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I'd like to see a source that "the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6".

I'm not claiming you are wrong, only that I am unconvinced by a couple of examples.

Here is a study from Chess: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17201516

Admittedly though, most of my source is from individual informal research on domain specific experts to determine commonalities between them. What I found was common among them was that they were working on some core concept of the field, or the practice itself very early.

I would venture to guess there is a longitudinal or statistical study out there somewhere which gives more quantifiable information on the question.

Be careful what you wish for. Narrow focus is great, as long as you make the right bets. In the book "Fast Food Nation", there's a great profile of a talented hockey player whose career is sidelined by injury... after thousands of hours of practice and work, he's running a chain pizza joint.

The Tiger Woods of world are brilliant in their fields, but often leave behind a train-wreck of personal life issues in their wake.

Excellent point and I think highlights the temporal nature of most specialized capabilities.

I cannot help but wonder if you actually got what the article says. Sure, forcing your 4 year old to practice some skill for hours each day might lead to her becoming a "stand-out star" in that field. But will it also lead to her becoming a confident, balanced, loving, gentle and caring person?

Will you look back to her childhood without regrets? Will she?

It may also lead to her hating whatever it is you're forcing her to learn.

See my other comment - you are putting onto my words your own coercive bias.

My goal as a parent is to help my children discover who they are, follow their interests and talents, and grow up to be independent adults, with the emotional maturity to handle the ups and down of this society, the adaptability to deal with whatever may come their way, and the self-direction to make the changes needed in their own lives to build happiness for them and for their families.

If they are great at something, and develop talents that make them world famous, that would be cool. But so few people do that, I cannot realistically even consider that result in my parenting choices.

I disagree. Choosing not to help nurture a child's need to become a superstar is doing them a disservice. You say "so few people do that," I refuse to believe that every child is not capable of the greatness to be world famous because of something - if that's what they choose.

So if your kid wants to be an astronaut, an A-List movie star, or a magician, nurture that. Don't discount something because "I can't realistically consider that." Don't sell your kid short, they are capable of whatever they choose. You just have to equip them the tools they need to deal with what stands in their way.

Some of the biggest celebrities and even presidents of the United States started off with meager beginnings, knowing nothing, having little; Some of them self educated. Of all the famous people in the world, look at who their parents are, what they came from - look at those that started with nothing. Some have prevailed despite overcoming the worst atrocities known to man and risen to greatness - Nelson Mandela. Some have become famous "just" for standing for what's right when those around them didn't rock the boat - Rosa Parks, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden. (I put "just" in quotes because I think everyone stands for what's right, but historically very few have been brave enough to really make that stand alone with so much standing in their way.)

The chasm between having nothing (and by having nothing, I mean educationally speaking) and world fame can be crossed and has been crossed by many. Don't sell your child short by thinking they can't cross it. It can be done, it has been done and it will be done many times again. So you have to nurture it if that's the path they choose. If you have to educate yourself to help them get there, that's your job as a parent.

If they are great at something, and develop talents that make them world famous, that would be cool.

Except that's not how it works. Every child who is great at something was great because the environment was conducive to that development.

I disagree with you.

Many of the careers that get a lot of prestige - law, medicine, business management, etc - all require that you understand a variety of fields, or are at least greatly aided by understanding a second field in depth in addition to the one primarily related to your career.

Similarly, if you're not competent in a few fields (math, reading, writing, basic computer operation), you're simply going to lose out to more competent peers in the workplace.

Finally, your annotation makes an extremely important point: people we see making breakthroughs in fields - the truly top tier academics for instance - are well known for working in multiple fields and having wide interests. You cite an example yourself when you mention Neumann, who made contributions to a wide variety of math, led the team that invented the first computer, worked on several military projects, and contributed to a few tangential fields occasionally, for example applying game theory (which he invented) to economics.

In reality, the truly dominant people tend to be polymaths, and the middle to middle-top tier tend to be highly specialized.

Said simply: It is much easier to gain generalist capabilities than it is narrow domain capabilities as you age.

The idea here is to harness the extreme plasticity of the growing brain toward a narrow domain while still introducing some broad concepts around the edges.

This is a difference between driving discipline into your child to do something and nurturing them because they enjoy it. Teaching your kid that discipline pays off, show them what the superstars of their subject can achieve if they have the self discipline to drive themselves and then just support them in their pursuit of that. If their pursuit wanes, that's okay. It doesn't mean you should run them into the ground about it. Move onto whatever they're currently interest in and nurture that. Let them be kids and help them to get the most they can out of their interests. Find ways to keep it fascinating and fun for them and wanting to learn more, but when there comes a time they want to move onto something else, that's okay too.

I believe your child should be as well rounded or as focused as they feel the need to be. The world needs generalists and it needs specialists. The Yo-Yo Mas, Tiger Woods' and Michael Phelps' of this world may be superstars, but they needed a team of generalists coordinating their rise to stardom; Your child may be a generalist, the glue that holds everything together and the oil that makes the machine work. The one who can make sense of the chaos of the world around them and bring order and harmony. There is great value in that too.

You can't say the well rounded are any more or less worthy or worthless than the superstars. All are needed and all are as valuable as one another.

The smallest pin in a watch as as important as the largest cog, but without a drive mechanism or hands, the piece is worthless. It is only when all the parts come together in concert that it is worth something. Each of the parts is a specialist at what they do, doing one thing extremely well; each a vital piece of the puzzle. But it takes the watchmaker, the generalist who understands the value of all the pieces together, who has the skill (and a lot of patience) to bring them together as a whole that makes the result something useful.

It doesn't mean you should run them into the ground about it.

Of course not, is there any evidence that doing so has a net positive return? Why even discuss that point?

You can't say the well rounded are any more or less worthy or worthless than the superstars. All are needed and all are as valuable as one another.

Disagree. You can replace the generalist performing a function on this "machine" and still have the same result. Not so for the superstar.

But it takes the watchmaker, the generalist who understands the value of all the pieces together, who has the skill (and a lot of patience) to bring them together as a whole that makes the result something useful.

While that all feels good and makes us all think we are beautiful snowflakes with real positive contributions that make an impact, the reality seems to not comply. Of course the idea that any one input is equally important than all other parts is not a falsifiable contention.

To wit: If the CTO (specialist) left our company it would fail basically immediately with no one able to come in and replace him. If I the CEO (generalist) left there are tons of people who could come in and run it probably as well. This is an example of something most people in this community have probably experienced at one time of another and proves my point. We as a community think we can augment this by requiring clean code standards with comments and distribute code so that individuals aren't irreplaceable but in fact it is often still the case.

Without all the pieces the watchmaker is just some guy with the knowledge to make watches. Without a watchmaker, the pieces are all just pieces. It takes all of them coming together to become a watch. All of the pieces may be replaceable, but nevertheless, all make a valuable contribution.

Which watchmaker do you go to for your watch? The one that has the reputation for making the best watches - the best generalist. Just because someone is a generalist, doesn't mean they're not the best at what they do.

Steve Wozniak - Technical genius, Systems Engineer, Specialist. Arguably as important in Apple's success as Jobs. Without Woz, there was no product. It was his know-how that gave Apple life.

Steve Jobs - CEO, Salesman spectulaire, Visionary, Generalist. Exiled from his own company. Replaceable? The board of directors clearly thought so. Could anyone have done as good a job? Who knows. What we do know is that the previous management did a shitty job and in a very just turn of events, Jobs turned out to be fucking awesome at it. Kudos to him.

Could any engineer than Woz have built the product Jobs asked for? Quite probably. I'm sure there were other capable engineers out there if Wozniak had declined or not been available. It took Jobs more generalized abilities to direct Woz's talents and get a product to market.

Would Jobs have made a success of his life without Wozniak? Would Wozniak have still been a successful computer genius without Jobs? There's not a shred of doubt in my mind that either of them would have made it. Both technically replaceable, but each as irreplaceable as the other in the creation of Apple. It took both to make that magic happen.

For years I have played table tennis, and seen various young, talented and ambitious players rise through the ranks, sometimes to a point where they played in the men's leagues at 14 or 15 years, because there wasn't much competition in the youth leagues.

And while I didn't count them, I'd say that about two thirds of them stopped progressing (and then playing) somewhere between age 16 and 18. Mostly they developed other interests, or lost motivation for reasons unknown to me.

So I'd be very careful with putting high stakes on very narrow interests; it can easily become a dead end.

(FWIW I don't consider that time "lost" or anything; they surely learned a lot about self confidence, team play, reliability and other traits; it's just that it sounds that you as a parent might be rather disappointed when your hypothetical child loses interest in his narrow focus).

Lots of people object to what you are saying, but I'm relieved to hear someone say it. Many 'specializations' are actually worlds unto themselves, with endless amounts of things to learn. They are fun to explore (for a kid of a specific bent) and there is no reason not to explore them as early as possible, just as I wasted no time in taking my toddler on hikes to see parts of the world different than where we live. In my own life, there were many things I regretted learning about until it was too late to devote much time to them.

It seems to me that the biggest advantage to being a generalist is that as parents, we can identify what a kid is good at, and can start him down that road. Things go wrong when a parent is not himself enough of a generalist to figure out what the kid likes, and just pushes him toward something random or prestigious.

As for those that object to what you say, I wonder why they insist on putting words in your mouth. Perhaps they don't believe that a young kid could be interested in any deep topic without coercion; which relieves them of the responsibility to try to find what this topic could be. But my attitude is that as a parent, I may not find it, or maybe it's not there, but the potential upsides are large enough that I will keep thinking about it.

I started playing violin when I was pretty young (maybe 4)? I quit at about age 12, couldn't stand it anymore. It was actually a bit of a showdown with my parents, and I definitely had to just deal with the storm of disapproval.

I came to love music again later in life, and I do play now, fiddle as well as a few other instruments.

Here are some of my absolute favorite "violinists" (probably should call them fiddle players). By and large, they came to violin later in life, though with great interest in music. They are very different musicians from classical players, no doubt, but they're the type of musicians I probably should have been. I honestly think I was harmed as a musician by classical teachers who were constantly in my business, messing around with how I held the bow.

There are so many kids nowadays who can play a nearly flawless etude. Some show the the grimaces and gestures of someone who plays with passion, but I still wonder if it is an affectation, a teacher, noticing it has gotten a little mechanical, says "but with more passion… good, good" (as student playing etude flawlessly after a gazillion practices now affects the swaying and grimaces that seem to properly convey requested passion)

Personally, I'd much rather be Boyd Tinsley or Ketch Secor than a top classical musician, but that's probably because I'd much rather listen to their music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Tinsley

"He was not an avid music lover or player. He learned violin by accidentally signing up for a middle school orchestra class, under the impression that guitar would be taught. The idea of learning the violin, however, was interesting enough for him that he stuck with it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posey_Rorer

"He suffered from severely clubbed feet for the first 30 years of his life. At the age of 10 he learned to play the banjo but soon switched to the fiddle. In 1917, he moved to West Virginia but due to the flu epidemic of 1919, he had to return to Virginia."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassar_Clements

He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7 and the first song he learned was "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor". Soon, Clements formed a local string band with two first cousins, Red and Gerald. Gerald was the fiddle player and when he got married and left, Clements had to pick up the fiddle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luderin_Darbone He was born in Evangeline and raised in Orangefield, Texas. His parents gave him his first fiddle at the age of 12 and he learned to play through a correspondence course.

I'm also a big fan of Ketch decor from Old Crow Medicine Show (who also learned late in life).

http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Blogs/Revue/November-2010/Q...

"The act of fiddle playing is a lifetime relationship. You have good spells and bad turns, and while you celebrate all your time together, it doesn’t mean it’s all rosy. I’ve been playing since I was 18, and learning to play in Rockingham County, NC, but it’s taken me this long—14 years—to figure out not to fall over on the dance floor and step all over her feet."

I look at the clear stand-out stars of the world and it is undeniable that the vast majority of them started working on some aspect of their talent between 4 and 6.

The development of a standout isn't generally talked about unless there's a story to be told, so while you will hear the story about the kid who started young, cute pictures as evidence, you won't hear about the ones who didn't (unless it's so late that it, again, becomes worthy of a story).

Further, isn't that logic vulnerable to a dangerous survivorship bias? For every Woods or Perlman, how many kids grew to absolutely hate an activity because instead of it being fun or developing, it became the hangup of a parent expecting their child to be an extreme exception? How many simply weren't standouts, so they spent much of their youth forced to do an activity that they ended up being merely average at?

For every Woods or Perlman, how many kids grew to absolutely hate an activity because instead of it being fun or developing, it became the hangup of a parent expecting their child to be an extreme exception? How many simply weren't standouts, so they spent much of their youth forced to do an activity that they ended up being merely average at?

Except that is exactly not what I am proposing and is the kneejerk reaction to the idea of cultivating talent. I find it extremely frustrating that people immediately turn the discussion into retroactive mirroring based on what bad parents have done to their kids, as though it is the natural outcome of this kind of cultivation.

Are we so mentally handicapped that it is impossible to see that while the tactic of forcing a child to do something will inevitably lead to failure, early specialization is a real indicator of future success in a field?

Here it is laid out all simple like:

1: Provide a variety of options and environments for children to demonstrate their abilities (physical, mathematical, grammatical etc...)

2: Identify what domains the child is gravitating for work/play

3: Identify where within those domains the child is showing a naturally proclivity

4: Narrowly tailor instruction and opportunity to cultivate proclivity within that domain

Very simple. No coercion (outside of the standard required for preschoolers) needed.

Ignoring your obnoxious and ill-placed reply, I (and others) responded specifically to what you said, which was that the "debate" in your household was about "you need to be the best at a narrow skill and you do that by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible"

This seems tragically naive, and in all likelihood terribly destructive of future success, rather than supporting it.

by working really hard at what you are already naturally good at from as early as possible.

That's more than just tailored instruction. Also, being the best in your field is practically worthless, my sister is in the top 1,000, probably even top 100 in her field in her mid 20's. So she is well paid and making movies. But, she could easily swap to doing something else.