The Trouble with Bright Kids

The general idea here, "praise effort, not smartness", is pretty well backed by the research, I came across a similar study some years ago and they keep popping up. (Maybe it was the same one?) It's definitely made it into my mental catalog of parenting techniques should I ever have kids.

It also reflects my own personal experiences I think a lot of above-average-in-something people go through: at some point in their academic or professional lives, they hit a wall where their ability isn't enough and they don't have the mental discipline and other habits to put in the needed effort. Some things stop being fun and look suspiciously like busywork even if it will help. (And sometimes it actually is unhelpful busywork.) I know some people eat up busywork, they just grind through it, personally I can't stand it and avoid it as long as I can. Nor have I found anyone suggesting a general solution to gaining a hard-worker attitude if you didn't develop one in your childhood, and it seems like a hard problem to solve since it's part of the wider motivation and procrastination problem.

Unfortunately the conclusion of the post is a bit too strong:

"No matter the ability — whether it's intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism — studies show them to be profoundly malleable. When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot. So if you were a bright kid, it's time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve, and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago."

Effort is insufficient, and great effort is not always necessary as those of us, who breezed through anything others struggled with, know. Ability is necessary though not sufficient. A 3-and-a-half foot tall person has no chance of being an NBA All Star, and I've witnessed not-very-smart students pour hours and hours into things like studying and still fail. Work smarter, not harder (though that requires you to be smart enough).

I remember Feynman reflecting on his art saying he didn't think it was very good, that he'd never in a hundred years rival a Renaissance master. Yet he still did it, probably because it was fun or interesting. Cultivating a spirit of playfulness and curiosity that produces effort in disguise seems more important to me than cultivating a spirit of effort for effort's sake.

Could it be that the problem is not, the way we provide feedback to children, but that the expectations we place upon children has more to do with our own expectations than the child's innate ability?

Take a class of 30 children, they will have a wide range of intellectual abilities, ranging from borderline intellectually disabled to the highly gifted. Give them all the same task. Some will achieve well, and have no difficulty, one or two may not be able to complete the task without assistance. Take the same class the next day and have them perform the same task. Those who struggled will may perform better, those who completed the task the first time, will achieve the same result. Perform that same task for the next week or so, until the ones who struggled can perform the task. Now you will find that those children who initially had no problems with the task, have not even bothered to start it, and may well indeed be causing disruption in the class.

What I've described is what happens for most classes of children in most schools. The focus on ensuring all children reach some minimum performance in key areas has resulted in those children in the normal to high ability range are being shown that there is no value in being smart, as you are just going to have to do the same as everybody else anyway... so why bother?

The problem with Bright Kids is not that they never learn how to work hard on difficult tasks. It is that because they meet the minimum safety net requirements, they never are never even exposed to the difficult tasks, so is it any wonder that they grow to doubt the value of their abilities?

What I would love to see is every child in primary school be tested every year, for both potential and ability. This would allow Parents, Teachers and the students themselves to get an understanding of how hard the student is actually working. Are they really "smart" and bored out of their brains and therefore not meeting the academic requirements, or are they intellectually challenged, but through a lot of hard work, are achieving a reasonable standard?

Children do not all come from the same mould, why is it that we try to have them fit the same mould when it comes to education?

Many commenters here mention that they were/are really bright but also undisciplined and miserable. This underlines something I've been thinking about a lot: that cognitive style accounts for a big chunk of life's success.

Think of the dumb-as-pigshit ladies' man or the happy-as-a-clam soccer mom who has life all figured out or the salesman who pulls in a ton of cash because he's really driven and doesn't give a fuck about rejection. Then think of the miserable yet brilliant nerd languishing in some dank cave of an apartment because he can't figure life out. Forever Alone...

Then again, if the bright people could learn to adopt better cognitive styles, then they would be unstoppable. Smart people should be winning at life, not dwelling in the shadows as a kind of misunderstood race who push society's technological progress along yet never reap the benefits in terms of happiness.

What are some cognitive styles you wish you had?

What this article neglects is the ability of 'bright kids' to excuse themselves for giving up. Precisely because they're so bright, they can convince themselves very effectively that what is required of them for completing a certain task is too mundane for their 'smartness' or it is not worth the time.

More often than not, this ends up with a lot of lost potential, which is why startups are such good options, because any work involving them, is definitely not boring,and it HAS to be worth the kids' time because they set out to work on it, and it wasn't mandated by any external authority like parents or schools.

At my school, we have a bit of a "culture of genius" problem. Many, if not most, of my classmates grew up being one of the smartest people they knew. This lead to the widespread (and maybe not untrue) belief that we can do things that other people simply cannot. This leads to a lot of students setting themselves up to fail (epic procrastination, expecting to do well on finals after never going to a class or studying) and most students eventually fail hard at least once, but there are enough success stories to keep the "culture of genius" alive.

This article addresses what happens when the students fail. As the article states, many of us seem to blame failure on not being smart enough rather than just not working hard enough. Personally, I hope I've made away from the genius fallacy. Interning at a startup (as well as competing in athletics growing up) have made it pretty clear that success is more a function of effort and persistence than innate ability.

As bane offered some advice at the end of his post, I guess my mantra could be "Being smart makes things possible, actually working hard makes things happen".

Like others who have posted here, I have s story similar to this. By the sounds of it, I wouldn't call myself as "gifted" as some who have posted here but, relative to the environment I was in, I was "gifted".

I grew up in three small towns. For the first 9 years, in a town of less than 1,000 where the 3rd and 4th grades (for example) were in the same class.

When I was 8 I was doing the same work as the 7th graders without any real trouble. It's all this small school could really do for me. This was actually mostly OK. Sure I was largely around (much) older kids but it really wasn't as isolating as some other experiences posted here.

Next was a slightly larger town (5-10,000) for 4 years. In the 4th grade my spelling tested at the 10th grade+ (I ran out of "test"). In the 5th grade I was doing algebra and trigonometry. By the 7th grade I was doing calculus. Honestly, maths was really the only thing that interested me. Until that is my family got a computer we couldn't really afford (a VIC 20), which turned out to be fairly limited (much less so than the C64 that came after it).

I can distinctly remember at age 10 reasoning out that God didn't exist (I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic primary school with nuns and everything).

It's in this period where I think it became first apparent just how socially well-adjusted I wasn't. I think it's fair to say I didn't particularly know how to relate to others. Honestly, I'm not sure that still isn't true.

By 9 or so I could beat anyone I knew at Chess. Actually I think this was true at 7-8. Not that I knew anyone particularly good (not even remotely). Attempts to find a challenge from, say, chess AIs were pointless. They were pretty weak back then and tended to be defeated by going "off book".

Then came a move to a mining community of ~15-20,000, which I basically hated for the 5 years that constituted high school. The awkwardness and isolation from primary (elementary) school was compounded. It's always seemed to be that when it comes to social interactions and relationships, I somehow "missed out" on the instruction manual, or at least the training wheels, and the people around me were always speaking some language I just never understood.

I understood numbers and computers.

One of the problems was that I was bored. I found school so insanely easy. Nothing was really a challenge. I'd get told how smart I was. Only many years later did I fully appreciate just how much damage it does to be told you're smart. It demotivates you and isolates you.

I would fail assignments and classes because I didn't do them. Not because I couldn't do something but something was never good enough. Or I'd fear the embarrassment and "humiliation" of not knowing something and having that pointed out to me.

I can remember having conversations with my parents where I'd bring home a 90% in a test and I'd get asked "what about the other 10%?" I don't think this was asked in a way to be mean. In a strange way, I think it was a weird way of showing pride because all you can "complain" about is a missing 10%. Whatever the case and in spite of well-meaning intentions, the message that was hammered in was that nothing ever seemed good enough.

My father was a fitter and turner in the British merchant navy. His father and grandfather were likewise tradesmen. My mother dropped out of high school (although her father was a school teacher and principal for much of his life).

Basically I don't think they knew what to do with me. Academic pursuits weren't something they were equipped to deal with. My two sisters were cut from the same cloth, neither being remotely academic and neither finishing high school.

I took notes in class but never looked at them again. Either I didn't need to (particularly for maths) or I didn't care to (eg human biology). I never really learned how to study. I can remember scoring 85% in multiple choice exams for subjects I knew nothing about just by figuring out the skills to pass such exams.

So after finally finishing high school I went to university.

It may sound strange but I don't think it ever occurred to me in high school that I might do computer programming for a living. It's not like thought about it and either wanted to or didn't. I never even pondered the question.

I ended up applying to do a science/engineering double degree because it looked hard. A bunch of other people in my class also ended up applying for engineering because they didn't know what to do either but, as I learned years later, I seemed (to them) to know what I was doing. I have to wonder what they would've become had I gone to school elsewhere.

Whereas high school was structured, university was not. Nobody checked your attendance. Painful shyness quickly caused me to avoid going to lectures altogether. I was completely unequipped for university.

I barely skated through first year and bombed out in second year (when you actually had to work). Some years later, work finally cured me of many of the aspects of painful shyness (eg standing up in front of people and giving presentations).

At one point my parents thought to send me to boarding school (in a 1 million+ city). I fought this and deeply regret it. It was an unknown. I wonder how much better I could've done if I'd been put in an environment where academic excellence wasn't a recipe for instantly being ostracized (as it was in my shitty state high school).

Likewise I wish I'd stuck with university long enough to find some guidance and mentoring. All in all it feels like I drifted through the system and eventually fell through the cracks.

At no point did I ever really find people like me either. Through primary and high school, the towns seemed too small for that. The university had a computer club but I found that lot, as a whole, to be a pretentious lot with whom I had precious little in common. It seemed like university just had a different cookie-cutter mold for the "in" group.

Largely I was left alone (something I realize I quite clearly contributed to). To me though that seemed to be an improvement from high school so I just went with it.

Now my sisters both have children and I see them both laud their children by telling them "you're so smart". I try to tell them how damaging this is and they shouldn't but they just don't get it. Old habits kick in.

I envy those people who grew up in households where at least one parent had gotten a college degree (a friend I later made had a PhD in lithography stuff, 3 members of his immediate family had PhDs and a great uncle or something won the Nobel Prize for Physics a number of years ago).

I really don't have a solution here other than to hammer in the point: stop telling children they're smart. I don't think I'm any kind of genius but it certainly did me absolutely no good at all.

The problem with pop psychology is that it often is not quite right. A half dozen decades ago, the "new idea" was that kids should not be beaten, but encouraged (spare the rod and spoil the child). In the last decade or two, we've learned that the kind of praise you employ is important, and the advice now is to praise effort rather than innate ability.

Once you get into the real world, though, you learn that effort isn't as important as doing the right things well. School itself is teaching us the wrong thing, and this effort-praising business is compounding it. Trying really hard at History when you don't like it isn't going to make your life much better in the long run, it's just going to be hours and hours that could have been spent furthering some other ability or otherwise enjoying childhood.

In a couple more decades, we'll have a shiny new experiment that shows that praising effort has ruined a couple generations, teaching them that life is nothing but hard work, soldiering through undesirable situations without considering importance or relevance. We'll learn that we need to teach children reflection, to foster creativity, and to encourage curiosity. Then we'll learn that those kids don't work hard enough, and the parenting industry will roll on...

Rural parents have had it right for generations. Making kids play outside, giving them real responsibilities (e.g., necessary farm chores), and teaching them a variety of skills outside the classroom is practically guaranteed to result in well-rounded, well-adjusted children. You don't need to read the latest parenting mumbo-jumbo to know how to raise a kid.

I don't know if it's a sign of some neurotic behavior, but I hate it when people use the word bright. And, for whatever reason, they use it a lot. I find it patronizing if not placating--especially when my work isn't appreciated by people that rationally couldn't possibly appreciate it on a deep level without me interpreting it for them (i.e. not their fault).

It always feels like a qualifier or platitude. "I know you're bright, but". Everybody says you should sell yourself, but as a child I always tried to NOT sell myself. I just wanted to get by with minimal effort, because those endevours (e.g. school) were meaningless to me beyond a score that may aid in perusing things I care about. I always felt like the bar was set low because kids in general don't try. There was zero advantage to distinguishing one's self other than higher expectations for the same, hollow A.

There's one particular example that always sticks with me. I remember taking Spanish from a charming, eccentric Argentinian woman. The work was simple, so I began to embellish the little side projects and essays. Why not? I had nothing else to do with the remaining 30 minutes of class. I turned in work; I got good grades. No misunderstanding.

But, eventually, I got bored and just did enough to satisfy an A. My heart just wasn't into embellishing Juan's illustrious adventure at the hospital. It didn't garner anything more. There wasn't an A++ or Super A.

During the next PTA meeting, my adorable Spanish teacher burst into tears. Why? Because I wasn't trying anymore. My heart just wasn't in it. Despite the fact 95% of the class gave no fucks whatsoever, my decline crushed her.

This fortified the notion, in my mind, that it's not worth being seen as bright or exceptional insofar it gains you nothing. It only means you are expected to do more for an A or the same baseline salary as that jerk-off you tutored Business Calculus to. If you can't sell it, don't do it. Yet, somehow, people always end up using that word -- bright. Again, I wonder if it's simply a nice way of saying idiosyncratic, since I try my hardest to not act "bright" in anyway. I simply try to not be dim-witted and do good work.

(I also find it somewhat worthless coming from most people, since I've known genius-level, 160-170IQ types. I'm nowhere near that realm of existence. And, yes, those people do live in a different world than us albeit sometimes not good).

Bright kids put schools in a difficult position, to be sure. The biggest problem with them is they're still just kids. They may be high-IQ, but they've got kid-like focus, maturity, self-motivation, etc. It would be relatively easy to just take high-IQ children and let them tool around on their own, but that's not a good idea because they'll never learn study skills and organizational skills that are so necessary to succeed in the real world.

Gifted and talented programs are, of course, an option, but they cost money and even when they're available they're often too-little, too-late. Magnet high schools, for example, don't do much good when a kid has been figuring out who to avoid schoolwork to spare himself from the sheer boredom since kindergarten.

I think a good solution would be to develop specialized curricula for advanced students at the state or national level (segregated by area to account for students who are advanced in some areas but not others). Obviously it would be logistically impossible for teachers to teach and grade these different assignments, but gifted students tend to be able to self-teach, and grading should be purely based on effort anyway.

Like many HNers, I was a pretty bright kid growing up. I scored embarrassingly well on most aptitude tests, and before entering middle school found myself the subject of repeated IQ, aptitude, learning style, personality style, thinking style, and psychological analysis by befuddled education specialists trying to figure out why I did so poorly in school.

Here's a sample of what I endured before entering 6th grade.

-6 IQ tests (the first when I was 4!)

-ITBS (I scored so high I had to take it twice, the second time isolated in a room with two observers since they thought I had cheated)

-MBTI - INTJ - I've taken this test at least a dozen times

-Keisey - I'm unfortunately a Mastermind

- Holland - Strongly R-I-A

- Various Thinking Style tests (abstract-to-concrete, abstract-sequential)

- Hermann A-D

When I got to High School, I endured another battery of tests (3 more IQ tests), interviews and other ridiculous activities. I spent one day a week sequestered in a "gifted lab" where I was expected to produce works of art or something, but I found interminably contrived and boring.

Why did I do so bad in school despite these indicators of intelligence? I was miserable. From 1st grade on I was miserable. I hated school and everything about it. Arbitrary rules, boring wrote memorization, pep rallies, uninteresting subjects, teachers more inclined to deal with behavior issues in class than teach anything. I only bothered to attend instead of skip classes because the school had a decent liberal arts program (which was fun and had teachers that "understood" being miserable in school) and I helped start a poetry club with several other disaffected youths.

The truth is that I felt like, and in fact was, socially outcast by all of the special programs, tests, special classes, after school mentoring programs etc. I couldn't really enjoy talking with other kids my age in the normal classes and getting involved in "special" classes instantly cast you as an outcast.

After enduring all that I never bothered to take the PSATs, SATs, GREs. I didn't care. I was done being tested, probed and made to do what others wanted in the interest of nurturing my potential.

The truth is that, as a smart, self motivated kid, I kept myself plenty occupied by intellectual pursuits. Just outside of school. I built computers, wrote software, wrote music (often in math class), performed in community orchestras, drew in pencil, created alphabets, painted, studied a couple martial arts, read an extraordinary number of books, played piano for modern dance recitals, published poetry, got heavily involved in the demoscene. School was to be endured, not to succeed in.

When I turned 15 I started feeling hopelessly trapped in a system and a world I couldn't escape. Buoyed by my "successes" in various IQ/Aptitude tests, I thought the world just didn't "get" me. I started having suicidal thoughts. At 16 I found myself thinking seriously about killing myself. I spent more than one night at my sink with a kitchen knife at my wrist wondering if I should go ahead and make the cut or not. It was not a good place to be. I was saved by my music, and ability to experience frisson (as weird as it sounds).

I did plenty of extracurricular I suppose, just none that would work on a university application.

Kids who succeeded in school were "losers" (I mistakenly thought), since they didn't have the inner light that led to self-creation (or so I thought). Regurgitation of endless facts and conforming to what the teachers wanted did not impress me.

Despite being extraordinarily bright, I was also hopelessly naive.

After graduating HS (just barely). I took a couple years off to find myself and to grow up a little. The rarefied environment I grew up in (along with some family issues) just gave me no chance to do that -- my IQ was high, but my EQ was low.

If I could do it all over again? I'd do the normal classes with the normal kids. I'd avoid all of the tests and other nonsense. I'd join the baseball team and the debate club. Get a perfect SAT score and get into a top school. Selling out? Maybe. But I think I'd have a been a lot less miserable and saved fighting the system for a later time.

Why did I do so poorly in school despite the tests? It was probably the tests. I was told I was so smart so many times that the effect mentioned in this article seems particularly germane. I didn't work hard, so I didn't do well, but I tested high, so I thought the system was broken, not me. I was already smart, so I didn't need that fact positively reinforced, but I did need instances of hard work reinforced. I had no work ethic coming out of high school, I simply did things that interested me and dropped things that didn't.

I've thankfully grown out of many of these things, and the mantra I've used is simple, "If you're so smart, you should be able to figure out how to <insert problem>." If it's doing well in school, socializing well, working hard, etc. I try and overcome my problem with that simply phrase. It sounds silly, but it works and I wish I had known it growing up. I would have been a lot happier.

Yes, praising students for their effort is a good way to encourage them to keep trying. But is this necessarily a good thing?

I see far too many students entering postsecondary education who shouldn't be there. No matter how hard they try, they just can't grasp the basic concepts. And when they inevitably fail, they fall back on what they were praised for as children -- "but I worked so hard!" -- as if they deserve to receive a degree on the basis of effort alone.

Sure, it's useful to remind smart kids that they need both brains and effort. But don't make the dumb kids think that effort alone is enough to get them where they want to go.

A good professional life's about follow through. No one cares what you were smart enough to do, only what you've done.

I'm just learning that now at 26.

http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-New-Psychology-Success-ebook/d... does a really good job exploring this.

This article gives much more info on this topic. " Inverse Power of praise" http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/27840/

I've read upwards of 140 comments, and have yet to stumble on some kind of solution for those of us who fell into the "smart praise" category as children. Is there some way to flip the proverbial work-ethic switch in your mid-twenties (or later) or are we doomed to a life of self-doubt and avoiding anything remotely challenging that we're not already proficient in?

I was always a Bright kid.

Wow... That hit close to home for me. I've always felt this way and I'm afraid to fail. I overachieve always to try overcompensate for the feeling that if I fail then I'm not smart enough.

I never overachieved in school, I think I was mostly bored but was always told I was "smart" and "bright." Jebus, that really hit a nerve.

Where is the study showing intelligence to be profoundly malleable?

IQ is one of the more heritable traits, from what I've heard.

Feeling a lot of kinship with many commenters in this thread. High grades without trying; honor/gifted classes from a young age (at the private school I went to, we had those starting in first grade. You were put into a class with a teacher and only 2-3 other students); breezed through tests without studying (thankfully this did not impact my work habits later on - as soon as I started working on challenging, real-world problems I became a workaholic); aloofness; extreme precociousness; a burning hatred of childhood (I wanted to be an adult to have something like freedom. I remember it feeling so unfair that large numbers of "undeserving", irresponsible, cruel people got to be adults and I was stuck a child. No one else I knew could relate); and of course, suicidal ideation. It's interesting to ponder what our lives would have been like had people like the ones in this thread known each other at the time.

Anyway, I thought I'd add my "why I hated school as a gifted child" list to this thread: This applies to public and private schools, both of which I've attended. This is an NYC-based, personal, anecdotal perspective, and doesn't feature any sort of statistical rigor.

* Co-student apathy, class disruptiveness, and disinterest. Seeing other students cheat, fall asleep, space out, not participate, and fail horribly can be a motivation killer.

* A predilection toward violence by many students/the constant threat of getting "jumped" (less of an issue at private, but not completely eliminated)

* Overcrowded classrooms

* Teaching to the lowest common denominator. No attempt at tailoring education to individuals or logical groups.

* At times, more time spent on attempting to restore order than teaching

* A habit of blaming "everyone involved" (i.e., anyone in the vicinity) instead of attempting to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of activities that were against regulations. A very "short-cutty" attitude towards determining any sort of blame. Nothing resembling due process and no requirements for sound evidence. "10 guilty men go free" had no meaning.

* Little to no coverage of the source theories or practical future applications of subjects. Much focus on facts, figures, and formulas without any attempt at relating it to the real world, past, present, or future. "Real world" examples tended to be laughably contrived. Attempting to glean information about sources/reasoning for the thing's existence often met with angry stares ("you're causing us to veer off the subject and confusing people!") or simply stopped cold ("it doesn't matter, just learn it").

* Poor facilities and equipment (not an issue at private)

* Alternately attempting to paint the currently taught education as a personal enrichment experience ("it's for your own good") or a necessity for future survival ("learn this or you'll sleep in the street"). Neither perspective was accompanied by anything resembling why or how it was beneficial.

* A jarring, cacophonous, impersonal, zoo-like atmosphere. Getting up early, waiting outside in the cold/heat, being stuffed into classrooms/buses/lunchrooms with people who had horrible hygiene; disgusting habits; were loud and obnoxious; were dramatic, crying, whining, moping children; were four feet tall and no life experience, yet filled with endless arrogance and bravado. Blaring bells going off when you're still half asleep. If you were precocious/mature, you tended to feel very uncomfortable and out of place. Arguments about this being like the "real world" are complete and utter nonsense; if I don't like a place of work or other institution, I go somewhere else that I like better.

* Absolutely horrible food (even at private school!)

* Far too much focus on testing rather than the ability to understand and apply knowledge (which goes right along with not attempting to teach how said knowledge could be usefully applied).

* Lack of depth. I've learned (and continue to learn) more about subjects researching them on my own than I ever learned about them in school. Perhaps that's a given considering how much time we can personally spend on subjects outside of school, it still seems like schools could do a lot better job of it.

Another deceptive title designed to attract clicks.

The problem is with how we attribute achievement, how we praise kids, not the kids themselves. But the title as written attracts more attention. The reader thinks, "What could possibly be wrong with the bright kids?" Click.

I'd argue this finding implicitly speaks to the way we view and value intelligence and ability. Seems to me we refuse to acknowledge effort is as useful as some sort of innate ability. Our dominant fascination (judging by scholarly and mass media publications) seems not to be with hard work, and achievement despite the odds, but instead with those who are "gifted" and do not need to work as hard as everyone else to achieve the same results.

Surprise! The bright kids are not as motivated. That's the revolutionary finding presented in this fluff HBR blog "content".

We go to great lengths to try to find such "innate" above average ability, to label and preselect "the bright kids", instead of devoting our attention toward motivating and rewarding _effort_, which in my opinion might ultimately harness more human potential in the aggregate than focusing excessively on "the bright kids".

Especially when you consider that the attention we place on ability and the "bright" label we give them could possibly lower their overall performance, if you believe what's suggested by this study.