Fintan goes swimming

Yesterday, Fintan,three, took to the pool. Typically, being Fintan, he found something unusual to do there.

Unlike other kids, who swam as humans do, Fintan decided upon something a little different. It might be helpful to know that, so far, none of our children have had any formal swimming lessons. So, when they try to swim, they do so from their own resources. Fintan tried to swim, but never having been taught to do so, he had to try his own method. What did he do? He swam like a dolphin. He adopted the characteristic up and down motion that dolphins use to propel themselves through the water, with his legs substituting for the tail he did not have. It is difficult to describe exactly what he did, but the result was very characteristic of dolphins: he basically looked as if he were patterning a dolphin's movement, overlaying the way it moved onto his limbs.

I thought this both funny and smart. You see a dolphin is a very good swimmer indeed. Fintan must have realized that - so when presented with the problem of how to swim, he decided to try it the way the dolphin does. It worked in propelling him forward, but, for a human this method of going up and down in the water, legs flexing as one, like an imaginary tail, has one drawback: it keeps one's head under the water for long periods. Thus, he can only swim so far, before he has to stop for air. A dolphin would just leap out of the water, breathe, and continue to swim: a human is not equipped to do that really - not strong enough.

Fintan is a good observer of the natural world and his use of the way an animal moves to teach him something has a long and worthy precedent. You see, Kung Fu is derived in the same way: studying the way animals move and adopting a human version of their movement is behind many of the "styles" of this ancient martial art. Fintan doesn't know this - but he does know one thing: the dolphin swims well - so perhaps he could, too, if he did what a dolphin did.

To a very great degree, Fintan did swim like a dolphin, yesterday. Well done, my athletic boy!

(If you would like to read more about Fintan, three, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, and Tiarnan, thirteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)