our small family. My head expanded that day, and I saw a wholeness in him. What had been stereotype became whole, complex human.

I like dads, and I think they have a hard row to hoe these days. There is a lot expected of them, and they expect a lot of themselves. They hide from some of these expectations (usually behind other expectations as powerful!) I understand their avoidance. 

It isn’t fun to feel incompetent at something important. It is hard to acknowledge our ignorance.

There are a lot of professionals and people who will excuse dads from adapting to the reality of the role particularly when the child is damaged or ill, because men take it personally, a strike against their manliness. I don’t excuse dads from their role, however easy it might be for them to escape under the ‘the mom knows better than me’ or ‘I am busy supporting the family, I can’t do both’ clauses. 

I don’t excuse dads from their role because of how much it damages them to be excused.

The damage is caused by excusing themselves, and me excusing them too just makes it worse. It is almost peer pressure for them to keep excusing themselves when they know better, and wish to be stronger.

When there is trouble or strife in childrearing, too often dad feels incompetent and impotent and the pressure to escape feels tremendous. 

Escaping into work is virtuous, important, probably vital, in fact. 

Escaping into childhood (go play with the boys at the bar, out fishing, paintball... whatever) is popular.

Both are difficult for sane adults to justify, even to themselves... which pushes them to escape their lives even further... and on and on the cycle goes, feeling unbreakable.

Sadly, what these escapes does to men is destroy their sense of themselves as competent and courageous, both at once. For many men, feeling competent is 9/10s of who they think they are, and I haven’t met a man yet who doesn’t want to be courageous, even if he’s never managed it. Being ‘yellow’ is up there with being ‘sissy.’ And escaping from dealing with reality is both.

Funny, now in this situation, it’s the mom who gets to be courageous and strong by default (with a few exceptions), when being called feminine is the worst insult to a man.

I don’t know what the magic words or thoughts or beliefs are, for dads who find the courage and strength to hang in, be there, and deal with the reality of the situation. I’d sure like to know what those men think they are. I suspect they might be something like ‘I just had to’ or ‘I had no choice.’ I’d like to know how to install it in the rest of them, so they can feel better about their fathering... and themselves.

Sharing

Sharing

I recently wrote a column about sharing, explaining why I’m a social pariah and have never made my kids (or anyone else’s) share anything. After writing it, my mom told me that she was amazed by this position at the time (when they were young and this came up a lot)... and she remembered that they always had ‘special’ things. Sometimes, the entire playroom was ‘special’ and the visitors had to play with my stuff, or outside games, or complete make-believe, because no toys were available.

I have received such a fun collection of responses for this position! It is amazing to me, how thoroughly socialized in this ‘children must share’ idea many people are, as if it strikes at the core of what is right and true in the world.

One woman has the mother-in-law beast from Hades. Mother-in-law has a key to her daughter-in-law’s home, and welcomes herself and her negative diatribes against both her daughter-in-law and the grandchildren, just as often as her little heart desires. The daughter-in-law is ‘powerless’ to do anything about this, because it would be rude to, say, change the locks or bar mother-in-law from entering or ranting.

After I pick my jaw up off the ground, I realize just how different life can be in different families. Not only would my mother-in-law never risk such behaviour, knowing perfectly well she’d be lucky to escape with her life the first time, and would never get away with it twice, even my own parents do not have keys to my home. Although they are welcome anytime, being polite and respectful people, it just never crossed my mind that they had any ‘ownership’ in my house... even though they loaned us money for buying it, and it took many years to pay them back. The bank also has a huge ‘stake’ in my home, and they aren’t welcome to walk in anytime they feel like it and mouth off to their hearts’ content.

I am not required to share my home under any circumstances – because it’s mine. No one around me expects me to – because they acknowledge that it’s mine. I don’t expect to encounter any indication that I am required to share my home. But for that woman, her experience is very, very different. It is clear to me that the ‘ownership’ of her home is not absolute, and it’s up to other people when, how and for how long she’s required to ‘share’ her time and possessions.

it’s up to other people when, how and for how long she’s required to ‘share’ her time and possessions

It is exactly this muddling of ownership that I sought to avoid, in allowing my children to share (or not) as they chose. When they know for certain that the object in question belongs to one or the other of them, neither needs to struggle to stake their claim... and lending the object doesn’t confer ownership in their own minds, so they have no difficulty ‘taking it back’ when they are finished lending it, or in letting the loan stand for years.

Because I’m inclined to go take any issue to the furthest possible extent, in my home this meant that the owner can:

• refuse to lend it ever
• refuse to lend it now, no matter how many times it’s been
  loaned before
• repossess the loaned item at any time with any or no explanation
• give or refuse to give any explanation for lending or not lending, including
  ‘because it’s mine’ (This has made some people extremely uncomfortable,
  particularly other mothers who have really bought the ‘children must learn to
  share’ edict. The fun side of this for me is that I agree – children must learn
  to share. But, that is also the caveat: they must learn to share. That is, they
  need not be forced to share, but must come at it organically and through genuine
  generosity.)

A lot of people don’t trust that this can ‘just happen,’ so they force the issue. In my opinion this actually eradicates the natural generosity children have. It is hard trusting that this will, eventually, be learned: when the child is capable of understanding ownership, sharing and generosity will naturally follow. 

It is especially difficult to believe for people who only share because they think they are obliged to, grudgingly at that, because they know how distasteful sharing is. Other people hold the power, they can keep it as long as they like, treat it any way they want to, and decide whether to ever give it back.

This absence of trust that children will ‘just’ grow up, mature, become generous, share, learn... etc., etc. is the heart of a lot of unnecessary struggles for parents

Parents often know, intellectually, that children will grow up because of the internal need and desire to do so, but they don’t trust it --they don’t trust the knowledge or the child-- so they do things ‘just in case’. Unfortunately, ‘just in case’ is made out of fear, not love, and fear destroys things. Fear doesn’t create or facilitate things, it impedes them. It creates force, which creates resistance and resistance damages the innate need and desire to grow.

Forced sharing destroys innate generosity, and removes the conditions that make it possible to learn to share.

Alfie Kohn's Brilliance

I’ve been thinking and talking about Alfie Kohn’s latest book Unconditional Parenting recently. The subject keeps coming up on email lists and in conversations. Mr. Kohn’s premise is essentially that children are born ‘good’ and it is in supporting them and loving them unconditionally that they can remain that way.


Mr. Kohn points out that a parent’s whims are no more valid than the child’s whims, therefore it is not reasonable or mature to expect or want children to be obedient.

These are, for many, deeply challenging ideas. Many people ascribe to the popular thought that children are born evil (or they become evil very rapidly once here), and it is a parent’s right and proper aim to control them in order to eliminate or ameliorate the evil within.

This whole premise reminds me of Taoist thought: That right-thinking leaders will always lead from behind, avoid being noticed and let people be the goodness that they rightly are, naturally allowing the peaceful population to state ‘we are naturally this way.’ Challenged, provoked, led, controlled and manipulated, people become challenging, provocative, manipulative followers who resist control and rebel, quite naturally. It is human to resist control. Control naturally causes resistance.

Resistance is the basis of all disobedience, disconnection and defiance

Children who are not taught how to participate in power struggles do not learn to struggle for power, but are naturally aware of their own power; they are not easily led, even when very young. 

Children who are not manipulated never learn to manipulate others, nor the value of doing so, and are difficult to manipulate. 

Children who are not controlled never learn to fight that control, they never resist it and never rebel against it, and they live easily within their ethics and morals.

Does this mean that children who are not punished never cause problems or misbehave? Of course not... however, the inverted argument is seriously flawed: children who are controlled, punished, threatened, held hostage to the withholding of love from their parents, manipulated, expected to obey and follow uncomplainingly are damaged by this. Even if in the short term their behaviour appears to be better. 

There is something larger at stake than just whether the child is going to behave in an exemplary fashion today at the mall.

That larger thing is what educators, parenting ‘experts’ and the general public call ‘success as an adult.’

If the benefit to the child (and society) is very short-term obedience to the whims of the local authority figure, then the costs of doing this are required to be part of the equation. 

What does it cost a child to learn that the only way he can be loved is by ‘performing’ the right way at the right time?

What does it cost those little children to be placed on stage, to strut and dance, so they can win meaningless trophies as the Cutest or Most Talented in a pool of 12 or 15 other kids their age... wearing wigs, false teeth, makeup, false eyelashes...? 

The same it costs kids who are compelled to pretend who they are, what they want, and how they behave in the world to be considered lovable, acceptable, sometimes to even be considered human.

I hear some hesitation... ‘but children, unpunished and uncontrolled, will be monsters,’ is the popular and pervasive thought...

But, no. 

The monsters are those who learned control, power, manipulation and rebellion early, early on. 

It is not the Buddhists who are staging violent protests in the name of some long-dead human who said something very much like ‘don’t take my picture seriously.’ It isn’t the Shintoists who are burning embassies or bombing cars to ‘prove’ that their way is the one right way. These are but two of the philosophies of the world that teach that the innate nature of things is good, and that children need love, support and guidance, not violence, control and forced obedience.

In my manuscript "The Way and The Power of Mothering, a translation of the Tao Te Ching through the lens of motherhood," I wrote:


Power

In mothering lies great power. It is easy for her to think the child and

his destiny are hers to control; that the child is to be moulded to her ideal;

that the flaws are hers to correct.


Right mothering recognizes the false belief in this. A wise mother knows only her own imperfections are hers to correct--her child comes whole and needs to mould himself to meet his destiny. The power of motherhood is in the strength of supporting, loving and being present, which are hard enough.

The hardest thing parents can do is let go of the need to control, especially within a society that says, ‘it is a parent’s most important task to control the child.’ Alfie Kohn’s brilliantly argued thesis is that in spite of the popularity of the idea, there is no empirical evidence (and many people have set out to prove it, and failed) that control is even moderately effective, even in the short term.

Control simply does not work
There is no qualification to that statement

Controlling children simply does not create obedience, even when it creates the appearance of obedience in the short term.

Besides, what is the benefit to humanity to have a population of obedient people? Who will they obey? What atrocities will they participate in because they are told to?