The Genius in All of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent, and IQ (49 page)

Peeko lived in the Tokyo classroom of Suzuki instructor Mr. Miyazawa, who had painstakingly taught his bird to say: “I am Peeko Miyazawa,” and “Peeko is a good little bird.” Achieving these results was simply a matter of repetition and persistence, much the same as with children and violins.

But then it got really interesting. One week, Mr. Miyazawa had a bad cold for several days and coughed a lot in class. Lo and behold, Peeko the parakeet began to follow “I am Peeko Miyazawa” with a distinct cough sound. He also began to hum “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” after hearing the students play it over and over again on the violin.

“Talent develops talent,” concluded Suzuki. “The planted seed of ability grows with ever increasing speed.” (Suzuki,
Nurtured by Love
, p. 6.)

This is the positive feedback loop that I referred to in
chapter 6
—what Lawrence Harper calls a “self-amplifying cycle.”

    
In early adulthood, Freed explains, the child will inevitably struggle with social and emotional challenges (as everyone does) and find that he doesn’t have a deep emotional reservoir to fall back on
.
The foundations of love and trust are corrupted by what he experienced as a child. The child victim of a narcissistic parent frequently has a difficult time forming stable life partnerships: Conversation with Dr. Peter Freed, November 8, 2008.

Joan Freeman also mentions a study that seems to touch on this same syndrome:

A 15-year Chinese study of 115 extremely high-IQ children showed the strong influence of family provision, both in achievement and emotional development. The children were first identified by parents then validated as
gifted by a psychologist. Every year the parents were interviewed several times. By the age of three many children could recognise 2000 Chinese characters, and at four many could not only read well, but also wrote compositions and poems. However, these “hothoused” children were found to lack easy social relationships so the parents were given lessons in how to help their children get on with others. (Freeman, “Giftedness in the long term,” 384–403.)

    
a parent must not use affection as a reward for success or a punishment for failure
.

As seen in a recent study by Echo H. Wu. (Wu, “Parental influence on children’s talent development,” pp. 100–129.)

    
Persistence, she argues, “must have an inborn, biological component
”:
Von Károlyi and Winner, “Extreme Giftedness,” p. 379.

    
The brain circuits that modulate a person’s level of persistence are plastic—they
can
be altered
.

   Looking at MRI scans, researchers have even been able to see varying levels of persistence light up in specific regions of the brain. (Gusnard et al., “Persistence and brain circuitry,” pp. 3479–84.)

  The Robert Cloninger comment was made to Po Bronson. Cloninger, at Washington University in St. Louis, not only zeroed in on the persistence circuitry in the brain but also trained mice and rats to develop persistence. According to Cloninger, the animal mind can actually be trained to reward itself for slow and steady progress rather than the more thrilling instant gratification. (Bronson, “How Not to Talk to Your Kids.”)

    
a classic study by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel
.

More from the marshmallow experiments:

Observation of children’s spontaneous behavior during the delay process also suggested that those who were most effective in sustaining delay seemed to avoid looking at the rewards deliberately, for example, covering their eyes with their hands and resting their heads on their arms. Many children generated their own diversions: they talked quietly to themselves, sang, created games with their hands and feet, and even tried to go to sleep during the waiting
time. Their attempts to delay gratification seemed to be facilitated by external conditions or by self-directed efforts to reduce their frustration during the delay period by selectively directing their attention and thoughts away from the rewards. However, it also seemed unlikely that sheer suppression or distraction from the frustration caused by the situation is the only determinant of this type of self-control. Indeed, when certain types of thoughts are focused on the rewards they can facilitate self-control substantially, even more than distraction does, as the next set of experiments found.

The results so far show that exposure to the actual rewards or cues to think about them undermine delay, but the studies did not consider directly the possible effects of images or symbolic representations of rewards. Yet it may be these latter types of representation—the images of the outcomes, rather than the rewards themselves—that mediate the young child’s ability to sustain delay of gratification. To explore this possibility, the effects of exposure to realistic images of the rewards were examined by replicating the experiments on the effects of reward exposure with slide-presented images of the rewards. It was found that although exposure to the actual rewards during the delay period makes waiting difficult for young children, exposure to images of the rewards had the opposite effect, making it easier. Children who saw images of the rewards they were waiting for (shown life-size on slides) delayed twice as long as those who viewed slides of comparable control objects that were not the rewards for which they were waiting, or who saw blank slides. Thus, different modes of presenting rewards (that is, real versus symbolic) may either hinder or enhance self-control. (Mischel, Shoda, and Rodriguez, “Delay of gratification in children,” p. 935.)

    
Don’t immediately respond to their every plea
.
Let them learn to deal with frustration and want. Let them learn how to soothe themselves and discover that things will be all right if they wait for what they want.

   An excellent article on this subject:

Who’s in Charge? Teach Kids Self-Control

By Jennifer Keirn

In the early years, it’s easy to know who’s in control. Parents sit front and center in the cockpit, steering children through infancy and toddlerhood. Parents control where kids go, what they do and with whom, what they eat and what they wear. That’s not to say they don’t throw some turbulence our way—some more frequently than others—but it’s our job as parents to steady the aircraft and return to course.

As our kids grow, however, we’re faced with the challenge of gradually loosening our commanding grip on the controls. In the end, it’s our kids, not us, who will land their plane, and they’ve got to know how to control it for themselves, make the right decisions and resist negative impulses.

Teaching kids self-control is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for life, yet it’s also one of the most difficult. Dr. Sylvia Rimm, child psychologist and director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Westlake, says teaching this critical life skill requires putting a combination of good parenting principles to work.

Be a good role model
. “They’re watching you all the time,” Rimm says. “Self-control is a lot of things. Do you buy what you want when you want it regardless of price? Do you eat or drink whatever you want regardless of the consequences?” That’s why it’s critical for parents to model self-control if they want their kids to learn it, she adds.

Give kids practice in delayed gratification
. Research has shown that the ability to delay gratification in childhood is an indicator of success later in life … “Self-control is built through delayed gratification,” Rimm says. “That means early on, if you give in when your toddler or preschooler cries because they want something, you’re not teaching them self-control.”

Practice consistent parenting
. “The whole parenting team has to be united with each other in setting limits,” she says. “If one parent says ‘yes’ and the other parent says ‘no,’ kids won’t learn self-control. They’ll just learn how to manipulate their parents.”

Set age-appropriate limits
. Rimm encourages parents to visualize the “v” in “love” as a tool for setting limits as a child grows. Children begin at the bottom of the “v” in infancy and toddlerhood, with limited freedom and choices. As they grow, moving up the “v,” parents should gradually allow more freedom and power while still providing parental limits.

Teaching kids self-control isn’t like teaching them to tie their shoes or use the potty. Rimm says teaching self-control is a gradual process that should begin in infancy and continue through the teenage years. Each lesson builds on the previous one, making it critical for parents to lay the foundations for self-control early on.

“A lack of self-control, of not learning delayed gratification, is tied directly into kids getting involved in alcohol, sex and drugs in the teen years,” Rimm says.

Rimm offers tips for teaching self-control at each developmental stage:

Toddlers and preschoolers
. “Toddlers through school-age kids are very
concrete,” she says. “Things are very black-and-white.” Setting limits at this stage should consist of “yes” or “no” responses, no in-betweens.

Children also directly imitate their parents at this stage, making it important for parents to start modeling self-control from the start. Parents also can begin teaching kids to delay gratification by not giving in when they cry for something.

School-age kids
. As the “v” gradually widens and school-age kids begin to have more choices and freedoms, they get to put those developing self-control skills to work in daily life. “When kids have chores and allowance, they can start saving their money and start counting the days until Christmas or their birthday,” Rimm says. “This is how they learn delayed gratification.” This is the stage at which kids will begin to nag you for what they want, as opposed to crying for it in their earlier years.

Pre-teens
. “In middle school, kids are now exposed to environments more like their parents encountered in high school and college,” she says. Drugs, sex and alcohol are finding their way into younger ages than ever, testing children’s developing self-control skills. “Kids who haven’t learned positive influences earlier are more easily pulled into the drug scene. Parents need to help kids search out appropriate peers and do a lot of fun, family activities to balance out what they’re getting at school. You can’t just be a family that says ‘no’ all the time; you need to be a family that has fun.”

Teenagers
. In the teen years, kids should be approaching the top of the “v,” getting ready to move on to adult independence and personal decision-making. This also is the stage at which peer pressure reaches its peak, as do negative influences that require good self-control.

“Right through the teen years, parents have to be sure to set limits,” Rimm says. “Hormones are rushing, and they’re surrounded by movies, TV, peers. It was much easier to be self-controlled a few generations ago.”

If parents haven’t been building the foundations of self-control, she says, the teen years are the toughest time to start, and parents may need help. “If parents understand what’s gone wrong, they can fix it, but more extreme cases should go to family therapy. Parents who want to say ‘no’ will get support from the therapist.”

Perhaps you’re the parent of a newborn and in complete control of the cockpit, or perhaps you’re the parent of a just-graduated senior who’s ready to take over the controls and fly off to college. Regardless, self-control is a life skill to be taught and reinforced again and again, to ensure your children make a safe landing into adulthood. (Keirn, “Who’s in Charge? Teach Kids Self-Control.”)

    
“Specific motor problems
”:
Reed and Bril, “The Primacy of Action in Development,” p. 438.

CHAPTER 9:
HOW TO FOSTER A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE

PRIMARY SOURCES

Durik, Amanda M., and Judith M. Harackiewicz. “Achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: coherence, concordance, and achievement orientation.”
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
39, no. 4 (2003): 378–85.