We have all heard of them. Children who stun us with the things they are capable of doing. Not only adult-like things but things that most adults cannot do. The official definition is a child under 10 years who displays adult-level mastery in complex skills like music, math, or chess, or sport.
These four are highly structured, rule-bound systems. In these fields, children can easily acquire knowledge and make connections faster than in areas requiring experience. This may explain why prodigies appear more frequently in those settings.
Prodigies are also typically capable of prolonged sessions of intense concentration, focused to the exclusion of everything else, known as a “Rage to Master.”
Musical prodigies are the best known. We all love and practice music to some degree and it’s easy to compare ourselves with someone doing something we love.
Perhaps the two most famous musical prodigies are Mozart and Stevie Wonder. The story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is well known. With a name like that, who wouldn’t, although perhaps he made the name. There is a theory that the name makes the man. If that is so, then I am lost. But Mozart is the child prodigy par excellence, playing songs on the harpsichord at four years, composing simple music at five and going on to leave the world some of the most loved pieces of music.
Wonder is perhaps less well known. Despite being blind from birth and growing up in poverty, Wonder was playing the piano, organ, harmonica and drums before he was 10, signed with Motown at 11 and had his first No 1 hit at 13 with Fingertips. He is still the youngest artiste ever to top the Billboard charts.
What happens to most child prodigies? Most people believe they go on to advance their chosen fields. That is not true. Early performance is not a reliable predictor of adult outcome. Being a prodigy does not guarantee future greatness. In fact, with some exceptions, most child “geniuses” rarely go on to be major adult creators in their discipline. Barely 10 per cent them do.
So, Nobel Prize-winning scientists are less likely to stand out in school as children or teenagers and few child prodigies have won Nobel Prizes, not even the minor ones like the Nobel Peace Prize. Around 90 per cent of superstar adults were not superstars as children.
The perceived wisdom is that the best way to nurture talented youngsters is to identify them early and drill them relentlessly. That word drill comes up a lot when dealing not only with child prodigies, but with ordinary children. The idea being that if a little practice is good, more practice is better. That approach works with adults but not with children. It does not work for child prodigies or for the ordinary child kicking a ball, solving math problems, or playing the violin. The reason for believing this is that most of the research backing that belief followed children only into school or university. When you follow these people into their professional, adult careers, success falls away dramatically.
People who regularly deal with children have known this for years. Children who are exposed only to one subject, whether it be academics, chess, music, or sport, and are “drilled” in one subject, rarely reach the topmost levels of that specialty. It is the child who is exposed to an all-around type of life, whether it be academic, musical, or sporting, who goes on to the top of his/her profession.
Most child prodigies grow up to be successful, competent adults but not world-changing geniuses. Why this happens is not well understood. The most popular idea is that youngsters simply “burn out.” That, after years, the endless practice and dedication become boring and interest wanes. As the adolescent years begin, other attractions become preeminent. Others may have difficulty interacting socially or having to learn to work in teams and fall away.
And why so many exceptional adult performers show the pattern of many interests and later flowering is also hard to answer. It might be that having a broad range of interests and waiting before choosing which to specialise in gives a better chance of finding the field best suited to your talents.
It might be that learning is itself a learnable skill, and that a good way to learn that skill is to pursue a variety of things. When the time comes to focus on one of these, a better ability to learn makes training more effective.
The best way to ensure competence as an adult is to expose children to a variety of interests and gently nudge or encourage them into what they like doing, without drilling and butting in too much.
