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The Polgar sisters
The Polgár sisters, all chess prodigies, were encouraged to see the game as fun from early childhood
The Polgár sisters, all chess prodigies, were encouraged to see the game as fun from early childhood

How to raise a brilliant child without screwing them up

This article is more than 8 years old
Forget tiger mother techniques, the best way to make sure your children achieve their full potential is to nurture their interest gently, says psychologist Oliver James

Where does the drive to succeed come from? And if it results in exceptional achievement (as defined by external norms such as power, status and wealth) does that have to go hand in hand with being a troubled, agonised person?

The latest evidence suggests that genes play little part – see box below – and that nurture is critical, whether it be carrot or stick. In my case, for instance, purely because I was the only boy with three sisters, I was treated completely differently by my father. Despite my repeated failure at school, he constantly encouraged me to see myself as clever and I eventually did OK. He gave no such encouragement to my sisters in their academic careers (fortunately, my mum did).

I would go so far as to say that, had I been swapped at conception with one of my sisters, she would be writing these words. Each person’s unique history, starting before birth, sets them on particular paths, explaining why siblings differ. Think of yourself as a character in a movie and ask, what’s my backstory?

At the simplest level, performance is nurtured through teaching – for good or ill. I can teach my son his times tables but, equally, if I am a pickpocket by profession, show him how to do that.

Then there is modelling. My driving is shamefully disobedient of traffic regulations (learned from my father’s example) – perhaps my children will model that or perhaps they will copy my wife’s conscientiously lawful approach. That depends on our family dynamics – perhaps my son will follow me; my daughter her mother.

Which brings us to identification, in which the child makes the parent’s behaviour or injunctions part of themselves. They do that out of the mixture of love and maltreatment that all of us experience.

The love bit is obvious enough. My son asked me to explain about office politics when I was writing a book on it. Because we love each other, he ran with the ideas, trying out ingratiation on a teacher at school by complimenting him on his tie, with pleasing results: as someone he loves, he identified with my interest and put it to his own use.

But, while there are exceptions, it’s maltreatment that seems to fuel exceptional achievement more than anything. It’s not that genetic little bit more that enables it – it’s trauma and adversity.

For instance, one in three exceptional achievers in all fields that have been studied lost a parent before the age of 15 (compared with 18% before modern medicine). That applies equally to prime ministers, American presidents, British entrepreneurs and exceptional writers. These people are driven by the pain of loss and a terrifying loss of control to wrest their destiny from fate.

The specifics of the childhood adversity often shape which interest is pursued. In the case of Gina Ford, for example, she slept in her mother’s bed until the age of 11. That played a big role in her becoming the author of books that try to persuade mothers to get their babies sleeping on their own from the start.

Whereas Ford prescribes strict routines, Penelope Leach’s childhood made her a passionate advocate of demand-led, infant-centred care. Leach’s father favouritised her older sister and was authoritarian. Her parents divorced when she was 12 and Leach’s books take her adored mother’s side, and lots of hugging.

Of course, exceptional success does require exceptionally hard work. The classic illustration is the fact that all professional orchestral soloists who have been studied have done at least 10,000 hours of practice. No orchestral players have done so (they average 8,000 hours).

But why do some put in that extra 2,000 hours, and why do some become emotionally healthy exceptional achievers? The very different stories of Tiger Woods and the three Polgár sisters, the grandmaster chess prodigies, illustrate this well.

Tiger Woods, aged 15, with his father Earl celebrate his victory at the 1991 USGA Junior Amateur Championships in 1991. Photograph: Rick Dole/Getty Images

Woods’ father, Earl, had a thwarted ambition to be a baseball star. A second marriage to Kultida, a tough and intelligent member of Thailand’s ruling elite, led to their only son. Earl said that he had a sense from the birth onwards that this baby would become “the greatest man to walk the earth”. That surely said more about him and his unfulfilled ambitions than it did about the baby.

From nine months, Tiger was hitting golf balls and his first appearance on television occurred when he was two and a half, already exhibiting an astonishing golf swing. His parents were implacable, ruthless and imaginative hothousers. Along the way, both boy and man were hijacked as a vehicle for their aspirations.

His compulsive and increasingly risk-taking addiction to casual sex seems to have been an attempt to reclaim something for himself. There is a large body of evidence showing that exercising self-control, doing “good” things (such as practising golf all day from infancy) leads to “ego-depletion”. That produces a much greater likelihood of doing “bad” things as compensation. Put crudely, if you do that dreaded paperwork or housework for an hour, you may feel more like scoffing a chocolate bar or having a drink afterwards.

Interestingly, the exception to the ego-depletion rule is where the person is doing the self-controlled act because they feel they have chosen it – self-determined, rather than feeling it is imposed. Which brings me to the Polgár sisters.

In the 1960s, László Polgár was a Hungarian educational psychologist who had written several scientific papers on the effectiveness of practice in creating excellence. Explaining his passionate convictions to his future wife, Klara, she fell for him as well as his arguments. They chose chess for their experiment because it has an objective metric by which achievement can be measured. Neither were exceptional chess players.

As luck would have it, Klara gave birth to three daughters. There had been no female grandmasters and it was widely assumed that women were genetically incapable of the cognitive skills entailed in exceptional chess, and were consequently excluded from top tournaments.

Starting with his eldest daughter, Susan, Polgár was careful to treat it as a playful activity, turning it into a fantasy of dramatic wins and losses. Whereas Earl and Kultida Woods had coerced perfection from Tiger, the Polgárs encouraged enjoyment,

By the time Susan had turned five, she was excited by playing and spent hundreds of hours practising. She was entered into a local competition and treated it as fun, winning 10-0, causing a sensation.

Meanwhile, her younger sisters were intrigued and László allowed them to feel the pieces, seeing them as toys, with no formal tuition until they were five. Interviewed recently, all three girls described playing the game as something that they loved doing – it never felt like a chore. Instead of messing about playing Monopoly, netball or going to the local swimming pool, chess was just what the Polgár family enjoyed.

Sure enough, in 1991 the eldest daughter became the first female grandmaster. The second daughter had 10 straight wins against male grandmasters, a performance rated the fifth best in the history of chess. Her younger sister became a grandmaster at the age of 15, the youngest ever, of either gender.

Polgár understood that coercion was less valuable than small children’s need to enjoy fantasy play. Consequently, his daughters all seem to have grown into satiable, well-balanced people rather than success addicts.

A strong clue to the dynamics of the Polgár family comes from a fascinating footnote to the story. When the eldest daughter had been crowned as the first female grandmaster, a Dutch billionaire offered to pay for the Polgárs to adopt three boys from a developing nation to show that the experiment could be replicated. They turned him down, Klara feeling they had made their point.

For parents, the implications are clear. Most of us say we just want our offspring to be happy, but most also want them to do well at school and beyond.

Hothousing is not the way – it creates needy, hungry and lonely adults. Emotional distress is common in exceptional achievers. British senior managers are actually more prone to narcissism (me-me-me grandiosity) than patients in mental hospitals. American ones are four times more likely to be psychopathic than the general population. It’s the same in the arts. Top rock stars really are more suicidal than normal. The more they were maltreated as children, the more likely they were to die prematurely. Comics and actors suffer more, with comics especially likely to be depressive.

If you really care a lot about having an exceptional child, just ensure that your children love you and you them, along with the inevitable maltreatment that comes with the parenting territory.

By all means have aspirations for them (a child whose parents have none is emotionally neglected), but if they are going to be an emotionally healthy exceptional achiever, it must authentically come from them.

While no exceptional achiever, I do speak whereof I know. My parents were both psychoanalysts, obsessed with the nature-nurture debate. There is no gene that has caused me to be writing about this subject. It came out of the subtle mix of maltreatment and love that led to my identification with them. If you stop to think about it, it’s probably the same for you and your ambitions …

Oliver James is a chartered psychologist and psychotherapist at the Bowlby Centre. Not In Your Genes by Oliver James is published by Ebury Press, priced £18.99. To order a copy for £14.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.

@oliverj_psych

Your genes don’t dictate your achievement

It’s the best kept secret of modern science: 16 years of the Human Genome Project suggest that genes play little or no role in explaining differences in intelligence. While genes have been found for physical traits, such as height or eye colour, they are not the reason you are smarter (or not) than your siblings. Nor are they why you are like your high-achieving or dullard parents, or their forebears.

Very likely, you will simply not believe this and are sure from your own experience that it’s “a bit of both” nature and nurture. But those genes that have been found only explain 1%-5% of any psychological traits.

This is not just my opinion, it’s something scientists call “missing heritability”. Robert Plomin, one of the world’s leading geneticists, told the Guardian last year: “I have been looking for these genes for 15 years and I don’t have any.”

Having searched under the molecular genetic carpet and behind the sofa, it’s a well-concealed truth that genes that confer significant heritabilty are neither there nor likely to be found.

Of course, babies are born different and biological transmission of traits does occur – it’s just not genetic. For instance, there is abundant evidence that dyslexia or autism may be due to what happens during pregnancy, prematurity or difficulties during the birth itself. About a third of babies are born “difficult” for these reasons, but it has been proven many times over that the right kind of nurture can correct it.

That it’s not genes is extremely good news. It means that most babies have the potential to succeed in conventional terms in exams and careers. There is no inherent reason why children from low-income families cannot succeed as much as those from affluent homes.

Studies show that purely through believing that its abilities are not fixed, a child can increase its performance in key subjects such as maths. If parents or teachers do not start from the assumption that abilities are fixed, children perform better. But even more important than mere beliefs is actual nurture.

Oliver James

Carrot, not the stick: Dos and don’ts

Do …

Encourage your child to enjoy the la-la land of fantasy play as much as they like, at least until age seven.

Show unconditional love when they are under five.

From birth, assume their abilities are limitless.

Put enjoyment of activities ahead of competitive success.

Be relaxed about whether they are exceptional, while celebrating it if it happens.

They will be exceptional because you have high standards but they need to identify with those standards by choice.

Don’t …

Coerce them into activities when small – do the opposite of what is recommended by hothousing or tiger mothering books.

Beware of the “little devil” attribution to children as babies and toddlers – do not assume bad intentions before they are capable of them.

Tiger Woods, aged two, demonstrates his golf swing on US television. Photograph: CBS via Getty Images

No strict regimes – punishment and making a child feel like a bad person crushes the imagination and self-motivation that underly emotionally healthy achievement.

No imposition of your own perfectionism. The answer to “I got 98% in maths” is not “What happened to the other 2%?”

No colonisation of your child with your own unfulfilled aspirations: let them choose the field in which they excel (if you have a good relationship with them, it will almost certainly be one that arises out of your own interests).

Oliver James

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