We need to teach our kids not to be show-offs about their knowledge later on. I had a boyfriend years ago who had some expertise in a few areas, and took me for a nature walk up a mountain one day. Every bird he heard he called back to and identified by common and scientific name. And every bit of foliage, every tree, every shrub, even blades of grass he pointed out and identified, common and scientific names. I thought to myself, he’s a great guy, but if i marry him I’ll have to put up with this FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Needless to say when i came back down from that mountain walk I ran for the hills, because I was expecting a romantic stroll, not a deadly BORING time. That ended that relationship!
lol
I have to say who hasn’t had that date. I think you are right about teaching our children to be humble with what they know.
I think there is a danger to knowing too much too soon.
My 12 yrs old daughter learned to read at 2 yrs old. I caught her reading hubbies Stephen King books at 4 yrs of age and then we were at the doctor’s office and she picked up a magazine and it was about 9/11. She turned to me with a horrific look and said “All those people died in the building Mommy.” Mind you we did not have cable TV and didnt talk about 9/11 to her just thinking she was too young to need to know about such atrocities.
Now she is 12 yrs old going on 21 yrs old. Her reading is college level or higher. When she went to school in 2nd grade she was bored out of her mind for the first year or so. She has unfortunately succumbed to peer pressure and now reads books like Twilight rather than the classics. She does have an incredible vocabulary and her ability to argue a point is incredible. She seems beyond my control now.
I am not sure your boyfriedn knew too much - rather he knew too little - he did not know how to hold someone’s interest or what would contribute to someone else’s enjoyment. Learning about socialisation and how other people interact with the world is another area of learning which is learnt more by experience and intuition than by books, but at the same time I believe that parents have a responsibility to try to teach their children this too. Knowing when to shut up is just as good a skill as knowing when to talk and share your knowledge.
I would imagine by 12 they would be a bit beyond your control - but don’t worry there is a whole LOT more growing up to do especially when she is in her twenties. Nothing can teach a child about leaving home and getting into relationships, starting jobs and learning about sexuality besides life. The twenties I feel are an undersestimated period in a person’s life - your 12 year old may know a lot and be able to access that knowledge early, but until she experiences it for herself she will still be your little girl (and a very bright child at that)
My daughter has just started pre-school/nursery (in my country, they start early - at 2+ or even earlier.) Anyway, she really enjoys it but she is very ahead of her class. She recognises the entire alphabet (the teachers dont yet know that she can read certain words as well), her conversation is much more advanced (she uses words like reflection, shadow,actually…),she knows all the nursery rhymes already…etc. The rest of her class can barely string a sentence together. So, I am wondering whether I should take it a bit slow so she can fit into her peer group.I havent decided what if anything to do yet.
Here is a book which helped me to understand a lot about what can happen with my child later:
Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades: And What You Can Do About It
by Sylvia B. Rimm
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Bright-Kids-Poor-Grades/dp/0517886871/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254498216&sr=1-2
Author is a psychotherapist working with such kids. Rather often these very bright children do not finish college. Our kids are in a some group of risk. There can be several factors why.
Celeste,
I asked for advice on a similar (although hypothetical) issue in the guest section of the board. Some of the replies I received may help you.
I am strongly of the opinion that one should have the ability to choose her own peer group based on similar interests rather than assuming the same-aged children are the best peers. There’s no reason she needs to fit in with people her own age as long as she fits in with some people. No other time in life do we sort people by age.
If your daughter likes it there, nothing needs to change. She’s probably already found and enjoys the company of the kids with whom she has the most in common.
You don’t need to stop or slow what you’re doing with her until that’s what she wants. And if she’s going to find school dull and non-challenging, you may need to increase what you’re doing with her at home so she continues to love learning.
Hope this helps!
As for the original post,
I don’t think that he knew too much, or was even trying to show off. I think you probably made him nervous and he became socially awkward. Some men, particularly the geekier ones, have no idea how to act around women they like.
Thank you for the good advice.
LOL re Nikita’s date.
Well, I think that was not the right date for you (though if you were fascinated to know that stuff, or had similar knowledge about those plants and birds and could and wanted to add to his expositions, it might have been the date of a lifetime for you! lol!), but nothing to do with “knowing too much”. I am certain that every doctor doesn’t name every body part, tendon, nerve and hair folicule in common and latin nomenclature while making love, nor every accountant constantly read off every price during a shopping trip and add together the running total of purchase put in the cart just because they know so much about numbers. Really, most people either keep quiet, or point out one or two things of interest, or show willingness to engage in a two way conversation about something they are knowledgable about.
As for the little girl at 12 who can read so well… well, one certainly cannot keep one’s child reading at a “hop on pop” level until university so they won’t read newsmagazines, and indeed if they can read newsmagazines, they might be helped a lot, since they will likely be able to see the pictures of people falling off the buildings at 9/11, the dead babies in firemen’s arms at the Oklahoma bombing etc, and if they can read they can learn more instead of just be haunted by images. Given that half the population is functionally illiterate and cannot read a newspaper, I would be thrilled if my 12 yr ol dread at a 21 yr old level. And of course she is “succumbing to peer pressure” and reading Twilight. Whyever would someone be doomed to not sharing popular culture with one’s peers just because they can read well? It is not because one is an expert pastry chef that one is not allowed to enjoy a chocolate bar. I would be happy that she is able to access both classics and pop culture, and not doomed to be segregated as a “geek” (btw, I was a “geek” myself, top of my graduating class, and my fellow geek friends were huge fans of Starsky and Hutch, hardly a highclass tv show!)… She may take in that culture and do something amazing and original with it one day. Maybe write a critical treatise on the vampire genre for her phd! lol!
And the precocious 2 yr old? I don’t think you can succeed in “dumbing her down”… certainly she will continue to learn at her rate, which sounds much faster than her peers. My son is nearly 4, and cannot recite a single nursery rhyme properly, though he can count to 10 in three languages, and he sounds a bit like a caveman speaking… he does not learn the same things as the same rate as your daughter, and I would cry with the waste to think you might dumb her down to stay apace with him. You know, she might one day be like the 12 yr old… able to read the classics in greek, and at the same time discuss Harry Potter with my son. (btw, my son also may be able to read the classics at 12, but not do an exposé on them: he apparently is 91percentile in receptive language but at least a year and a half behind in expressive language… just to say that “knowing” is not an across the board thing but fluctuates in each individual depending on the topic, context, skill etc) I agree that you might need to continue stimulating her to her skill and interest level at home if she finds school too “easy” for her or boring. On the other hand, she might just delight in finding the school work “easy” and enjoy the social time at school.
I suppose it is wrong to compare my daughter with her peers and I shouldn’t dumb her down just so she can fit in as rightly you say. And children learn at different rates and different things spark their imagination…Your son may have a flair for numbers and language and can therefore count in 3 different languages (which my daughter certainly can’t do). Her interest lies in rhyming words and stories so she is more inclined towards that direction right now. As a friend of mine says, in the end, they all catch up…they just take different learning paths.
From “the man who knew too much”: I have an objection. The problem was not knowing too much, but being an insufferable know-it-all, which is not caused by knowing a lot. I have been acquainted with zillions of extremely knowledgeable people in my time, and most of them haven’t been know-it-alls, thank god.
Celeste,
I think your girl needs to follow all the stages of development, not only intellectually but also emotionally and physically. She needs to belong to this generation and to read books of this generation. And I think Twillight is good book for girls to read because people do not make sex here, they think very much about their emotions and senses; that can keep girls away from rude relationships. Staying away from the actual life - can make her similar to the person in Nikita’s post.
Children learn at different rates and boys are generally slower with speech then girls. I think it is important to stimulate your child with exposure to new topics and let them choose their interest and learn at their own pace. Children should neither be pushed nor “dumbed down”. Young children have a great desire to learn. What upsets me is when people say let kids be kids, like you should not teach them anything. Young children want to learn and explore.
And what if you think this generation sucks? I think most of contemporary society has been sick–in the sense of being infantilized and amoral–for generations, and that it has mostly gotten worse in my lifetime, as pop culture has become increasingly dominated by the interests and styles of youth (well, of some youth). One of the reasons we’re going to homeschool is precisely that I don’t want my boy to be like book-scorning, sexually hyperactive, anti-intellectual, brutal kids I see and read about. It’s not important to belong to one’s generation, or read about the disgusting problems and petty ambitions of this generation; it’s important to have friends, and to be a good person. That’s all.
You summed up my viewpoint. And I speak from experience. I want to protect my kids from the need and desire to fit in and conform. Conform to what? This society is full of serial killers, drug addicts, paedophiles and all sorts of creepy people. So what is fitting in meaning these days. And the next generation…what will they have to be like to fit in? Two 10 year old boys in England a decade or so ago fitted in quite nicely with each other when they killed 2 year old Jamie Bolger. What if they hadnt met at school and thus teamed up? It’s very difficult to police what goes on at school, who they will meet, and who they might fall in love with. Their friends seem to have more of a say in who they are friends with and what love relationships they are likely to form. I think I’d rather keep them from that as long as possible…they are children with delicate hearts. If it is hard for us as adults to deal with critisicm, a broken heart and that sort of thing, then it is no easier for a youngster. It just means the earlier they suffer, the more suffering they have to endure over their life.
I would rather have control over my kids friendships, where they associate with like-minded parents who feel the same. And any nastiness is nipped in the bud.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents. Thank goodness I am anonymous. I learned to read pretty early and developed a true love for it. When I finished reading all the books that were designated mine in the house, I would move on to any books my mother had laying around for her entertainment. These included Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, Jackie Collins, Sydney Sheldon and the such. What seemed like a pretty harmless activity (I was reading, you know) ignited a premature fascination with sexuality and desires. Some of those books were explicit, some weren’t, but yet implied. This ultimately led me down a path I wish I had never had taken. As a result of my own experiences, I am going to strive to protect my little girl’s innocence as much as reasonably possible.
Nikita said:“Conform to what? This society is full of serial killers, drug addicts, paedophiles and all sorts of creepy people. So what is fitting in meaning these days.”
That’s funny… I don’t think that society is endorsing and promoting those things and one needs to conform to those sorts of things to fit in!!! Most of the people who do those sorts of things are the ones who are outsiders, who didn’t fit in. Not all of them, but a goodly number of them. Even the abuse of children by priests… if the church hadn’t forbidden them any adult sexuality, perhaps they wouldn’t have been using children they had access to and could keep quiet. Most of the ones who shoot people in schools, kill their parents etc are kids who kept to themselves. Who lived in books alone and stayed at home a lot, not the kids watching Disney movies together with their friends and hanging out at the mall… I think it is important for us to instill values into our kids, to make sure they are able to go against the flow and say no to peer pressure, to be themselves and chose their friends wisely. But I scarcely think that “fitting in these days” means being a serial killer or a paedophile. Just the opposite.
“If it is hard for us as adults to deal with critisicm, a broken heart and that sort of thing, then it is no easier for a youngster. It just means the earlier they suffer, the more suffering they have to endure over their life.
I would rather have control over my kids friendships, where they associate with like-minded parents who feel the same.”
Again, that is sort of funny, since I am dealing with this sort of thing with my 3 yr old son now… he is only in daycare a couple of days a week, since he grew up in an orphanage and I want him to experience being home with mommy. So we get together with likeminded parents and their kids. And right now he is having a very hard time, with his little heart broken, as another little girl who does like him, starts screaming after about 15 minutes and won’t play with him, share any space within 15 feet with him and pushes him away and won’t give a hug or kiss goodbye when we leave. He cries and says “I want to be her friend, why doesn’t she like me? She won’t play with me, I’m so sad, I afraid she not be my friend. Look mommy, tears falling I so sad”
I really don’t see how keeping a kid at home is going to keep him from rejection, criticism and heartbreak. I thought I’d have to deal with this when he is 13 or so!! And btw, they actually get along BETTER at a dance class they both go to, where there is a teacher, it is a neutral space (vs one of our homes or our regular playground), there is a large group of children.
I don’t think we can keep our kids from “being of their generation”. They may be a different group, or not read the top 10 books, but they certainly live in a world of ipods, Michael Jackson is dead, Obama is President, we have cellphones and worry about global warming… they are not a child of Mozart’s generation nor of mine, where we worried about the USSR and nuclear bombs, used payphones and had home delivery of milk, and phones stuck to cables on the wall.
As for reading? I think it is pretty much impossible, once a child starts leaving the house, and can read, to control that a child doesn’t read adult books or things we dislike. Kids came to our house when I was a child to read our books that their parents had banned, and books my parents disliked I took out of the library and read at school, or read at houses when I babysat or visited… Again, we can give guidelines and discuss values, morals, what we think is appropriate… and set them free.