How to create a child genius
Exceptional achievers have been born mostly out of nurture by parents who have unfulfilled ambitions
by: Oliver James
What are the root causes of exceptional achievement?
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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.
Oliver James is a chartered psychologist and psychotherapist and author of ‘Affluenza: How to be Successful and Stay Sane’
