An obsession with cars, in young children.

My boys are obsessed with cars. At least, if not obsessed, then they are highly knowledgeable about them. Sometimes, I think they are speaking a shared secret language filled with abstruse names, and fine discriminations.

On November 3rd, 2009, I was walking Tiarnan and Fintan to the local shop. As we walked together side by side, Tiarnan, three, casually remarked of a passing car: "That's a Toyota Crown."

Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't know a Toyota Crown from a biscuit. So, I looked down at Tiarnan, somewhat stunned, at his assertion.

"Is he right?", I asked of Fintan, six.

"Yes.", Fintan, nodded.

I absorbed his confirmation quietly.

Then Fintan, spoke, again, only to make me feel even more ignorant. "There's a Mitsubishi Lancer GLX.", he pointed, at a parked car.

I looked. I saw a car...to me it was nothing more defined than that.

Then, Fintan did it again.

"There's a Mini Cooper S.", he pointed, at a cute white car.

I felt that I should try to play this game, so, when I saw a familiar symbol, on two cars parked in a driveway I said, "There are two BMW Z3s!" I said this because I could read "Z3" on the back of one of them and they both looked rather similar to me.

Fintan looked at me, appraisingly, as if, perhaps, wondering whether to take pity on me and keep silent.

"That is a Z5, Daddy.", he said, at last, indicating one of the cars - the one I hadn't read the symbol on.

Ah. Oh well, at least one of us knows.

I didn't say anything, however: I just looked more closely and saw that he was right, and I was wrong.

This is not an unusual occurrence. Every day, when we are out with the boys, they will remark on passing cars: on their brand, their model name and number, their engine size, their engine design, their horsepower, their acceleration, the presence or absence of turbo chargers and superchargers, whether they are four wheel drive or rear wheel drive - indeed, they speak of anything and everything to do with cars. It is a shared pastime between the brothers, even though they are of very different ages: 3, 6 and 9 - they all speak of these things. It is funny really, because this line of conversation has only emerged in recent months and I just don't know how they have all learnt so much about cars in so short a time.

What gets me, in particular, though, is that Tiarnan is only 3, but is able to make fine distinctions between car models - and Fintan, too. They are funny boys.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

A special request from the Cawley juniors.

A week or two ago, Syahidah asked our three sons if there was anywhere they would like to go, in Singapore. Their answer was unanimous:

"Mohammed Sultan Road, at 7 pm on a Friday.", they said, their bright eyes aglow at the prospect.

She thought this a very strange request. You see Mohammed Sultan Road is a famous nightlife area of Singapore. The Cawley boys at just 9, 6 and 3 years old were really rather too young to be making special requests to visit a nightlife area. To her mind, there flashed an image of her three young boys, out in a clubbing district, amidst the social whirl. It was jarring.

"Why," she asked, without the laugh she no doubt felt like making, "do you want to go there on a Friday night?"

"Because there you can see lots of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis!", they replied, as if it could not have been more obvious.

It was then that she laughed. It was the boys' love of CARS, not nightlife, that was on their minds.

In recent months, all three of the Cawley boys have become interested in cars - and in no small way, too. Their speech is filled with references to engine designs, horse power, turbochargers, superchargers, acceleration, which car has beaten which car and so on. The funny thing is, even little Tiarnan, all of three years old, makes references to them. His tongue, too, speaks of "Bugatti Veyrons" and "Lamborghinis".

I suppose we should be thankful that their interest in Mohammed Sultan Road is such an innocent one! Then again, it was rather observant of them to notice the right time and place, to find supercars and sports cars in abundance, in the first place.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Karl Benz: child prodigy.

You may find the name Karl Benz familiar. It should be. From him sprang Mercedes Benz, Daimler Benz and Daimler-Chrysler. Yet, did you know, he was a child prodigy?

Many of history's most accomplished individuals began life as child prodigies. Prodigy is not just a childhood phenomenon, therefore: it can presage the beginning of a most productive life. That this is not more widely known is simply because in time we remember these former prodigies for their adult achievements - and forget that once they were prodigious children. Examination of the lives of adult geniuses, turns up many who were child prodigies.

What did Karl Benz do? Well, he was the inventor of the petrol (or gasoline) powered automobile; he held the patents for all the processes that allowed a petrol powered internal combustion engine to work; he invented the carburettor; the water radiator, the ignition system based on sparks from a battery; the spark plug; the clutch; the accelerator. It would be fairly true to say, that he invented the car (in the sense of most of the things that allowed it function in the way that is familiar to us all). He also invented an engine now used in motorsports - the flat engine or boxer engine - oh, and the axle-pivot steering system. On top of that, he made car designs, too.

All of this accomplishment has its roots in a scientifically prodigious childhood - a prodigiousness that was clear in his primary school years. Though he came from a very poor background (owing in large part, one would think to his father being killed, in a railway accident, when Karl was only two years old), his mother struggled to ensure he got the best of educational opportunities. He didn't disappoint her and he started at the scientifically oriented Lyzeum at nine years old. From there he moved onto the Poly-Technical University and finally another University - the University of Karlsruhe which he entered at the age of 15 to study Mechanical Engineering.

After his formal education, Karl Benz, like many people of genius, found it difficult to fit into normal working life. He moved from job to job, never really finding his place. After seven years of this, he started a mechanical workshop with Auguste Ritter. Though the first year was a disaster - to which he responded by buying out his partner - this new independence proved the foundation of his future success. It allowed him to work on his ideas. Soon he had invented a two-stroke engine. Thence forth a river of inventions flowed from him, each contributing to the motor age.

It was not until he had formed another company, however, Benz and Company, having been sidelined by others, in his first company, that he was free to work on his dream: "a horseless carriage". In 1885, he invented the Benz Patent Motorwagen, the world's first automobile. The age of the car had begun.

He was born in the age of the railway, and by the time he died in 1929, the world had been transformed by the car - and it was largely his doing.

Benz is but one example of a child prodigy, who grew up to be an adult who changed the world. I shall look at others, over time, for each is an interesting example of what may come from a prodigiously gifted child who receives the opportunities they need to flower as they might.

(Karl Benz, child prodigy, inventor of the automobile, 1844 - 1929).

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three or Tiarnan fifteen 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, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)