Last night Channel 4 televised the first in a series of documentaries, following Britains most gifted children. For anyone who watched this, I'm sure you'll agree it was deeply disturbing for a whole host of reasons, most of which I won't be able to scratch the surface of.
These children were seriously bright, the youngest was 3 and already a member of Mensa. 4 of the 10 children had IQ's of 170, AKA the highest IQ possible in the test they sat. They are already in the top 0.01% of the population. Despite their obvious and often jaw dropping abilities, these children were little pseudo adults with little or no ability to interact with children of their own age at all. They were all painfully aware of the burden of their 'gift' citing the continous pressure to 'amaze' 'shine' come first and stand out from the crowd. And in doing so, they had all lost friends and become social outcasts from their peers. One of the children was seriously exhibiting signs of terrible depression. But the most terrifying element of this programme? The parents.
In most of the parents, one pushy, dominant figure dictated long hours of study, practice, home schooling, recital of equations, poems, you name it. And they did this without trace of emotion, one mother saying it was her duty to ensure her children became nuclear scientists, surgeons, because that was their destiny and nothing else would do. Her children spoke like cyborgs, with no expressions on their faces. The youngest, 4, sat and drew maps of the British Isles, laboriously labelling coastal towns...why? To alleviate boredom.
Anita and I of course, discussed. I think it was fair to say that what we want from our kids when they eventually come along, is that they are 'average'. And perhaps that's a terrible admission, but is it? I want my 3 year old to be putting paint pots on his/her head and head butting the walls, I want crayola all over the walls, and I want to be in a position to teach my child, not vice versa. I don't want to parent a child who when they reach their teens, want to discuss history/politics/gastronomy. I want a teen who hides in their room, grunts and doesn't want to communicate for a few years.
And as I lay in bed last night thinking about all of this, it occured to me that extremes of any kind tend to have a negative impact, even the good ones. Think of any. Too generous (taken for granted), too kind (ditto), too clever (make people feel thick), too beautiful (must be stupid or a bitch), too short (get trodden on), too tall (freak show), too common (thick), too posh (stuck up), too sensitive (wet), too emotional (pathetic), too successful (makes us jealous). So should we all just aim for the middle ground, and if so, isn't that a sad thing?
