
Why isn't my child as clever as me? (2013) - Sandman
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/22/why-isnt-my-child-clever-as-me
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untilHellbanned
This author ironically comes across as really quite obtuse. I'm willing to bet
her daughter would outdo her or her "higher stream" peers in many measures of
success one day if she were free from her no-doubt oppressive home and
educational environments. The way the post concluded I'm not confident, so I
feel bad for the little girl. She's likely never gonna get a chance.

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apatters
I think this may be correct. What kind of mother pens an article to the
Guardian about how her daughter is dumb, blames it on her husband, and holds
nightly reading lessons that make her child cry? Certainly an overbearing one.
It sounds like she's doing more harm than good at this point.

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DefaultUserHN
Are you trying to say that the mother is the dumb one here?

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dsfyu404ed
"Intelligence" and not doing dumb things are related in the same way that
money is the difference between a Chevy Aveo and an S-Class. Input and output
are obviously related but it's nowhere a X:1 relationship (for small values of
X). Just being "twice as intelligent" might make you more likely to be a
successful parent but not twice as likely in the same way that spending 4x as
much on some product doesn't get you something that's 4x better than the entry
level item.

There's a correlation between rich/poor/smart/dumb and parenting effectiveness
but there's so much noise that nobody's surprised when a rich smart couple has
a deadbeat kid or vise versa.

Just being smart won't save her if she's a crap parent but people are
resilient enough that unless she's really good or really bad it probably won't
make a huge difference a decade down the road.

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dchichkov
This statement is suggestive: "the teacher encouraged me to practise reading
and writing every night with her, but every letter was a struggle and every
session ended in tears, tantrums and dejection. "

The kid is not in control, the mother is. It is a job of the person in
control, to adapt and change the behavior, in order to change outcome "every
session ended in tears and dejection".

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valdiorn
you haven't tried raising a kid, I assume...

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joe563323
Don't be hard on the mother. In this era where unskilled jobs are being
automated and other skilled jobs are being outsourced what do you expect from
a protective mother ? The mother obviously wants the kid to survive and she is
very much upset about the thought of being not fit in the society. Well all
this will disappear if basic income becomes reality and robots does all our
jobs and humans are free of wage slavery. And that is where
engineer(especially software) takes the role of god .

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projectramo
I wonder if the author is discussing the culture of intellectualism rather
than being "bright" per se.

Not that this point contradicts anything in the article. You can still wish
your children had inherited your cultural posture.

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hnarayanan
I feel that she’s conflating specific (though rather arbitrary) intellectual
milestones with being “bright.”

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ridgeguy
I believe she's got a broader view.

"All the other milestones found her trailing behind her peers: potty-training,
dressing herself, identifying colors."

These seem less like specific intellectual milestones than general
developmental ones.

I think it's the integrated picture her daughter presents that she finds
challenging, not solely her intellectual milestone schedule.

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oneloop
The author doesn't seem very bright herself. I wonder if her parents thought
the same way about her that she thinks about her daughter.

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biocomputation
Horrifying. Who cares if she's book smart?

There are many kinds of intelligence!

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oneloop
Well for one thing it's a huge disadvantage in life.

