The nature of the Self, in the mind of a child.

Tiarnan is rather philosophical for a six year old. Today, he was having a serious little chat with his mother, when he suddenly asked, with the utmost intensity:

“Who is in control of me?”

His mother, Syahidah, focussed on him, somewhat startled at the question.

“Is it me, me, or is it my brain?”, he continued, drawing a distinction that seemed a little mystifying to her.

“Who do you think is in control of you?”, she prompted, acceptingly.

“Just me.”, he said, simply. “...and God, sometimes. God controls the whole world – but I am in control of me!”

He seemed happy with that conclusion.

Syahidah was quite happy, too, to have heard him think so. Listening to Tiarnan is rather refreshing. He ponders the world, asking questions of matters, that adults have come to overlook, or take for granted. He then reflects on them, deeply, answering them from within the context of his experience – yet, meaningfully, nevertheless. Tiarnan is a little philosopher and, in many ways, is proving to be a deep thinker, prone to pondering mysteries and cracking the enigmas of life. It is notable that the questions that concern him most could all be lumped under the heading: “The Meaning of Life”...for its nature and context are his primary interests. He really wants to understand what it means to be alive. He doesn’t just accept that he is alive and go from there...he is really questioning what life is and what it means to experience the living state. Yet, he is only six years old and has never read any philosophical or religious work of any kind. He is thinking for himself, afresh.

All of this leads me to wonder whether, as an adult, he might become a writer, who ponders deep questions and answers them for his readers. If so, that would be an altogether familiar outcome, for those who are privy to my writings of yesteryear (hint: not the general public, as yet).

Intellectually, Tiarnan has many a likeness to my own preoccupations – though his are in juvenescent form. That doesn’t disguise the fact, though, that he seems driven by the same motivations to question, understand and explain his world. Once again, I marvel at how much genetic influences appear to play in the formation of our minds, our characters and our interests.

I look forward to Tiarnan’s many interesting questions and ponderings, in the future.

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To 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.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

One of my earliest memories.

My earliest memories are quite surprising in a way. It is commonly held that people don’t have memories before the age of three or so – but I don’t believe that. My experience and that of my children, suggest that much earlier memories are possible, for some people.

One of my earliest memories places me in a baby’s cot. I don’t know how old I was exactly, but I can deduce from the limitations on my movement that it was very early – certainly in the first few months of life. I remember lying down staring up into the air above my cot – and waiting, in expectation. I was waiting for the dust motes in the air, to appear again. I knew that if a shaft of light crossed above my cot, in just the right way, then little tiny things would become visible in the air. Of course, I didn’t know what they were – but I could see them, at such times. Whenever I saw them, I would reach up to them, to try to catch them, between my finger and thumb.

Looking back, now, on this early memory, I am struck by the coordination I displayed: I really was able to control my hand and target these dust motes, with the pincer movement of my finger and thumb. I am also struck by something else. I recall, very clearly, thinking that I knew when the light would return (the next day, at the worst) and the dust motes would be visible again. I had an understanding of the passage of time, and knew something of the cyclical nature of the pattern of light. I also recall having memories, then, of earlier times on which I had seen the dust motes. So, I had a definite “memory line” into the past, even in my first few months – and I had conscious access to it.

There is something else clear about this memory. I was alone, in that cot, in that room, for what seemed like long periods, for me. I didn’t cry or complain – or cannot recall doing so, whilst I waited for the dust motes, so I assume that my parents thought me content and left me to myself, in those periods. The texture of my thoughts, then, is still clear to me now. I recall being very alert indeed, studying the tiniest nuance in my environment. I believe I was looking for changes – and the only things changing were the pattern of light and the dust motes – other than that, the room was static. My thoughts don’t seem childish in recall. They seem very focussed and attentive – and, what is more, analytical. I was analyzing my environment and trying to discover ways it could be interacted with and manipulated – yet all I was moving, was my hands.

So, on that early occasion, I was already conscious of my past, conscious of the passage of time and the cyclical nature of day and night, able to reflect on my memories and compare them with the present, able to coordinate my hands, precisely – and able to analyze my environment. I was also aware of my self, as a being, in that situation, reflecting on my world. This is not how we are told to see little children. Yet, that is how I remember my thoughts at the time.

I have other early memories, too – but I shall think carefully before describing them, here. I thought it best to put this one on record, in case I never get around to recording my early memories, just to leave an account of how I was thinking at this early stage.

I wonder: what you are your early memories? Please leave tales of your early thoughts and feelings, below.

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To 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.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Self-deprecating humour of a child prodigy.

Some able people praise themselves, a few others do what Ainan does: be self-deprecating.

About a month ago, Ainan remarked: “If people learn from their mistakes, I must be the most knowledgeable person in the world.”

He smiled at the end, and snorted a little laugh. His eyes twinkled at me.

I laughed with him.

Now, it must be said that this is Ainan’s style – to underplay or downplay himself. It must also be said that his remark is not true – for he does not make an unusual number of mistakes, in fact, he seems to make many fewer than most. Yet, this remark of his, is certainly typical of the way he refers to himself. He is even able to bring humour into how he describes himself.

I suppose that this self-deprecating humour of his may actually endear him to people. There is nothing more irritating than someone who spends their days boasting about themselves. By the same measure, there is something disarming about someone who downplays their many achievements and abilities and even speaks of them in a humorous way.

I do worry sometimes, though, that Ainan is a little too self-deprecating, on occasion. It makes me wonder whether he is actually being humorous – or, in fact, cannot see himself as he is, in relation to others. I think a clear vision of one’s place in the world and relation to others, is most helpful in guiding one’s choices in life. I do hope that Ainan’s tendency to self-deprecate won’t get in the way of that.

Having said that, Ainan’s approach will probably win him more friends than the opposite tack would garner. He is not one to push people away with a massive ego...he simply doesn’t have one. If anything he has the opposite of an ego. He is a quiet boy, who does not impose a self-image on the world, but holds it in reserve. When he speaks of himself, it is occasionally to disarm what others might think of him. He also manages to do it with humour. Indeed, humour is one of his more notable characteristics and it leaks into most areas of his life. He even began to make scientific jokes as early as six years old – but that is another tale.

I like this new wittiness that I see growing in Ainan. He has become a fashioner of one-liners. Most of them are not self-deprecating however, and are neutral in content. I shall keep an eye on the self-deprecating side of him, though, because I would not like to see that become too dominant. It is dangerous to do that too much – for one day the person uttering such lines, might come to believe in them – and that wouldn’t be healthy.

In the meantime, I shall enjoy Ainan’s spontaneous humour and learn from the glimpses it reveals, of how he thinks about himself, and the world.

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To 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.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Being ordinary or extraordinary.

What is the difference between being ordinary or being extraordinary? Sometimes they are one and the same.

I once wrote about the gifted child’s viewpoint of others, in a post, “Gifted or Impaired?”. My basic contention in that post was that a gifted child may not conceive of themselves as gifted, but of everyone else as “impaired”. I had an interesting conversation with Ainan a couple of days ago, which called to mind that post.

I had come to understand that Ainan had a strange view of his gifts. So, I tried to make him see that what he could do was extraordinary.

“It is all ordinary.”, he retorted. “Everything is ordinary.”

There was an expansiveness in his “everything” that led me to understand something. For Ainan, there are NO extraordinary achievements, in this world – everything is lumped under the “ordinary” title he was bestowing on it.

I tried to counter him, but it was no use. He left the conversation with the same view he had held at the beginning: that everything he had been able to do in his life was “ordinary” – and that, perhaps, everything everyone else had proven able to do was “ordinary” too. Ainan’s inner standard for what would amount to “extraordinary” was so high that nothing and no-one – except perhaps comic book fictional superheroes – could possibly qualify as “extraordinary”.

In a way, I see Ainan’s viewpoint on the matter of what constitutes a special gift, as a defence mechanism. By conceiving all that he has done and can do as “ordinary”, he does not separate himself from others – he can be one among all. I suppose that there is some psychological security in that. He can feel that he belongs, in a way that, perhaps, to an objective outsider, he might not seem to belong at all.

I didn’t press the point. I am comfortable with Ainan’s conception of himself, if it makes him feel more comfortable being who he is, as it seems to. Indeed, his view of himself does rather agree with my understanding that gifted children might not necessarily be able to see their own gifts. Should they try to understand them, they might, instead, come to view others as “less than ordinary” or “impaired”. Ainan has, indeed, come to a version of this understanding. Ainan has come to the view that there is no such thing as extraordinary accomplishment – because he is, of course, benchmarking all such accomplishments against what he can do himself. Given the level of what he can do and does quite casually, nothing, by comparison, seems extraordinary anymore. Hence, he conceives of a very ordinary world, in which there is nothing special in a child being the youngest in the world to have passed O level, or being in College – as he was – at 8 years old. To Ainan, that is all very ordinary.

At this time, therefore, I have a truer understanding of Ainan than he does himself. He does not see the wider world just yet. He has seen only a small sliver of that world – a small, very academic sliver. So, he cannot yet see his place in the fullness of the world. I wonder, now, how he will feel when he comes to the realization  - which is pretty certain to come, one day – that he is very far from ordinary. Will he be able to adjust to such an understanding? Will he live in denial and try to hold onto his view that “everything is ordinary”. We shall see. In the meantime, I won’t raise the matter, again, but will watch, instead, for signs of how his world view is developing.

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To 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.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

How to be an individual.

A couple of days ago, my youngest son, Tiarnan, 6, gave us all a lesson in how to be an individual.

His mother, Syahidah, was chatting to him about his school life and his friends. She remarked that one of his friends did something she thought was interesting and asked:

“Why don’t you do that, too?”

“I don’t like to COPY!”, he sat, his face suddenly catching fire, with an inner fury at the very idea. “I DON’T COPY!”, he snapped.

She was surprised at the vehemence of his reply but was impressed, too. For in his instant retort, there lay a big, fat clue as to Tiarnan’s nature: he prizes originality. Now, Tiarnan may only be 6 years old, but he is a very individual six year old. He is very much himself and himself alone. Without realizing it, he revealed one of those reasons, in his outburst: he resists imitating his friends. What they do, he deliberately does not do. He seeks to do his own thing, uninfluenced by others. He resists influence, in a world in which most of his young colleagues at school, quite actively seek influence.

I think individuality is very important. It is key to being an interesting person and key to doing anything original in the world. There never was a genius, who was not also very much an individual. I think the phrase “conformist genius” would be a contradiction in terms. To be a genius, or a creative person of merely talented dimensions, you have to be a non-conformist individual – someone who seeks to be themselves in a world that seeks, too often, to be all alike.

I am encouraged by Tiarnan’s vituperative response to his mother’s question. It speaks of a strong need to be an individual – one which will serve him well, should he ever choose to pursue a creative endeavour as an adult – for nothing is more important in a creative field, than that one is an individual.

Carry on being yourself, Tiarnan...even if vehemently so!

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To 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.

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 athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

On growing up.

Tonight, as I put my youngest son, Tiarnan, five, to bed, he remarked, eyes peering up at the ceiling, in contemplation: “I don’t feel like I am getting older.”

“Why don’t you feel that?”, I asked, quietly.

“Because you can’t see that you are getting older. If you don’t remember what size you were, how do you know you are getting older?”

His eyes appraised me in the gloom.

“Birthdays,”, he began, in self-consciously patient explanation, “are just birthdays. They don’t have five, six or seven stuck to them...they are just birthdays.”

I understood his problem then. The process of growing up was too slow for him to be directly conscious of it, without external measures. He didn’t feel he was getting any bigger. He didn’t feel anything much was changing. So, he didn’t feel he was getting any older. Then again, his external benchmarks – Ainan, his eldest brother and Fintan, the middle brother, were also growing, so, for him, in comparing himself to them, would not, necessarily see himself as getting any bigger...for they were growing too. He was always the small one. For him, time seemed static. He was ever the smallest, ever not any noticeably bigger , so it was quite fair for him to say that he did not feel he was growing older. He just could not define the changes that were occurring and had no direct means to measure them, for himself.

“When is my next birthday?”, asked his little curious voice in the darkness.

“Just under four months.”

“OK...”. He grew silent, thinking about it, perhaps wondering how he could prove his own aging, to himself.

Later, when his brother Fintan came into the room, he told him the good news, about when he was going to be six. Fintan absorbed the news in silence.

Tiarnan lay there, contemplating his own maturation. I could almost hear him thinking in the darkness, so intent was he. I left him to it, feeling that there was no need for me to be there. He let me go, in silence.

It is funny, as a parent, for him to express exasperation at his own apparent temporal stasis. For me, looking at him, I see a boy who has grown from a baby, in a very short time. Yet, I would agree that he doesn’t seem to get any bigger, each year (even though he does), because unconsciously I compare him to his growing elder brothers and the gap always remains. Thus, he seems to be perpetually suspended in this ever childish youth...whereas, in truth, he is growing and changing as much as any of them. Had he no elder brothers, we would see his change more starkly.

I felt, in his words, a yearning to grow up. Perhaps he feels the physical outranking of his brothers. I do not know. Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall explain to him that there is no need to feel so and that these years, he now wishes to rush by, will, in time, become ones that he had wished lingered, still. We do not appreciate, fully, what he have now, until it is long gone. So it is with childhood.

Sleep well, Tiarnan, my growing boy. You are getting bigger by the day, even if you can’t see it and know it. One day, you will look me straight in the eyes and say: “Hi Dad” – perhaps then, when you are as tall as I am, you will finally say to yourself, that you have grown up.

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.

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

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

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.

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

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Singapore's Hospitals: a child's view.

Yesterday, Fintan went to hospital. Not to stay, you understand, just to be treated.

As is the way with children, Fintan invented a way to harm himself, yesterday, while playing in the swimming pool. It wasn't the obvious ways in which water is dangerous, but one characterized by unlikelihood. Somehow, Fintan managed to find something sharp in the swimming pool, and bump into it, with his head. It seems to have been a step on the way out, as he swam underwater. He is not entirely clear on the issue - and I can understand why, for the pool was rather crowded at the time. There was just too much going on.

He never noticed it, at the time. It was only as he rose from the pool to greet me that I caught sight of the unwelcome colour on the side of his cheek. There was blood pouring from his eye. I moved closer, in a calm hurry, to examine it more closely.

"Come Fintan, we have to go, now." I said, quietly, so as not to alarm him, overly, "You have cut yourself". There was what appeared to be quite a deep incision on the eyelid just next to his eye. It was about a centimetre long and gaped at me most discomfitingly.

He said nothing. He did not protest as he usually did, when asked to leave the pool (a process that can take some twenty minutes, some days). He must have realized something was wrong.

I was struck by his calmness. He seemed so mature in that moment. He didn't panic, didn't get upset, didn't make a fuss, he just came with me, blood streaming from his eye, as he walked.

We went home, where I had a closer look. It was definitely a matter for the hospital. My wife was on her way home, so I waited until she arrived and we went together.

At the hospital, the check in staff quietly looked at Fintan's eye and wrote "E" on the admissions paper, for "emergency". We were soon seen by a nurse, within a few minutes of arrival.

She was Indian. Fintan listened to her and answered her questions softly, with a very serious face.

She told me he wasn't to eat or drink until the doctor had seen him.

Before being allowed to see the doctor, we had to pay at reception for the treatment.

The receptionist was Indian, too.

A few minutes later, the doctor was viewing Fintan's injury.

"You are a very lucky boy." He observed. "A centimetre lower and you would have cut your eyeball."

"Close your eyes." He asked Fintan and Fintan did so, sitting quietly, without flinching, while the Doctor administered to his wound.

"You've got two cuts here.", he remarked.

He then began to clean the injury but what had, at first, seemed to be two cuts, resolved itself into one, the second being merely dried blood.

"Glue." He said to his assistant, who moved forward to get to work. He shook his head. "I'll do this one...", he stated.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"The same compound, yes...just longer molecules." he explained, "It takes longer to dry than the short ones used commercially."

He turned to Fintan and said: "This will hurt a little. Don't move. I have to get it to close up, well."

Fintan didn't flinch. He lay perfectly still.

He held the gash taut between two fingers and applied the glue gently, with what looked like a tiny pad or brush.

As he did so, he gave us aftercare instructions.

Throughout I was impressed with Fintan's stillness. He seemed so mature in his self-control. There was not a budge of any kind from him. His entire body was perfectly still. Yet, he is only four years old.

I think he is rather a brave little boy, in his way.

All was done. It looked a good clean job. Even with a narrow scar, it shouldn't be too visible, being as it is, tucked just above the eye. He was lucky.

As Fintan was leaving he turned to us and said: "I didn't get a sweet this time."

That was a reference to a time a year or two before, when he had been given a sweet by a nurse.

We both smiled...and bought him some chocolate.

As he left the hospital, he pointed up into the air, at a flag fluttering, from the side of the hospital.

"Why is there a Singapore flag?" he said, puzzled.

I looked and saw that it was indeed a Singaporean flag.

"Why isn't it an India flag?"

I laughed then, because I understood what he meant. Many of the staff in the hospital had been Indian. So, he thought that a better description would have been an Indian flag.

"Because it is Singapore, Fintan." I explained to him, but much preferring his view of the hospital. Indeed, there is often more truth to a child's view than to an adult's constrained perceptions. There DID seem to be more Indians working there, than others.

I patted his head, just glad that his eye was OK.

I rather hope that there are not too many more visits to hospital, in my childrens' childhoods.

It did teach me something about Fintan, though. He is very calm and collected in a crisis. He also exhibits great self-control - and he doesn't panic. Such qualities can be very valuable, in many areas of life. I wonder if he will ever get to use them?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two 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, 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.)

Eternal Child Hunger Pangs

Today, I met Tiarnan, twenty months, on the stairs. He was going up, I was coming down.

He paused and looked up at me, as he drew level, and opened his mouth to show me a big splash of green, in there. "I'm eating.", he declared.

I could see that. I smiled, for it was the assured way that he said it, that I found humourous.

Then he said, to clarify his position: "I always eat."

He doesn't, really. He eats no more and no more often than any other child. He is not a one child representation of world hunger. Yet, it is interesting to note that, from his perspective, the regularity with which he eats constitutes "always eating".

It seems that he monitors himself and marks his own behaviour for frequency and habit. It is funny to see self-awareness in children so young because, somehow, it is unexpected. Though it may be hard to conceive it, they are much more self-aware and self-determining than one might at first allow. Yes, Tiarnan is a little toddler - but he is also a self-aware intelligence, quite capable of perceiving his own nature and place in the world. A lot goes into those first couple of years of life, I believe - a lot more than one might suppose.

As for Tiarnan, he has the eternal hunger of every child - and his pangs are in common with all little kids.

For me, the best point of this was a subtle one. It was green in his mouth...you try most kids to get to eat vegetables!

(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, the Irish, the Malays, 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.)