如何打造天才儿童

如何打造天才儿童

作为父母望子成龙是难免的，但是成为天才儿童，是不可避免的遗传命运、还是虎爸虎妈的“人工打造”？是顺境中的水到渠成、还是逆境中的不断磨砺？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

beg恳求；回避正题[beg]

adversity逆境；不幸[əd'vɜːsɪtɪ]

cyanide氰化物['saɪənaɪd]

bereaved丧失亲人的人[bɪ'rivd]

misfortune不幸；灾祸[mɪs'fɔːtʃuːn; -tʃ(ə)n]

inevitable必然的，不可避免的[ɪn'evɪtəb(ə)l]

variant变体；转化['veərɪənt]

prodigy奇事；奇才['prɒdɪdʒɪ]

biography列传，传记[baɪ'ɒgrəfɪ]

How to create a child genius（579 words）

By Oliver James

What are the root causes of exceptional achievement?

When it comes to specific skills,such as playing the piano or golf,the answer often given is 10,000 hours of practice. But that begs the question of why some are motivated more than others.

One answer is childhood adversity. According to Parental Loss and Achievement by Samuel N Eisenstadt,Pierre DeSenardens and Marvin Eisenstadt,evidence suggests the loss of a parent before the age of 15 is a driver for many.

But before you reach for the cyanide so that little Johnnie or Clementine can excel,remember that the vast majority of the early bereaved are put at greater risk of depression,antisocial behaviour and underperformance.

So how to become a Jean-Paul Sartre or Gandhi? Strong clues as to the attributes required are provided in a recent report titled Winning Attitudes by Amanda Potter of Zircon Management Consultants. Half the 42 exceptional achievers her team interviewed had suffered a severe misfortune. This had spurred them to show others that they could succeed,redoubling their efforts in the face of the inevitable failures along the way.

Genes are the obvious candidates to explain why this happens,except that none have yet been found that give a reason for our individual psychology.

The Human Genome Project has drawn a blank in finding specific genetic variants that significantly explain any differences in our psychology. As this contradicts study findings of identical twins,the scientific literature dubs the results:“The Missing Heritability”. But it is increasingly looking to be more a case of nonexistent,than missing.

That leaves nurture and there can be no question that this plays a major part. In the great majority of cases,one or both parents have taken a strong interest in the top achiever from a young age. In the case of prodigies,virtually all known examples were hothoused and their role in the family script seems critical.

Most common is the favoured child who has sought the love of one or both parents through performance,frequently fulfilling the parent’s unfulfilled ambition. That seems to be why it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,and not his talented older sister,who became the great composer.

In the case of Tiger Woods,an only son,his father Earl could have been an American football star. Before their son’s birth,he and his wife Kultilda decided to create a world-class champion,according to biographies of the golfer,using a mix of hard-won approval for successes and harsh hostility for failures. In 1997,age 21,Woods became the youngest winner of the US Masters.

But not all hothousing is necessarily harmful. In the 1960s,Laszlo Polgar was a Hungarian educational psychologist who courted Klara,his future wife,with the idea that they could create chess geniuses out of their offspring. Of their three daughters,the eldest became the first female grandmaster,their second-born achieved the fifth best single performance in chess history and the third was also a grandmaster.

The difference was that the Polgars were careful to treat chess in the early years as a playful activity. Where Woods’parents pushed for perfection,the Polgars encouraged enjoyment.

Behind every exceptional achiever I have studied there is either severe childhood adversity or hothousing,or,in a few cases such as the Polgars,a mutual enjoyment of a favourite activity,or a mixture of these.

The takeaway for parents is to stop being so obsessed with outcomes and embrace the playfulness of your children.