Speaking in code

About a week ago, Ainan came into the dining room where I sat, after dinner, with a pack of cards in his hands. He waved them before him, before he spoke, suggesting perhaps that he referred to them.

His eyes were excited. He clearly wanted to share something. Fintan, seven and Tiarnan, four, had trailed into the room behind him and watched him, with casual interest. It seemed that they waited for him to finish so that they could play a game of cards with him.

Words came out of his mouth and formed sentences that had an elusive quality. Their surface meaning was slightly opaque and just beyond reach. It was as if I wasn't listening closely enough to what he said, to fully understand it. He smiled at me, and seemed to urge me to understanding. He repeated himself then, and I listened even more closely. The words appeared audible in my mind, but I couldn't fully identify what he meant to say. I felt somewhat at a loss. Yet, before me, there was his intense face and his obvious need to communicate something.

He tried again.

I failed again.

Finally, Ainan gave up. He stood still for a moment, a little defeated, perhaps a little disappointed that I had not understood him: "It is an acronym", he whispered to me. "Acronym."

He waited to see if I would understand him. He no longer had the confidence that I would. There was something a little lost in him, then, that I had not, the first time.

I viewed his words, then, in my mind and picked out the first letters. All became clear. He was advising me on tactics on how to play the game - using acronyms to convey his message, so that his little brothers would not know what he had advised.

I looked on him, then, with a sadness I doubt he could read. My prodigious son had thought I would see his hidden message in the words he spoke. He had thought that I would note the acronymic possibilities of his speech and understand him. There is something beyond sad in that. The sadness is this: I am the smartest person Ainan knows...yet, sometimes, even I do not immediately understand what he intends to communicate. This was one example. He had appraised my likelihood of understanding him and thought it reasonable to employ an acronymic code in casual conversation to convey a point, over the heads of his brothers. Yet, I doubt that a single person on Earth would have understood him, without prompting. People don't simply search human speech for acronymic possibilities, without having been given reason to do so.

I know what it is to be Ainan, to have thoughts that are beyond the understanding of all around one...for that was much my own experience of childhood, at times, but it brings a new sadness to me, to see it in Ainan. It is not a sadness, you understand, that he should be like this, but a sadness that there are no others that he can readily communicate the fullest complexities of his thought to, without being met with incomprehension. I am the only person, really, that he can talk to, without moderating his intellectual output, to the limits of his audience - yet, at times, even for me, his meaning can be elusive - not often, you understand, but certainly, it happens.

Then again, there is another aspect to this, that must not be overlooked. Ainan is just ten years old. His mind is still growing and is by no means at its apex. He is but halfway to the top of where he shall one day be - perhaps not even that. The thoughts he can conceive will grow more complex by the year, more elusive, more challenging. Thus it is, that the number of people who can grasp his intentions, his thoughts and understandings, will diminish by the year. There may come a time when, perhaps, there will be no-one who can fully understand him, without careful explanation and great effort. What will his perspective on life be, should that time come to be? What will he think of people? How will he feel that they don't really understand him?

Already I have caught a glimpse of what it must be for him. I saw the glint of disappointment in his eyes, that I had not understood his acronymic code. I saw his stepping back from his excitement, into a careful, evaluative watchfulness, as if to see what would be necessary to make me understand. I saw his surprise at his need to reassess his understanding of my understanding. He hadn't expected that I would not immediately grasp his meaning.

In a way, I failed him in that moment. My role, you see, has always been to understand him, to be there for him as the one he can speak freely to, and be ever understood and appreciated. In that moment, however, I tripped and fell. I could not meet that demand without a hint, without the clue he gave me. I could see that he had not expected that. In a way, however, that is good, for it shows what a good job I have been doing of understanding him. His surprise shows that I had, until then, been largely successful in my role as the one who listens with understanding. It also shows, of course, that he thinks highly of my ability to understand.

I look again, on my memory of how he was, as he was explaining to me, his code. He seems now, to be somewhat vulnerable, a little fragile, as he stood there, making his thought clear. I cannot put a meaning to this, though: it is too opaque to me. Perhaps, he felt my failure as a kind of loss: before there was certainty of understanding...now, there was not. It is difficult to know - but I can see this: I think it is important to him, that I understand him. It is also important to me that I understand him, but this I haven't said.

I am led to ask, one question that I have been postponing: what if he outgrows me, one day? What if the day comes when I find his meaning consistently too elusive? What if he passes beyond my understanding into a realm of his own? Should that day come, it will be a new experience for us both - for I am used to understanding what people say, without difficulty...and Ainan is used to the idea that I, at least, understand him. Should that day come, Ainan will probably be alone, in the intellectual sense, for if I no longer understand him, readily, I very much doubt another would, in his acquaintance. There are too few such people. Though alone in his world, perhaps he will write his understandings and communicate with people throughout time, even if such conversations are innately one-sided. Through the written word, even the deepest thoughts, will finally be understood, one day, by someone - for such thoughts may be pondered at will, for as long as it takes to understand them. The written word will be Ainan's ultimate way to speak his mind. Besides, acronyms are so much easier to spot written down!

Happy thinking, Ainan.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

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A prodigy and his inner world

We all, in a trivial sense, inhabit a world of our own. However, in a very real sense, Ainan inhabits a world of his own. By this I mean, that his focus on his own thought is so intense, at times, that the outer world makes no impression on him. This is sometimes evident in conversation. One might be talking about something to him, and he will remain silent, until after some interval, he comes out with what he has been thinking about: almost always something scientific, either chemical or physical, and usually very detailed, or profound, and often surprising.

What I have found characteristic of this state is that it cannot be perturbed. Nothing can distract Ainan from his own train of thought. I might be trying to tell him something scientific, which I think might interest him - but, if he has already started his own train of thought, nothing can take him away from that. So, a conversation when he is in this frame of mind is a very one-sided affair - or should I say, it has two sides that don't meet: his and mine. When he has decided upon an inner topic, that line of thought will continue despite whatever happens in the outer world. At times, he will throw out a conclusion or a remark which makes it clear that he has made further progress in his line of thought. The outer world provides no interruption to him at all.

This capacity for deep concentration on one's own thinking is characteristic of many adult geniuses of history. It is a necessary prerequisite for solving difficult or complex problems that one should be able to focus on them to the exclusion of all else. This tendency in those children who might one day be geniuses, should be understood. It is not rudeness that leads such a child to tune an adult out - it is their inner focus on the subjects of their interest - the chosen topics of their present thought. When the reverie is over, the child will attend to whatever it is that you wish them to attend to - but while the reverie persists, it should be allowed to continue uninterrupted, after all what is the child doing but what any parent might wish them to do: thinking hard on something.

So, when Ainan takes it upon himself to think of some scientific matter, even if I have urgent need to communicate something to him, I try to give him the space and time to think through whatever it is that he ponders. I understand that this tendency is one of the basic skills of any genius, in any discipline - and it should be allowed to grow in peace.

At school, such an inner focus, might look like "dreaminess" to an uninformed teacher who does not know the child well - and might lead to various forms of punishment to attempt to "shake the child out of it". That is a big mistake. If a child displays this characteristic it is probable that they have found something much more interesting to think about than the contents of the lesson. My own feeling is that they should be left to think it through, particularly if they have shown themselves more than able to cope with the curriculum as it is.

So, if you have a child who is a deep thinker - let them be. They are practising one of the fundamental skills of all geniuses, everywhere. Maybe, one day, such a child might grow up to be an adult genius, rethinking the world in their wake.

(If you would like to read more about Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and one month, a scientific child prodigy, or his gifted brothers, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks)