theoriginalblurker | The dangers of being a "smart kid"

This article really resonated with me. In some ways I saw this in my own upbringing, but I also saw it with a LOT of other kids with whom I went to school.

It's a long article, but here are some highlights:

But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

But a growing body of research—and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system—strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

Lots more at the article.

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“Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’”

Oh man. This is so D. When we told him about putting him at least a year ahead in the math, he started crying. When I asked him why he was having this reaction and got him to calm down, he said, "I don't wanna do calculus."

He was convinced that somehow advanced math meant something he couldn't possibly do. But when we showed him this week the curriculum summary for sixth grade math, he went through it and knew all of it. "No, I don't want to do decimals AGAIN," he said.

Glad to see this sort of thing getting out into mainstream media. Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have a whole chapter about this in How to Talk So Kids will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which is one of my favorite 'dealing with kids' books ever.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/0380811960

When I was a kid (and to a certain extent NOW), I was nearly paralyzed with the anxiety that at some point I would run into something I just couldn't do and everyone would find out it was all just a sham and I was never that smart in the first place and OMG OMG OMG... That moment hit my first semester in college and I shut myself in my closet, on the phone with my mother, insisting that I needed to drop out and come home because obviously there was no point--I was a failure and too dumb for college. That whole valedictorian thing was just a parlor trick or something. It took years for me to figure out that I could improve at something for which I might be lacking in natural aptitude (a year ago I would have told you that I couldn't decorate a cake, but now I'm confident enough to make gorgeous Martha-Stewart-on-crack cakes!), and that failure isn't the end of the world.

I'll admit--from time to time I might tell one of the boys that he's 'a pretty smart kid', but more often I praise a specific thing he's done or ask him what he thinks of what he's done. (And then I go beat my head against the wall when one happily puts in the effort and finishes his homework in 30 minutes, while the other is dancing around in his underwear and hanging upside down from his study chair two hours later...)

Wow, that was a long comment.

I was nearly paralyzed with the anxiety that at some point I would run into something I just couldn't do and everyone would find out it was all just a sham and I was never that smart in the first place and OMG OMG OMG...

This is very common in gifted children, so common that it actually has a name: Imposter Syndrome. Apparently it's also a lot more common in girls than boys.

This was *so* totally me throughout all of my schooling. I had nightmares that they had found out that I wasn't really so smart. In the dreams/imaginings two men in dark suits would show up in my class and come to take me back to be with the "stupid people."

I still have occasional symptoms, but I've learned to tell myself to shut up when I start going down that path. Sometimes I think it makes me appear arrogant, but I'd rather be arrogant than frightened. It feels better anyway. ;)

I still have occasional symptoms, but I've learned to tell myself to shut up when I start going down that path.

I haven't learned to stop it. But then again, I was never labeled smart in the same way the rest of you were. I was never "gifted." I was just the kid that took the classes I was supposed to take and got As in them. I didn't want to be valedictorian because I knew I wasn't (but Choctaw's valedictorians go to 11). College was hard, but I don't have the OMG I suck moment that so many of my friends who went to Rice report. I just geared up, settled for less sometimes gradewise (or not... I worked my ass off in several courses to earn that A), changed majors...

Then I met K and, well, I felt completely dumb. I still do. I often wonder why some of you lot choose to hang around me and my 1140 SAT score.

I had no trace of Imposter Syndrome, so it's a bit satisfying that it's normal for guys not to have it.

I won't pretend that I'm not afraid of failure--there are plenty of things I don't do because of the threat of failure--but I've known that I was actually good at the things that I was good at, and never worried about being found out that I wasn't.

One can pretty directly draw direct lines from gender-normative society to the confidence/lack thereof dichotomy in the gender distribution of Imposter Syndrome, so I won't bore you further with such obvious conclusions.

It's not that it's normal for guys not to have it, it's just that it's more common in gifted girls than in gifted boys.

Girls are also more prone to make excuses for their achievments, rather than accepting them as deserved accomplishments (i.e. "I got 98%! That test must have been pretty easy.").

Oh, man, that, "Any second now they're going to figure me out," feeling. Man, do I get that one. I've had it at almost every job I've ever had that required special skills. Hell, I feel that way almost every time I direct a play. "Oh, shit, what if they figure out I'm no good at this." So sad that we can't accept our own gifts.

Man, do I relate to this. Add to that the fact that if your whole life you are told that you are "really smart" and "can do anything", it becomes absolutely PARALYZING when there is something that's actually really hard. For me, part of how that all got mixed up in my brain is that I think I've been really struggling with my weight for so many years because it made things EASIER to have one thing that I just couldn't do. If I could lose the weight, then the idea that I could "do anything" might be right. But if I couldn't lose the weight, I always had that to fall back on when something else wasn't going well. "See, I couldn't do THAT, so maybe I'm not so smart and capable."

Now that I am losing weight, I have to tell you that sometimes it's really scary. I think a lot of the problems I've been having lately of being so terrified of what might happen if I don't succeed as a director, and in some ways more terrified of what might happen if I DO, are all wrapped up in this, too.

Thanks for posting this. Really good food for thought.

Hmm. I never thought of applying this to my weight issues. I'll have to think more on this.

For me, that thing where smart kids put roadblocks in their own way can manifest in different ways. And for me, I think it was this way.

One modification I will make to my comments about D is that, as you know, D was unwilling to tackle stuff he couldn't immediately excel at from birth. Remember him and walking? So that does make me wonder if this observation might be flawed. In his case, he was born with a dislike of doing stuff he couldn't readily do well. But he does most things very well, so therefore this wasn't really a problem until recently. So, for instance, he has stopped playing soccer because he's not seeing progress as quickly as he would like. He wants to do it right, right away, or not do it at all.

Perhaps many kids are born with this type of inate fear of failure. And when those kids also happen to be smart, we notice it. When they aren't smart, though, perhaps it isn't noticed... because those failures aren't as immediately recognizable?

The dangers of being a "smart kid"

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