
You don’t want a child prodigy - mindgam3
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/opinion/sunday/kids-sports-music-choices.html
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chriselles
I have a son who developed intrinsic interest in a Rubik’s Cube I purchased as
a gift for him at the age of 9.

He voluntarily attacked it with an incredible investment in time and focus.

I wouldnit call him an intellectual prodigy, but he consistently expressed
outlier intrinsic motivation.

We supported him in his cubing competition pursuits.

He competed to a high standard making it to recognised national level
competition twice, reaching the semi-finals the 1st year and clearing semi-
finals the 2nd(but immediately knocked out in finals).

We openly discussed the commitment required to achieve national success,
repeatedly covering the concept of diminishing returns.

We discussed that whatever he decided his family would support him.

He committed, he succeeded(to an extent), he recognised the need to redouble
his commitment to achieve the final step up to the apex, and he decided he
wanted to continue cubing for joy, rather than singular pursuit of competitive
excellence.

We try to parent with a roughly 50/50 mix of “tiger parenting” and “hippies in
joyful pursuit”.

Be disciplined in what we NEED to learn/do.

Be joyful in what we WANT to learn/do.

We think he’s a happy and well rounded kid

We think we did the right thing by him.

Too soon to tell?

~~~
behringer
He'll be drinking at 40 in a lonely bar reminiscing about how he was almost
there. He had it within his grasp... He could have been national champ!

~~~
yhoneycomb
Looks like you got a lot of downvotes for what was clearly a joke. I thought
it was funny!

~~~
knolax
Jokes at the expense of a child aren't funny.

~~~
marak830
Are you kidding? As a father me and my wife joke a lot about our son. Hide and
seek hiding behind a chain link fence? Hey I'll save on college!

~~~
knolax
Claiming some stranger's kid is going to become an alcoholic that achieved
nothing in life because they like to play with Rubik's cubes is on whole other
level of mean.

~~~
austhrow743
Yeah, a funnier one.

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raphlinus
I was a child prodigy, now living a life that is a fairly natural extension of
that experience. I started programming at 6, took college classes (mostly math
and physics) from 9 to 13. I had a semi-successful software business with my
dad from 14 to 22, then decided to go to grad school, which was a fantastic
decision, as it both helped me sharpen my intellectual skills and develop
better social skills.

These days I do independent CS research and open source development, and still
enjoy learning. One of my latest projects involves programming GPU compute,
and I find it very exciting to grapple with a new computing model.

I don't talk about my early experience that much, but in this thread, feel
free to AMA.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
That's a very common story in software. We all started early. You're certainly
not a prodigy.

A prodigy, in terms of computer science, would have contributed in a
fundamental level to the field, as in invented some technology, some way of
working, contributed some insight that changed the way we work, even the way
we think, and this at very early age.

You, however, worked with your dad. Then you went to grad school. There's
nothing prodigal about that.

~~~
raphlinus
Thanks for providing more detail for my answer to mindgam3's question :)

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mountainofdeath
I completely and utterly disagree. In a world where everything is a zero-sum
game, the top few percent in any given area will gain more and more share.
Being average or even is good is no longer enough.

I would also venture to say that the people who are good and something _and_
are generalists (e.g. the scientists in the article) are better in both halves
than someone who is just one of those.

~~~
c0vfefe
If your life is entirely oriented around hoarding as much money & power as
possible, then sure, what you said it's true. But the world is filled with
billions of regular people finding meaning in an average, good-enough life.
The world runs on the backs of ordinary, unexceptional people like you & me.

~~~
knolax
> If your life is entirely oriented around hoarding as much money & power

Why do people have to always denigrate wanting money and power? It's an
intrinsic desire to want power and resources. If somebody finds happiness that
way why disparage them?

~~~
Haga
Because it's the same way unfullfilling as a drug addiction. Sure you have
miles instead of needles and dots on the suit instead on the veins, but in the
end you miss the one thing that matters-passing a legacy, influencing other
life's in a good direction, for a socially acceptable Trainspotting
reenactment.

~~~
Chickenosaurus
I am not sure I fully agree with you, but you put it beautifully. You have a
real way with words.

------
andrewstuart
I want my kids to be ordinary, middle of the road, happy kids.

Not famous, not super incredible, not mega successful. Just normal urban kids.

If they're happy and find their own purpose in life that's all I could hope
for.

~~~
ativzzz
As an ordinary, middle of the road, adult, I wish my parents pushed me harder.
Sure, I can do it myself now, but after 20+ years of building habits, it's
very hard to change track, and so far I've been unsuccessful.

Basically I have the desire to do "more", but lack the mental and emotional
skillsets to be able to execute.

~~~
Alex3917
How old are you? In the same way that most teenagers enjoy playing video games
more than doing work, most people in their 30s enjoy doing work more than
playing video games. If you're only in your 20s or early 30s then at some
point your brain may just flip on its own.

~~~
finder83
Is that because they stopped playing video games or because they were part of
a generation where it just wasn't as common? My brain never did that flip
(though I don't mind work so much). I kind of expect to see video games start
appearing in nursing homes around the time I have to go to one.

~~~
ddoolin
As an anecdata, I played games heavily as a kid, until my early 20s. I didn't
stop completely, and I wouldn't say I enjoy working more, but I prefer many
other things before I reach for a controller/mouse+kb. I don't know if the
brain flip is accurate as it makes it sound sudden, but for me I just
developed more interests all of which fight for ever-shrinking time.

~~~
tombert
I'm the same way; from ages ~5-21 or so, I played video games almost-daily,
but now I tend to keep myself entertained by programming something...not
necessarily for my employer, but also not necessarily _not_ for my employer.

I can't quite tell if it's because I like programming more, or if it's because
as I get older, I have trouble justifying stuff that I know won't help with
monetary or intellectual fulfillment.

~~~
Alex3917
I think this is accurate. As you get older it’s more obvious that video games
are kind of an artificial happiness, similar to doing mushrooms or something.
It’s not that they’re not fun per se, but it’s hard to actually feel good
about spending lots of time doing something that’s not going to contribute to
your long term wellbeing.

~~~
fzeroracer
Almost everything we do is technically artificial happiness, it just matters
how personally satisfied you are with what you do for entertainment.

I don't think it really has anything to do with recognizing something as being
artificial happiness. It just has to do with change. There are speedrunners
who code for a living, come home and compete for the fastest times on any
number of games, spend their time attending things like AGDQ or contributing
to the various micro communities within the scene.

I think people tend to fall into either passive or proactive mindsets for
their hobbies. And it's a sort of spectrum over time influenced by the
communities you belong to. If you're part of a community for your hobby, then
you get more out of it due to community momentum. Sort of like the person who
plays games to relax after work, versus the person participating in a
speedrunning community for a specific game.

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jaden
> Athletes who go on to become elite usually have a “sampling period.” They
> try a variety of sports, gain a breadth of general skills, learn about their
> own abilities and proclivities, and delay specializing until later than
> their peers who plateau at lower levels.

There's so much for kids to experience as they grow up, it's a shame when a
child is made to specialize in a single endeavor before they've had a chance
to try other activities.

~~~
anthuman
Sure. But then we won't have mozart or lebron james or turing or messi or most
of the olympic athletes, etc.

It's a question of breadth vs depth. Specialization vs generalization.

I suppose most kids should be given a generalized "education". But if a kid is
precocious or talented, then specialization makes sense.

Whatever happens, everyone lives with the "what if" or questions about the
road not taken.

~~~
soperj
Lebron played football as well. Most olympic athletes likely played other
sports before picking up the sport they're competing in. No one grows up
specializing in javelin, discus, shotput, rowing, decathlon etc, etc. There's
also all the multi-sport athletes that were phenomenal - Jordan, Gretzky, Bo
Jackson, Deion Sanders, Jackie Robinson all come to mind.

~~~
LanceH
Lebron played football because he's 6'8" 250lbs and a supreme athlete. Being a
top notch athlete causes one to play more sports, not the other way around.

~~~
soperj
Connor McDavid is a top notch athlete who didn't play other sports. Has said
he'd be horrible at them.

------
DoreenMichele
_hence the Game Boy’s thoroughly dated tech specs._

What they left out: It made it extremely stable and reliable and had features
that mattered to the players that bleeding edge tech couldn't compete with.

~~~
bqqyz
Seems like you posted this under the wrong article.

~~~
DoreenMichele
No, I didn't. It's a quote from _this_ article.

I have two very smart sons who are very into games. They talk a lot about the
gaming industry. I learned from them that the Game Boy was brilliant because
it was "older" tech where the bugs had been worked out, the abilities were
well known and so forth.

Proven tech was chosen to meet certain specs. There was a depth of wisdom
there that more "ooh, shiny" tech lacked.

I'm sure my remark could have been framed better, but I intentionally chose to
leave out personal anecdotes that I started to write -- about me turning down
a National Merit Scholarship and my son getting accepted to college at age 13
and then not attending -- because I am given so very much ridiculous shit when
I talk about such things, even though I appear to be the only woman to have
ever spent time on the leader board of HN, so you would think folks here
wouldn't blink at me self identifying as having attended gifted programs,
having a proven track record of academic excellence and yadda.

I chose to leave that remark because HN is a tech oriented crowd and I thought
it would resonate with some folks here and/or be a bit of cool trivia some
people would appreciate learning that has potential relevance to their
interests.

------
mindgam3
Former chess prodigy here. I earned NM title at age 10, had my 15m of fame and
briefly flirted with the idea of training to be one of the greats, then
realized by around age 12 or so that the future wasn’t so great for chess
pros. Went to college, did a bunch of startups, still love chess but never
regretted my decision.

I wholeheartedly agree with this article’s emphasis on developing generalist
skills. I do think it’s also really valuable to have the experience of
mastering one subject. Gaining mastery forces you to learn discipline and push
through psychological blocks, both of which translate to any other domain you
wish to pursue.

But mastery != prodigy. There are very real downsides to the pressure to
develop extreme talent at a young age. It can cause a kid to value achievement
over everything else, create false sense of self that ignores real feelings,
etc. Eventually this leads directly to the “troubled genius” archetype. We
have enough of those already.

Tl;dr: no on prodigy, yes on focus/mastery if the passion is there.

~~~
ProAm
Has much of your experiences as a child transferred to your life as an adult?
10 is super young to be a prodigy, how much such awareness and actualization
did you have then of your skill/talent? Did you willingly or knowingly apply
your chess skills to life from that point forward?

Hope these questions make sense?

~~~
mindgam3
It’s been a double-edged sword.

Main benefits:

1\. confidence knowing that I was really good at _something_ , even if it is
one of the most otherwise useless skills in the world. Whenever I’m down
because I feel like I suck at something, I have a data point to remind me that
at one point I had some competence.

2\. Unexpected, but was really valuable when I raised money for my first
startup: VCs like people who can beat them at chess. I think it’s because
pitch meetings for them are basically like an endless series of dick size
contests. I played the chess prodigy card _hard_ , and it worked. YMMV

Downsides:

1\. Typical geek social isolation, multiplied by 10x because chess is way more
useless than coding, robots, etc.

2\. All the usual narcissism/invincibility/insecurity that comes from having
people tell you that you’re special when you’re young. Same mindfuck happens
when you have all these twenty something tech millionaires. Super unhealthy
mindset and required a lot of failure + soul searching + therapy to emerge
reasonably intact.

~~~
ProAm
That is interesting. Did any of the 'chess specific' skills transfer? I know
very little about how to play chess well so forgive the naivety of this
question , but it seems very math-y, formulaic or a lot of pattern recognition
(poor choice of words). Im curious because 10 is just so young, I wonder how
much of being a 10 year old sticks with anyone, but have a applicable skill
where it's apparent it's a special skill/talent might stick more long term.

~~~
mindgam3
Chess is mainly about visual pattern recognition + concentration. Noticing
details.

For example, a detail in this conversation. You keep bringing up how 10 is
"just so young". It's almost like you're more interested in the youth aspect
than the other stuff. From my perspective the detail about age is the least
interesting part of the experience. But maybe you are trying to get at or
share something of your own that I am not understanding.

~~~
bick_nyers
Different from the parent but also, how is the required skills for a chess
master at 10 different for a chess master at say, 30? I feel like for the more
experienced, it shifts more towards memory-based pattern recognition than
logic-based pattern recognition as you are recreating historical game
states/strategies. I also know nothing of chess at any real level, so I could
be dead wrong.

~~~
mindgam3
No offense, but you don't need any chess understanding to realize from my
previous comment that I have zero interest in further discussion about the
whole "being 10" thing.

~~~
bick_nyers
Fair enough.

~~~
mindgam3
Sorry to cut you off if you were being sincere. I specifically pushed back on
the being 10 thing from the other comment after it rubbed me the wrong way,
and then you pursued basically the same line of questioning without
acknowledging anything I wrote. I interpreted that as being trolled and
reacted accordingly. If I misjudged your intent I apologize.

~~~
bick_nyers
Don't worry about it! The internet is like the wild west, trust nobody. To be
fair, it is a thread on being a child prodigy, so I see why that individual
was so adamant about being 10 :3

~~~
mindgam3
Yeah, I still think the focus on 10 thing is odd as I explain in the sibling
comment. What would be nice to hear from you is some acknowledgement that you
understand you pushed a button after I attempted to communicate that this
particular button made me uncomfortable. Not ascribing ill intent or asking
for an apology, but I'm always looking for allies in my attempt to increase
emotional intelligence amongst all these geniuses on HN.

------
dnprock
In Vietnam, they say you're blessed if your child is more capable than you.
Everyone says it but it takes a long time to sink in. My dad told me that. I
used to think it's kinda silly. Why have low expectation? Now I understand how
hard it is.

------
docker_up
[deleted]

~~~
rabidrat
> He worries about death but has said more than a few times he wanted to die
> or kill himself.

As a 2 sigma gifted kid (I guess), I had some of this same tendency, starting
around the same age as your son and becoming all but unbearable my freshman
year of college. It took me another 15 years or so to develop the emotional
intelligence to cope more effectively with the trauma of existence.

The one thing I wish I had discovered earlier, was Buddhism. Not as a
religion, but as a mental practice, and an existential framework. Some of the
most profound insights I've gotten about existence have come from Buddhist
writing and teachers, and with all due respect for other religions, these
insights seem uniquely Buddhist. Other religions do touch on the same topics,
but either more obliquely or at a more esoteric/advanced level, whereas they
are foundational to Buddhism and often stated in a very plain and concise
manner.

For instance, that inner pain your son feels, that makes him want to die?
That's the unavoidable discomfort of existence, which is literally the "First
Noble Truth" of Buddhism. And if we look deeply enough, we can see that we
simultaneously crave both existence and non-existence: we want to live forever
but often can't bear the immediate experience we find ourselves in. We torture
ourselves with contrary ideals that can't possibly coexist, and it's not like
we even have any choice in the matter anyway! Gifted children are not unique
in this regard; only their precociousness and sensitivity to it.

I could go on, but my specific and personal lessons aren't all that relevant.
Aside from the existential framework, the main thing I hope you do for your
son, is to give him the gift of "___". Normally Buddhist advocates would say
"meditation" in that slot, but I prefer to put it like that, because while I
would personally recommend the practice of meditation, that's not the only
method of getting this value. Alternative words are prayer, silence, breath,
sitting, peace, stillness, non-judgmental self-reflection--these are all part
and parcel of the same core skill. Which is the cultivated ability to receive
the experiences of life, as wonderful or as terrible as they are, with
equanimity, knowing that _the experience is the point_ and _this too shall
pass_. All other aspects of emotional intelligence stem from the metaskill of
being able to "sit" with the profound and inescapable discomfort of one's
existence.

Best of luck to you and your son. I don't envy either you or him, but
ultimately it just is what it is and we all end up in the same place anyway.
Hopefully this helps make the journey a bit easier.

~~~
docker_up
Thank you for this. We hope to help with focus on mindfulness and meditation
and what you describe sounds like what he needs. He needs to find peace
internally but he's too young right now.

