"Talent is Overrated" - Practicing Parenting

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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I’m working my way through the stack of books recommended in the “can genius be learned” thread, and I just finished “Talent is Overrated.” It was very interesting, although less directly applicable to parenting than “Mindset;” the focus is on the world of business. This thread is to discuss ways it applies to parents.

First, he has a list of aspects of homes that nurture their children’s talents. He applies them to businesses, but here are the things he says those homes have in common:

Kids are important and parents will do almost anything to help them.
Parents believe in and model a strong work ethic: “To excel, to do one’s best, to work hard, to spend one’s time constructively.”
Let kids pick the field with guidance and encouragement.
Parents sacrifice to get kids to good teachers.
Make children practice
Use intrinsic motivators: “If you practice, you can buy a new piece of music.”
More likely to be engaged if home is:
Stimulating: lots of opportunities to learn
high expectations
encourage curiousity from a young age - answer questions
Supportive: well-defined roles and jobs (chores)
family members can rely on each other

I imagine most BrillKids parents are already doing most of these things. Glad to know he’s on the same track we are!

His main argument is that high achievement is a matter of “deliberate practice:” practice that is designed specifically to improve performance (often with the help of a teacher), repeated a lot, gives continuous feedback on results, and is highly demanding mentally. This describes what a lot of us have experienced in music and sports, but he says it can be applied to any field. Specifically, for him, this is business; to apply it, as I read, I wondered how it would work for parenting. These are my notes: what do you think?

Deepen Your Knowledge - build a mental model of your field. (Read parenting books and decide what works for your family.)

Practicing Directly (Dedicated practice time, as opposed to practice as part of what you’re doing already)

Music model: Write a script, practice writing and editing, practice presenting (This doesn’t seem to apply much in parenting; we’re not scripted!)
Chess model: Case studies (These would be easy to find, on the forum or in parenting books.)
Sports model: Conditioning - keep learning basics (old textbooks/classics on parenting or, as BrillKids parents, in any field to increase our knowledge base), Skill Development - simulations (These aren’t everywhere, but it makes sense. Maybe with our spouses or other parents we know, we could try a few?)

Practicing in the Work

Before the Work: Setting Goals
Goals about the process of achieving desired outcomes
Focus on a specific element to improve each day
Plan: specific, technique-oriented
During the work
Metacognition: think about what you’re doing and why
After the work: Feedback
Compare your performance to your best or an expert
Identify errors
Come up with specific plans to improve

So as I read that, it made me wonder whether doing those practice steps would be worth the time and energy. Do you think that it would make you a better parent? Do you think it would make enough of a difference to be worth the effort? I’m very curious what other people think. I’m a full-time mom; this is my job rght now. Is this a reasonable way to improve my parenting skills? Or over the top?

And if I do decide to do it, would anyone else consider it? I could use a support group!

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Thank you for the summary. Talent is Overrated is on my list of to-read. Hope to get to it before too long.

My opinion of applying this principle to parenting is maybe what Brillkids is all about. Think about it, we have a goal or desire, even if it’s somewhat nebulous “I want to be the best parent I can”. We then work to educate ourselves (learn a new technique as an analogy). Then try it. Get feedback in what’s working or what’s not, and try to improve it.

The forum provides feedback in the form of opinions based on experience “that idea may not work” or “that idea sounds great, here’s another idea”… and to share feedback “Cammie just did a 10 number math problem in her head!”. Because of the forum, we can see what’s working or what’s not working with other children and adjust our strategies as a result.

Little by little, with minute alterations as we go, and a lot of perseverance, the parent literally moves towards that goal they set out to accomplish. My very first post mentioned going where “the parents with an edge hang out”. I believe this. Not to poo-poo the typical parent because everyone does their very best, but when you have a mechanism like the one you describe in Talent is Overrated and see what happens on this forum, I’d put my money on parents that are using this mechanism over ones that aren’t. Simply put, working hard at improving (as a parent) will mean that eventually, you WILL be a better parent and will far exceed the norm, and your child will likely have some sort of result that will reflect this.

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Thanks, Wolfwind! I agree with what was written.

Just a comment about talent. It’s basically the ‘nature vs nurture’ argument, which to me is such a pointless debate.

On the assumption that ‘nature’ or ‘innate talent’ cannot be changed intrinsically, what’s the point of even thinking about it? Why not spend our time and energy on what we CAN do something about - ie., NURTURE. There is so much we can do that would make such a huge difference in children achieving their potential, that it almost renders ‘nature/talent’ to be irrelevant.

So on the one hand, saying talent/nature cannot be changed is a ‘fixed mindset’ (a la Carol Dweck’s Mindset book), understanding that it’s a pretty small factor in the grand scheme of things and our efforts/nurture can make a big difference would be a ‘growth mindset’.

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the book sounds good enough to get my time :slight_smile: great summary. Next on my list now. Thanks.
Script writing in parenting can be quite useful. To stay on topic for an example, one brilliant brillkids mummy wrote praise for effort scripts as prompts to relearn the way she encourages her child.
Simulations I don’t understand. How does one use simulations to improve the results of parenting? The only example I could think of was the bungee cord my daughter uses on the trampoline to practice a difficult flip…but I think that’s more support than simulation.
I think the key point may be " parents sacrifice to get kids to good teachers" in some cases it’s the time we spend in becoming the teacher or sacrificing our personal free time, or the money we spen,d or the effort in convincing others… But sacrifice is a big part of it. Parenting involves sacrifice, Awesome parenting involves ALOT more sacrifice!

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Hi Wolfwind,

  1. In additon to ‘Talent is Overrated’ and the other books on the ‘can genius be learned’ thread (which are very interesting reads), the original research articles on which those books are based are much more interesting and very informative.

  2. One such article is ‘The role of deliberate perfomance on the acquisition of expert performance’ by Ericsson et al: http://www.definingsomeday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf.
    Google Scholar shows that this landmark article has been cited 2901 times by other researchers. Ericsson’s work is widely cited in above named books, and the above article is very, very worthwhile read.

  3. Another is ‘Expert Performance. Its Structure and Acquisition’ also by Ericsson et al, cited 1304 times by other researchers: http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/course/6/6.055/readings/ericsson-charness-am-psychologist.pdf. Another very, very, worthwhile read.

  4. And see this article by Ericcson too: ‘The making of an expert’ published in Havard Review, and cited 126 times.
    Link: http://www.coachingmanagement.nl/The%20Making%20of%20an%20Expert.pdf

  5. By reading the original research papers, you will be able to determine how best to apply the concept of deliberate practice to your personal parenting.

For me, these articles and books have been life-changing, they’ve given me lots of hope, and have changed my parenting style.

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Hi Wolfwind,

  1. As I was re-reading ‘The making of an expert’ article by Ericsson (link on my previous post above), I realised it could answer the specific questions you asked about practicing parenting. For example, it gives tips like: (a). Practice deliberately (and then it goes on to explain deliberate practice) (b). Take the time you need (c) Find coaches or mentors

  2. Remember, ‘Talent is Overrated’ is mostly based on Ericsson’s research, so reading Ericsson’s research works may be the best way to go.

  3. Based on ‘The making of an expert’ article, I ordered Bloom’s ‘Developing Talent in Young People’ (an example of me trying to learn from coaches and mentors, which in this case means parents that have raised outstanding children).

  4. I’ve also borrowed ‘The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Peformance’ by Ericsson et al. from the library. Reviews of ‘The Cambridge Handbook’ on amazon.com show that concepts in ‘Talent is Overrated’ are mostly derived from this book. Read the reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/product-reviews/0521600812/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

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@ PokerDad: Thanks for that way of looking at it! That makes it seem much less overwhelming. :slight_smile: I would still like to set myself more specific goals to become a better parent, but it’s true that just being on this forum encourages me to try new things - and provides support and feedback.

@ Mandabplus3: I like that idea of scriptwriting! It’s true, I have been “scripting” growth-mindset feedback to give my daughter. I just hadn’t thought of it that way. And that would be worth polishing, since I hope to use them a lot!

As far as simulations go, I was thinking of getting together with a spouse or other trusted adult and practicing how to respond in certain situations. I’ve read parenting books that recommend this tactic (Love and Logic is the first one that comes to mind). One of you roleplays the kid causing problems, and the other roleplays how to respond. That way you can get practice without all the emotional issues that come up when a kid is acting out, and hopefully you learn to react in a positive way that agrees with your parenting ideals, not just by the gut (which sometimes leads us right, but not always). For example, my daughter has just picked up on whining as a manipulation tactic, and it really drives me crazy! I tend to give in to make her stop, which is NOT on my list of good parenting responses. To use a simulation, after she goes to bed at night, my husband could mimic some of the things she says at me, and I could practice responding in ways that I feel are more appropriate. I could even try a few different ideas and see which works best for me. Then when I try to change the way I respond to her, at least I have some experience to fall back on. I haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds like a good idea.

@ nee1: Thanks so much for the links! After reading “Talent is Overrated” and “Bounce,” I really wanted to read something by Ericsson, but I didn’t know where to find it. This is perfect! And I want to check out the Bloom book, too.

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Glad my perspective might have helped!

Reading your role play idea, I had a flashback to my lifeguard days (which was a long time ago). I worked at two different pools. One did monthly emergency trainings for 3 hours for everyone on staff and the other did little 5 minute deals every day with the morning shift before they began. There was no comparison as to which staff was better prepared. The monthly in-depth group was highly proficient in dealing with emergency situations; the other group was woefully ill-prepared

and the worst part, was that the second group was the one that continually saw severe situations (in all likelihood because they were also woefully ill-prepared on preventing emergencies). I was so thankful that I wasn’t supervising any of those shifts where the paramedics had to be called in…

Role Playing WORKS… especially if repeated over a period of time.

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Thanks a lot, PokerDad, for that very interesting insight on role-play. I’ll use it more frequently. Thanks again.

Wolfwind, you can find FREE pdfs of most of Ericsson’s articles by searching Google Scholar, e.g., http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?start=0&q=anders+ericsson&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
Granted, you’ll need to subscribe to certain journals to get some of them, but most of them are free. For example, all the ones I cited in my previous post, I found them all at Google Scholar.Those articles with a note on the right hand side saying ‘PDF from’ so-so place, are free. Once you click that pdf, you access the article.

I found this very interesting one, coauthored by him, on Google Scholar: ‘Why study time does not predict grade point average across college students: Implications of deliberate practice for academic performance’.
Link: http://edianas.com/portfolio/proj_EricssonInterview/articles/2005_Plant_Ericsson_Hill_Asberg_reprint.pdf
Explains that when it comes to studying, quality of study time is more important than number of study hours. Very interesting read.

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I think role playing is a great idea and would work very well. I once suggested it to my husband (I also read this in a parenting book) he laughed. Maybe your husband would be more receptive to the idea. I know I could really do it by myself if I really wanted to (not the same of course) but I can’t really fault him for not doing it.

Here is any idea that maybe can help you for the whining problem. You can say, “Where is your big girl voice?” and then you start to look for it, “Is it in your shirt? Is it in your shoes?” When she responds in a big girl voice you say, “There it is you better catch it before it runs away.” Something to that effect anyway. I read this in the “No Cry Discipline Solution” and I thought it sounded like a fun way to remind kids not to whine.

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If your spouse isn’t into role playing, you can still MENTALLY rehearse all on your own. Here’s just one example of how you might do this… write down a situation you might come across (idk because I have no parenting experience yet)… suppose "NO! I don’t want to eat my carrots, I want cake! [throws carrots onto the floor in disgust]… so you have a hypothetical situation written on a card like this, and then now, in the comfort and safety of your own space (maybe you’re alone in your room while children are napping) you sort of act out a brief response… and on the reverse of the card are any important pieces that need to said or done.

So it’s a mental repetition and quasi-role play.

I realized that I left out why the in-depth group was so much better… during their monthly, EVERYONE had to get some repetitions in. The 5 minute group was often just one pair of guards going through emergency rehearsal while everyone else just watched… and the rehearsals were only a percentage of the time… other 5 minute drills were like do 20 push ups and swim 100 yards. Pretty stupid, staying in shape is the least of issues for teenaged guards. Preparedness (or lack thereof) is far greater a concern. The in-depth also did video reviews of the rehearsals every so often, and those were not only like a pressure cooker, but enlightening.