Dangerous music.

Quirkiness of thought and expression is a much under-rated characteristic. For me, the quirky are more interesting than the merely intelligent. Indeed, many of the world’s most interesting creations come from the minds of the world’s quirks, as it were.

Today, Fintan, eight, was playing with a children’s toy, which I believe to belong to his young niece (about 3 years old). He turned it on, and pushed a button or two. Electronic music bellowed out from it. He smiled to himself and levelled it towards me:

“Watch Daddy, this machine will erase your whole mind!”, he announced, rather theatrically. He then set about proving it, calling up repetitive annoying tune after repetitive annoying tune, laughing to himself all the while. He repeated each short snatch of music for maximal mind-numbing effect, punctuating it only with the occasional cackle to himself.

Before he had actually proved the efficacy of the device, but by the time I had become convinced that it, indeed, had the power to “erase my whole mind”, I told him, firmly, but with tongue in cheek:

“Switch it off Fintan, it is beginning to work!”

He had mercy on me and switched it off. Unfortunately, little Tiarnan, five, who had no mercy in him whatsoever, took over and chose the most repetitive irritating tunes of all to play, repeatedly. He wasn’t playing it because he liked the music. He was playing it because he liked the effect on his Daddy. After much amusement – from him, alone, I might add – he finally switched it off, after I had begged him several times.

I think Fintan has found the answer to the mystery as to why three year olds are generally surpassed by eight year olds, mentally: it is those damned mind erasing devices they play with!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

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To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

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This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

How to build a supercar.

Little boys and girls do the strangest things, for the strangest reasons. That is what makes them so fun to observe.

Today, Syahidah caught sight of Tiarnan, five, at work on his cousin Arissa’s scooter. He was placing stickers on it and had fairly covered it, in the brightly coloured decals.

“What are you doing?”, she asked of her son.

“I am tuning it.”, he said, without looking away from his task.

How funny. In his mind, he was “tuning” the scooter, just as cars are “tuned” to make them faster with a higher performance.

With a smile she left him to it.

Later on in the day, he made a gloomy observation to his mother.

“The tuning didn’t work. The stickers are SO heavy!”

Well, at least I know where to go if I ever need my car tuned. I can just ask my littlest son.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

How to get Daddy's attention

Tiarnan and I were playing a game, today. More specifically, he decided that he wanted to play the game and so I had to join in.

The game was a simple one. For Tiarnan, pillows had been transformed into guns with magical powers: one simply pointed the pillow and made a "peeoww" or "berrr" noise and Daddy would respond by being wounded. Daddy, of course, was allowed to use a pillow gun in return. I chose a very small one (his), he chose a very big one (mine). Clearly, he wanted to outgun me - or outpillow me.

At one point, he had done too thorough a job of pillow shooting me. I lay on the bed in an unresponsive state - not replying to his repeated queries.

He had a problem: how to resurrect the "dead".

He also had a solution. While I lay there, eyes closed, in imitation of an underpaid extra on a filmic battlefront, he did something unexpected. I heard it, a sound I didn't want to hear. My computer mouse clicking and moving across the table.

I awoke at once, suddenly cured of my mortal injuries, to see my little son, Tiarnan, twenty-six months, grinning at me, mischievously.

He knew that would work. Tugging at me was useless. Speaking to me was useless - but messing with my computer...well, that was guaranteed to resurrect the dead.

We played on - but I didn't dare play too dead, again, lest he take the messing with the computer route to revive me.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The imaginative world of a child.

There are many things about fatherhood that fascinate - but one of the greatest is the opportunity to observe - and enter - the imaginative world of a child.

Tiarnan has just had his 2nd birthday (it was yesterday). A week ago, we were visiting a friend's house. The daughter of the house is Fintan's friend.

One of the toys present was a blow up, life-size crocodile. It was green, of course, with white teeth and bulging eyes. It was not life-like to an adult eye.

The larger kids, Fintan and his friend approached the crocodile and sat on it and began to sing: "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream". (They duly screamed).

Tiarnan, seeing that they were quite happy on the crocodile, joined them on its capacious back - and tried to sing along.

A while later, I noted that the crocodile had been moved into the adjacent children's bedroom, where all three kids were now playing. All was well until the elder two left. Tiarnan played happily for a moment or two before he realized that he was alone - well, almost. He started to cry out somewhat nervously, alerting us to his predicament. He was staring at the crocodile blocking the doorway, quite obviously distressed by it. I knew then what had not been clear until that moment: for Tiarnan, the crocodile did not just represent a crocodile - it was a crocodile - with all the dangerous possibilties that one presented.

Syahidah went into the room and rescued him.

Later on, just before we were set to leave, the crocodile had made its way into the living room. Tiarnan was busy drinking a bottle of milk. He noted the crocodile by the tv - and the watchful presence of others - and smiled at it. He approached slowly, holding the bottle of milk out towards it and placed the teat against its teeth, his head nodding in encouragement, urging it to drink. Tiarnan had, it seemed, decided to make friends, with the crocodile. It was very touching to watch. Once he had let the crocodile "drink" for a while, he was much more relaxed around it. No doubt, in his estimation, he had now befriended the two metre beast.

When one reaches a certain age, few adults seem to think in interesting ways. It is probably because their ways are too familiar and too predictable. Children, on the other hand, live in the same world, but see it differently. It is refreshing, therefore, to observe them do, think and feel things, adults simply never would.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and six months, and Tiarnan, twenty-three 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The World's Most Exotic Reptile

Fintan, four, is shaping up to be a child with an imagination all of his own. His remarks are so characteristic of him - and of no other - that I long ago started to call them Fintanisms. The same applies to his behaviour.

Two days ago, for reasons known only to himself, Fintan came up behind Tiarnan, twenty months, and gently pushed him to the ground so that he was on all fours, saying: "Run reptile, run!"

Then he paused, momentarily, "Oh no..." I thought, then, in that moment, that he was going to correct his odd description of his younger brother, "crawl."

Hilarious.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Daddy is on a roll

Yesterday we went for one of our habitual walks. This time it was to a strange new park, that Syahidah had christened "Stoney Mountain". It was like something out of the Hobbit. Alongside the path that wended its way through the wooded area, were large boulders that had obviously been placed there, in imitation of what might be a natural formation in some parts of the world. The effect, although artificial, was quite charming: one almost expected elves to pop out from the woods at any minute, or for a friendly hobbit to enquire after second breakfast.

My children, however, not having read such books, had no such references. Nevertheless they enjoyed it.

After we had climbed to the top of "Stoney Mountain", we began to make our way down to another path we saw cutting across the landscape far below - a shortcut, if you like. Ainan, Fintan and Syahidah ran down, hand in hand, but I, feeling a mass that once had not been mine, declined to do the same.

After they had reached the path, Fintan, four, looked back up at me and seemed to be ambushed by an idea. He ran back up the hill to meet me on the way down, shouting: "Roll, Daddy, roll!". He then got down on to the ground and began rolling down the hill, to show me what to do.

Clearly, he had conceived that Daddy, being rounder than the average boy, might do better as a ball, than as a walking man. In the distance, I could hear Syahidah and Ainan laughing at Fintan's suggestion. As for me, I looked at Fintan's rolling and the long hill down, and thought better of it. Yet, at his age, I had done the same, when confronted with a hill.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan shows his athleticism

On August 31st, Syahidah took Tiarnan to the playground. Like many nineteen month old kids, he rather likes this.

Tiarnan climbed up the stairs to the "castle" as I like to call it: the set of play features that are embedded in the ground of every playground in the world, that I have ever seen, (in one form or another). This particular one included a slide, which could be reached by quite a number of steps, up from the rest of the "castle".

Tiarnan duly climbed up each and every step until he got to the top of the slide - and then he launched himself into the air and slid all the way down. He thought this was great and as soon as his feet touched the ground he was up and running and back clambering up the stairs to make his way back up to the top of the slide again. Once there, again, he launched himself into the air - and so on.

Syahidah watched him do this with growing amazement, for what seemed at first an everyday matter, became ever more remarkable as Tiarnan's non-stop run-climb-slide-run-climb-slide...just went on and on.

He must have done this over twenty times - which is one hell of a lot of steps and considerable running - before she decided that it was time to go. Tiarnan, though, was yet abuzz with energy.

It was in seeing him do this that Syahidah came to realize quite just how much stamina is hidden away inside Tiarnan's little body.

Sometimes, it seems, athletes come in small packages.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The Fall Of Snail Kingdom

Throughout history, the fall of an empire has often been sudden and surprising: some unexpected turn of events occurs and all comes tumbling down. So, too, was it with the little principality known as the Grand Snail Hotel.

Those who have read the posts regarding Children and Pet Animals - and its sequel on The Grand Snail Hotel, will be primed to understand this post. If you haven't I suggest that you do, otherwise it will be meaningless.

You may recall that my wife and I found our sons building The Grand Snail Hotel in the lobby. It was constructed of plastics and provided a haven for gastropod life on our stairwell. It was also quite beautiful to look at. My wife promised to photograph it once we came back from the shops that evening.

Well, we did come back - but boy were we surprised at what we saw.

As the door to the lift opened, I saw my neighbour, with his back turned to me. In his right hand he held a large hammer. That didn't look good. Worse still, as I approached him, to investigate this strangeness, I saw that someone had kicked the hell out of the Grand Snail Hotel: it was lying in ruins in the stairwell, as if it had been attacked in anger. As I drew level with him, I saw something else: a blue powder on the floor to my neighbour's left: insecticide, I surmised, from the context.

After my sons had happily finished work on their hotel, and went back inside to loll contentedly by the television, mulling over their good deed, my neighbour had ventured from his home with a hammer and insecticide and set about killing my sons guests.

He looked at me and spoke in explanation: "Your sons have brought snails up here...they will eat my orchids."

It was quite surreal hearing a grown man speak of snails eating his orchids while he clutched a large hammer in one hand - and had once held insecticide in the other. It was like stumbling upon a serial killer quietly explaining why he was wiping out the neighbourhood: "They were eating my hamburgers." - or the like.

I nodded, to assuage him, thinking, that, noting the anger in his voice and the hammer in his hand that this was the most diplomatic choice at that moment. Besides, it was too late for most of the snails. They had either been squashed with a hammer - such a violent way to resolve the issue - or poisoned to death.

"It's a project." I pointed out, gently, putting the whole episode into the context of a child's exploratory life. I rather thought that, being Singapore, giving the situation an educative slant might mollify him. However, it didn't seem to.

He mumbled on some more about saving his orchids and I just nodded at what seemed like grammatically correct moments. I couldn't help but notice that he was all but choking on his own anger.

"Ask them to take them away by the end of today." He requested, at last.

I just nodded and oddly said: "Thank you."

I then went inside and told the boys the dreaded news about their now defunct snail colony.

"What?" was their simultaneous reply, as they leapt up to see what harm had befallen their guests.

I heard our neighbour explain to them that the snails would eat his plants so they had to go. He suggested that they gather them up - the survivors that is - and put them in a bucket so that they couldn't escape. He also said he wanted them gone by the end of the day.

They duly gathered them up into a bucket, covered it and left the snails alone for a few hours. By the evening it had gone.

This whole episode brought home to me what is wrong with Singapore. Kids are just not encouraged to play. The randomness of a good childhood is not thought worthy. There was so much to be learnt by my children through simply playing with and nurturing those snails - but that was not appreciated. It was taken to be a "naughty" act - which in this case was punished with the death of the snails.

Were his orchids really being eaten by the snails? I saw no evidence of them having left the stairwell...so no, I don't think so. They were well fed where they were and so had no need to seek food elsewhere.

I remember something funny now about our conversation. I pointed out to him, on hearing that they would supposedly eat his orchids that the children had left out food for them. "Yes," he said, delivering his words as if they were to be news for me: "Lettuce from your fridge."

I could hear in his voice that he expected me to be angry at this. He thought that I would see this as "naughty" and punishable, that I would somehow side with his world view and come down on my children for having the temerity to improvise a use for the food in my fridge. I knew then, that he really didn't understand my attitude to childhood - nor, what in my view, is a healthy attitude to parenting. For me, it is great if the children do something of their own volition. I like them to experiment. I personally couldn't understand why he would be so concerned about "misuse" of lettuce. It is more important that the children learn something, than that I have lettuce in the fridge. I can always eat something else - but they might never have another chance to learn this particular lesson.

I said nothing, however - for what could I say that would be understood by one whose views on parenting and childhood were so different from my own? I let it go, in silence.

I wonder what my children thought when they went outside and saw the ruins of their Grand Snail Hotel. What would they think of adults? They would have been confronted with the image of a man with a hammer, some blue powder on the floor - and a crushed hotel. How would they feel that their creative work - for all play is creative - should be so disregarded by an adult, that it should be destroyed in this way?

It was not what you would call encouraging for their efforts to receive this treatment. I am only thankful that I don't think Fintan noticed that snails had been killed. I am sure Ainan made the connection, however, but he said nothing to Fintan, which was sweet of him.

Together they gathered up the few snails that remained and made their goodbyes to them that afternoon.

Neither of them said anything about it - but I could feel that they were both disappointed. No doubt it has added something dark to their impression of the adult world. It would go something like this: "We build...adults destroy." or "We care...adults don't."

I am sure they understood the point about the snails eating the plants - but even so, the snails could have been moved by consent. All the neighbour had to do was knock on the door and ask them to take the snails away. He most certainly should not have set about killing them with a hammer. That is ugly - and unsettling.

Had I been in his position, I would have taken the "knock on the door" approach. It would never have entered my mind to start killing the neighbour's pets, simply because I didn't like them. In most places, that would be regarded as a crime. It probably is here, too.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eight months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and one month, and Tiarnan, eighteen 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Let the children play

About a month ago, when Fintan was still three, I saw something which made me wonder what some parents think parenting is all about.

Fintan was in the pool - it was the shallow children's pool and there was only one other child in the pool - a boy of about two or three years old (generally Chinese children are relatively small so it makes guessing their age difficult - but he was certainly at least two years old). This child was accompanied by two adults, one of whom appeared to be his mother, the other a friend.

What I noted fairly quickly was that neither adult seemed to be able to play with the child, very well. Their main concern seemed to be stopping him from doing things. They would always intervene when he tried to do something, interrupting whatever it was that he was trying to do. They seemed to be worried that he would hurt himself somehow. After some time, he appeared to basically give up trying to do anything, and stood largely immobile. Here was a child who wasn't being allowed to be a child.

Fintan is a friendly boy. He saw the other little boy and decided to play a game. He approached the boy, swimming like a shark and diving into the water just before the boy, teasing him with the possibility of being eaten. He would then back up quickly, running through the water, while looking back to see if he was being followed. Very clearly, Fintan, three, was trying to initiate some sort of improvised chase game. The other boy never reacted. Never once did he try to chase Fintan in return. He just looked at him, in incomprehension, it seemed.

After a few attempts to make the other boy engage, one would have thought Fintan would give up - but he didn't get the opportunity to. Suddenly, the mother snapped at Fintan: "Will you stop bullying my baby!?" she cried, "Will you stop?"

Fintan and I were both surprised at this since it was clear that she had completely misunderstood the situation. He looked at her in silence - and then backed away, his face somewhat hurt by this unfair accusation. After a minute or two he started to play alone - and ignored the other child completely in the remaining half an hour he spent in the pool. The boy's minders, meanwhile, got on with preventing him from playing.

I felt like remonstrating with the mother, but thought better of it. A woman who misunderstood children to that extent was probably too stupid to reason with. I watched her with her child for a while and never saw any playfulness creep into her interactions with her child: it was all about control. It was one of the saddest pieces of "misparenting" I have ever seen.

This woman - and her friend - had intervened so as to prevent their child from playing. They had thwarted another child's attempt to befriend their child. They had misunderstood Fintan's friendliness as hostility - and isolated their child. In all the time that the other boy was in the pool, he was never allowed to make his own decisions, never allowed to be free to play. Most pointedly, he was never allowed to interact with another child.

I did note, too, her reference to her child as a "baby". That, perhaps, said it all. In her mind, her child was forever a baby, forever needing protection, forever needing to be watched over. From his size and motor development, he was at least two years old, however - and far from being a baby. He was almost Fintan's contemporary.

Fintan and I left the pool, sometime later - and he never spoke of what he felt about what she had done - but we both went home quieter than before, having been subdued by this silly woman's behaviour.

She did teach me one thing, though: how not to be a parent. Perhaps we can all learn from her poor example - and do what obviously she could never do: let the children play.

(If you would like to learn more of Fintan, four years and no months, and his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and seven months, and Tiarnan, seventeen 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 adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)