No signs of sibling rivalry here.

I suppose that we are fortunate in that there, as yet, appear to be no signs of sibling rivalry, among the brothers. In fact, just the opposite seems to be developing.

Yesterday, Fintan, five and Ainan, eight, went to a talk on genetics. Initially, just Ainan was meant to go - but Fintan expressed an interest, so his mother, Syahidah, brought him along too. In the end, he rather enjoyed it and seemed to gain from it.

Anyway, Fintan behaved rather sweetly throughout the talk. Whenever a question was addressed to the audience, he did something very funny: he would grab a hold of Ainan's arm and raise it into the air to make it look like Ainan wanted to answer the question. Then he would urge Ainan on: "Go on, Abang, you can answer that one!". Ainan, once put on the spot, duly answered the questions.

It was endearing to see Fintan do this from several perspectives: the first is that, not knowing the answer himself, he had the confidence in Ainan that Ainan would know. Secondly, it was warming to see how proud he was of his elder brother ("abang") that he should be able to answer such questions.

The most important thing I learnt from this is the strong evidence that the dynamic developing between the brothers is not one of sibling rivalry - but of pride in the other's achievements and abilities. It seems to me that this is a very good development, indeed, for it promises that the relationships between the brothers will be strong and supportive ones - and few things are more valuable in a life than that one's siblings should form a support network.

Fintan, interestingly, had some well-observed questions 0f his own - but that is for another post. In the meantime, I am just happy to see the brothers get on so well.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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