Fashion sense in a child.

A couple of weeks ago, Tiarnan, five, was in his parents’ bathroom ,with his mummy, Syahidah. He was being awfully quiet and contemplative.

Standing by the sink, he studied something with his thoughtful, slightly perturbed gaze.

He reached out his little hand and picked up a razor.

Looking up at his mother, he observed, worriedly: “Daddy cuts his face with THIS.” He shook the razor, as he spoke, for emphasis. There was a sense of some horror in his expression.

Syadidah heard his worried tone, and was touched – such concern for Daddy, she thought.

“Don’t worry, Tiarnan. Daddy has been doing it for years – and when you are older, you will do it, too.”

Her soft hands held his face and her soft eyes held his gaze.

“No!”, he countered, forcefully and unexpectedly. “It’s not THAT.”, he paused, for a fraction of a second, to gather his disgust: “It’s PINK!”

Without the smile she no doubt felt, Syahidah agreed: “Yes, that is kind of scary”.

“WHY?”, he asked, with an almost infinite puzzlement. In his young world, such things just should not be.

Syahidah had no words in answer to him. She reached out, took the razor off him, and replaced it by the side of the sink.

I think, Daddy had become a little bit more mysterious and little bit less respectable, in Tiarnan’s young eyes. To him, there must be a reason for why Daddy had a pink razor. It never occurred to him, that I might be using one of Syahidah’s because I had run out of my own. Perhaps, on reflection, I should tell him.

It is funny to see how much significance Tiarnan is attaching to colour choice. No doubt this is part of his fashion sense – but it is also something more. Though but five years old, he has lived long enough to have learnt and come to believe in, the conventions of colour choice that should be made, by true boys and true girls. I was, in his view, breaking the rules of fashion and proper behaviour, in a most unappealing way. It is funny, though, that he should feel so strongly about it. He has very much made this gender based sense of fashion, part of what he thinks the world should be – and, like most things with Tiarnan, he is quite passionate about it.

Syahidah had a solution. She took the pink razor, some time later and threw it away: problem solved.

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Of girls and boys in academia.

There are certain stereotypes regarding boys and girls in school. The boys are reputedly good at maths and science, which the girls tend to be weak at. So, too, the girls are good at languages, which the boys tend to be weak at. Thus, girls grow to be literate and boys mathematical/scientific. At least, that is what we are led to believe: but is it true?

As with most commonly believed "facts", there is some truth to it. At a particular age, a boy may indeed be good at maths, and a girl of the same age not so. So, too, the girl may be good with languages and the boy not so. Yet, all is not as it seems.

Researchers at Virginia Tech decided to have a look at the question. They used brain imaging techniques to actually look at the brain development of 508 normal children aged from 2 months to 16 years. There were 224 girls and 284 boys. What they found is very telling.

The areas of the girls' brains involved in language and fine motor skills (for handwriting etc). developed six years earlier in girls than boys. The areas of the boys' brains involved in maths and geometry matured four years earlier than in girls. Thus, the famed separation of boys into scientists and girls into linguists is actually an artifact of the way we educate children - and not of the children themselves. Girls are set up to think of themselves as "non-scientific" simply because scientific things are expected of them before they are ready. So, too, boys are set up to think of themselves as "non-linguistic" for the very same reason. The truth is, of course, that both boys are girls can be scientific and linguistic - at the right time.

Boys and girls take different developmental paths - but that doesn't mean that they can't end up at the same destination. A girl can be a nuclear physicist - and a boy can be linguist or a writer. The stereotypes are wrong - for they are based on a misunderstanding of how boys and girls develop.

So the advice is simple. If you are a parent, don't expect your daughter to excel in science early on - because that part of the brain is not ready yet - but don't forget that they will be able to do it someday. The same goes for sons: don't expect great use of words, early on - but don't be surprised if they become a writer someday.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven 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, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)