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.<p>He voluntarily attacked it with an incredible investment in time and focus.<p>I wouldnit call him an intellectual prodigy, but he consistently expressed outlier intrinsic motivation.<p>We supported him in his cubing competition pursuits.<p>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).<p>We openly discussed the commitment required to achieve national success, repeatedly covering the concept of diminishing returns.<p>We discussed that whatever he decided his family would support him.<p>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.<p>We try to parent with a roughly 50/50 mix of “tiger parenting” and “hippies in joyful pursuit”.<p>Be disciplined in what we NEED to learn/do.<p>Be joyful in what we WANT to learn/do.<p>We think he’s a happy and well rounded kid<p>We think we did the right thing by him.<p>Too soon to tell?
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.<p>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.<p>I don't talk about my early experience that much, but in this thread, feel free to AMA.
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.<p>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.
I want my kids to be ordinary, middle of the road, happy kids.<p>Not famous, not super incredible, not mega successful. Just normal urban kids.<p>If they're happy and find their own purpose in life that's all I could hope for.
> 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.<p>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.
<i>hence the Game Boy’s thoroughly dated tech specs.</i><p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Tl;dr: no on prodigy, yes on focus/mastery if the passion is there.
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.