Can You Raise Superkids?

Dr. Spock On Parenting
by Benjamin Spock, M.D.

(Page 3 of 4)

Can you raise superkids? At least a few psychologists and parents think so.

When anxious parents hear that in a certain program two-year-olds are being taught to read or that one-year-olds are taught to recognize Beethoven's picture on flash cards, they may jump to the conclusion that they themselves should be seeking similar training for their own child, even though there is absolutely no evidence that this has long-term benefits.

I remember one New York City mother years ago who complained that her eleven-year-old daughter was becoming increasingly tense and cried easily. Questioning brought out that the mother had enrolled her in riding lessons on Mondays, ice-skating lessons Tuesdays, social dancing class Wednesdays, music lessons Thursdays, ballet on Fridays — and on Saturdays, opera appreciation. Besides, her school had high academic standards and the teachers ordered lots of homework. When I suggested that fatigue could be a part of the problem, her mother exclaimed, "But all those classes are so important!"

I've known parents who worried that if their son didn't give up his bottle by the age of one or stop sucking his thumb by the age of three, he'd never get into the college, the law school, and the law firm of his father's choice. This kind of anxiety is particularly common in highly successful families; you might say it's how the upper crust stays upper.

The drive is passed down from generation to generation. If during their own childhoods parents were expected to do superior work and made to feel anxious if they didn't, they are likely to apply the same pressure when they have children of their own. Other parents may explain that it's their duty in these tough times to give their kids every educational and cultural advantage.

We do live in a society that depends increasingly on intelligence and education. And we do know that drastically neglecting an infant's or child's emotional and intellectual needs may sharply limit her ability to learn. But such cases don't prove that stimulation beyond a natural amount is beneficial. In fact, I believe that too much of the wrong kind of stimulation can be harmful.

What is the harm? One basic defect in all such schemes is that the impetus to excel comes not from the children but from parents who are driven by their own preoccupation with high achievement. So the children may balk, to preserve their integrity.

When parents do sometimes succeed in pushing their children to excel in some field, such as ballet or music, the children may end up somewhat lopsided in development, perhaps self-centered or humorless or unsociable. They may also grow up feeling that their parents value them only for their unusual talent.

Conversely, if they don't succeed to an unusual degree, some children may feel keenly that they've let their parents down and end up with a long-lasting sense of failure.

Pressing children too hard may turn them into adults so obsessed with being first that they get no joy out of life except in the narrow field of competition. They neither give nor get pleasure in their relationships with spouses, children, friends, and fellow workers. Or they may simply develop ulcers or early heart disease.

Overscheduling and overcontrolling rob children of part of their inborn drive to learn for themselves and to strive for healthy independence. They also rob children of opportunities to develop their own interests and hobbies, which are valuable if they are to develop into well-rounded, successful adults. In fact, a study of the childhoods of unusually creative individuals has revealed one common denominator: as children these people all became deeply interested in some hobby or project (not necessarily related to their later occupation) and stuck with it.

How are babies and children normally stimulated to develop emotionally, socially, intellectually? Love plays a vital part in this process. Children work hard at learning to behave like people they love; unloved children do not imitate.

When a baby is loved, her inborn patterns keep unfolding; when she is ready for the next step, she reaches out to activities and to things. Fond parents who have been watching and waiting for her first smiles respond delightedly with smiles of their own. If this encouraging delight is repeated for months, and she is regularly fed, hugged, and comforted, she will learn that she is loved and that her parents can be trusted. These feelings — love and trust — form the foundation of all the child's future development and future relationships. Even her interest in the outside world, and later her ability to deal with ideas, will spring from this foundation. Children who've been deprived of these feelings in infancy suffer serious limitations.

Parents also naturally encourage their babies' development by noticing the kinds of things they respond to at different stages and by supplying appealing objects — bright pictures or mobiles to watch, later dolls and cuddly toys to examine and manipulate endlessly.

One-year-olds are never still. They get into everything, taste specks of dust, climb stairs before they can walk. Their instinct prompts them to do everything possible by themselves; they'll insist on taking hold of the spoon when being fed. Even more noticeable is their resistance to suggestions that are not made tactfully; they may say, "No!" at first to a favorite activity. They don't want to be dominated.

By the second year, children mature by striving to copy their parents' actions, from brushing teeth to dressing and undressing. Parents instinctively encourage development by showing their pleasure in each tiny accomplishment. Vocabulary and sentences come with a rush toward the end of the second year; parents do their part by listening.

In the years from three to six, children watch with particular intensity the parent of the same sex, and they strive to be like that parent — in manner, interests, and feelings, as well as in actions. This is a crucial step in maturity, and one that can be seen most clearly in societies in which all the men have the same occupations and all the women, others. Through an emotional identification with their parents, all young children acquire a lifelong drive to do their parents' jobs well. First they play at their parents' occupations. When they are considered old enough, their parents take them on as apprentices and helpers. (In our complex industrial society it is unfortunately much harder for children to visualize what their parents work at outside the home, and there is a bewildering variety of jobs.)

At this age children love being read to. It stimulates their imagination and increases their desire to read to themselves eventually.

All these strivings to grow up can be nurtured or suppressed, depending on the attitude of the adults. The drive for autonomy can be strengthened by giving children the opportunity to practice new skills until they are mastered. At the same time, as children grow older, their urge to learn and mature can be impaired if their parents and teachers are constantly directing and dominating them unnecessarily, filling every waking minute with dictated activities.

There are a number of very human and enjoyable activities that school-aged children themselves get involved in, without any planning — spending time with friends, playing with dolls, organizing games, reading books, and engaging in working at self-selected hobbies and projects of all kinds. These are not just pleasant pastimes. These activities keep children's feelings alive and warm in a society that is pushing us further and further into cool technology. They teach sociability, cooperation, leadership, followership, creativity, responsibility, independent thinking, and self-discipline. In these ways they help prepare children for satisfying careers and good relationships with people.

Compared to these benefits, the value of special imposed lessons seems to me to be secondary. It's not that special instruction is bad or unimportant. But lessons or prescribed activities should not be allowed to take the place of spontaneous ones.

When both parents work outside the home, after-school scheduling can be a way of providing supervision for the child. Ideally the child should be in an after-school group program, preferably at her regular school, that offers activities she can pursue for her own interests and enjoyment. The value will depend on whether the child made the choice and how much enthusiasm she continues to feel; it also depends on whether the leadership, responsibility, initiative, and creativity are mainly left to the group. Instructors should be selected for their popularity with children. There should be no grading. The possible offerings are endless: athletics (with coaches who will emphasize teamwork and enjoyment instead of perfection or winning at all costs), computer operation, carpentry, electronics, painting, music, story writing, newspaper editing, stamp collecting and trading. Parents should demand such programs in their children's schools, whether or not both parents work.

I started with the example of a child who was sent to six activities outside school each week. She didn't have much time for friendship, reading, hobbies, or fun. It seemed clear that, while her parents may have been hoping to make her more accomplished, the child was instead becoming tense under the pressure.

I can picture other children who are just as busy every day after school but with their own spontaneous interests. In these activities they are being themselves, cultivating their curiosity and developing their character. So it's a question not of how many hours a child should spend or how many interests she should have, but of the spirit in which activities are entered into and carried out.

Why have I bothered listing the well-known activities of children? Simply to remind us that there is a beautiful system by which children who are well loved reach out to their parents and to the world for what they need. Through the centuries, this has been enough to produce plenty of bright people who have succeeded in life as well as in school.

So you don't have to seek out special, newfangled, advanced courses. I do feel that the preschool and the regular school should foster creativity, initiative, responsibility, and problem solving; they should be joyful places, rather than prisons that teach memorization and conformity. To be sure, the courses in high schools and universities have to keep pace with computers and other technological advances. But children who have grown up secure and curious will have no serious difficulty adapting to these. It's those who have grown up with stunted curiosity and insufficient love who won't catch on.

Copyright © 1988 by Benjamin Spock

About the Author

Benjamin Spock, M.D., practiced pediatrics in New York City from 1933 to 1947. He then became a medical teacher and researcher at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Pittsburgh, and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The author of eleven books, he was a political activist for causes that vitally affect children: disarmament, day care, schooling, housing, and medical care for all. He had two sons, a stepdaughter, and four grandchildren. Dr. Spock, who died March 15, 1998, at age ninety-four, was married to Mary Morgan. Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care has been translated into thirty-nine languages and has sold fifty million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1946.