When advice, is not advice.

Long ago, my brother Josh was starting out on his career in the financial world.

(I have referred to him elsewhere in one story that told of his savant-like gift for mental calculation. As I noted then, he has the gift, but he does not have a savant's impairment - but is, in fact, profoundly gifted.)

It was at this time that he was given what I have recently come to regard as a mischievous piece of advice. This supposedly helpful adviser was aware of Josh's ability to do complex calculations instantly and instinctively, in his mind, without reference to a calculator or computer. In the financial world, at that time, there were many roles which involved the manipulation of numbers, the analysis of numerical data and the ability to understand all things mathematical. There would seem, therefore, to be one obvious piece of advice that Josh could have been given...but what he was actually advised to do was something altogether different.

This adviser told Josh, as I heard the story, many years ago, to steer clear of any role that involved direct interaction with numbers. He argued that it would become unbearable, for one such as Josh, with his innate understanding of number, to be surrounded by numbers, all day. Josh, as a young man, just out of University, took this advice at face value - and duly steered clear of any role having such direct and considerable daily involvement with numbers.

Think about that for a moment. Josh had a unique gift for instant calculation and interpretation of numbers. He could do what no other could, numerically. The possible implications for effective outcomes for one such as that, placed in a situation which allowed the interpretation of numbers to have a real world effect, are boundless. Truly, he could have done something very interesting indeed. Yet, he was advised not to become involved with numbers. I wonder at the mischief behind such advice. Josh was being advised to avoid playing to his greatest strength, being advised to hide his talents, to operate in an area in which they would have no direct use. Such advice could only have been meant unkindly, I think - unless the adviser truly misunderstood the situation - but I think that unlikely.

Josh never did apply his numerical gift, professionally, as far as I am aware. He took the advice and let his calculatory gift lie dormant and rarely called upon. That is, I feel, a pity.

I tell this tale for an obvious reason. You or your children may have unusual gifts. At various times others, in a position of authority, may advise you or your children as to careers and courses. I would evaluate their advice with the story above in mind - and ask these questions:

Does the advice take note of the innate strengths of the child? Does the advice play to the strengths of the child - or does it ignore them? Is the adviser someone likely to be in competition at the organization with your child? If so, then look more closely still at the advice that is being given.

The gifted are not welcomed everywhere. Sometimes people feel threatened by their gifts - and do what they can to hide them, obstruct them or otherwise interfere with their expression.

Had Josh become directly involved with numbers, in an area in which the rapid understanding of their meaning and possibilities had real world implications, he would have become, in all probability, the best in his field, in the world - for no other could compete with him, in the matter of mental calculation.

In taking the advice he was given, he turned away from his most unusual strength, and played to others, instead - but I can't help but wonder what would have happened had he exercised a gift that no-one else could challenge him in.

Ensure that your child is never left to wonder such a thing, too: play to their strengths, whatever they may be.

(I should point out that Josh has led a fulfilling and interesting career, since. Yet, the point remains that there are applications for his unused gift that would have been truly remarkable.)

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, Josh's nephew, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen 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. Thanks.)

Careers advice for a gifted child

This is a post that will only begin to address the issue and will do so with a tale from our own lives.

When my wife was a child, she had broad horizons: there seemed to be so many things she was interested in, so many possibilities of things she could do. Needless to say, she took her ideas for her future to the adults around her, to those who were in a position to dispense careers advice. Now, the events are so long ago, that she cannot recall precisely who it was who advised her so - which adult, which teacher, which "career adviser", who told her as they did, but the advice has never faded, the exact words used remain with her to this day.

She was a child who thought about many things, whose interests were deep and many and various. So she had more than one vision of her future. So, one day, she asked this career adviser their opinion of her choices:

"I would like to be an archaeologist when I grow up." she revealed, rather shyly - for she was ever rather shy.

"Everything has been found already." was the blunt, dismissive reply.

Syahidah, the little girl, was rather disappointed about this, for she had dreamt of travelling the world, going to strange places, in search of even stranger lost and distant realms, almost forgotten, newly to be discovered. This vision had been dismissed as romantic nonsense - yet, the funny thing is, her idea of the possibilities is closer to the truth than her narrow-minded "adviser": there are still cities to be discovered, lost worlds to be explored. That we have found much, does not mean that there is not much more to be found, deep beneath us all.

Though disheartened by this opinion, she mustered the courage in her small body for another statement of her ambition.

"I want to be an architect.", she said, already proud at the thought of the buildings she might build, the cities she might shape.

"Everything has been built already, in Singapore." was the even more dismissive and bone-headed answer.

Look at the answer of this "adviser". For a start it considered the world entire to be nothing more than Singapore: as if the architectural needs of an entire planet were not worth bothering with. Secondly, Singapore, more than many cities, is very much in need of good architects. Too much of it looks the same as everywhere else. Some architectural genius would go a long way to improving the quality of life in this small but ambitious city. Furthermore, Singapore is constantly pulling "old" buildings down (anything over fifteen or twenty years seems to be too old to leave alone around here) and replacing them with new ones. There is, therefore, both a dire and enduring need for good architects, here.

After two dismissals she didn't have the courage to raise any more of her aspirations to be shot down. The little girl that was Syahidah never forgot those words - and never more did she dream of being an archaeologist - or an architect.

That unremembered adviser, whose words have never been forgotten, deprived Singapore of an architect (which it so evidently needs) and an archaeologist - which I have never heard of it having. Such conversations, between the advising adult and the child - gifted or otherwise - should never be conducted lightly. They have a permanent effect on the child concerned.

In the end, my wife has become an artist - but that is a story too long for this post. Let it be said that no-one helped her along the way - or advised her appropriately.

So if a child approaches you for advice on a career, think carefully. Don't dismiss whatever they offer up as possibilities: look at the positive side of what they are proposing, look at the good things that could come of them. Don't puncture a dream just because you no longer have any of your own (which was probably the case with her sour, disenchanted "adviser"). Let their dreams continue to live - and give them a little encouraging prod. Who knows, perhaps your kind words may lead them to become a fulfilled, successful, happy, productive individual, one day - instead of someone whose progress was blocked and stifled by "advice" lacking in vision, imagination, and knowledge of the world.

My wife's childhood adviser knew nothing of my wife's gifts. Her self-diagnosed possible career paths were, retrospectively, more than appropriate given the mental strengths she has later shown: in particular in visual matters - a strength required in both archaeology and architecture - as well, of course, as in art.

Often the child with a dream, may also be a child with a reason (for that dream). Listen to them, and speak as wisely as you can, for it is a chance for you to help someone become what they truly wish for - and should be.