The birds and the bees.

It is ever illuminating to see the world through a child’s eyes. Once grown up, this is quite a challenge, however, as a parent, all I have to do is listen, to know again, the thoughts of a child and their perspectives on the world.

Today, Fintan, eight, approached his mother in a reflective mood. His voice was soft and insightful.

“Mummy,” he began, intently, “I think it is harder to be a girl...”

Her ears perked up and her eyes gazed down on her middle son.

“...because girls have to give birth.”

She was touched by his words, for she learnt, in that moment, that her son understood what every mother goes through, to create their children. To have such appreciation, from her young son, was warming indeed.

I like seeing my children come to their own understanding of the world. More interestingly, I like to see them come to their own views on it – to see them weigh issues and come to judgements. Usually, I let them come to their own views, and do not impose mine. It is much better for a child to think their own thoughts and form their own view on the world. It is also much more interesting. Children who have been indoctrinated too much – as some children are – are always so dull. It is much more refreshing to hear a child’s genuine thoughts, based on their own personal thinking – and that is what I hear, everyday, in my household. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Today, Fintan made my wife very happy – simply because he shared one of his own thoughts. Beautiful.

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

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.)

A memory of childhood.

A few weeks ago, my wife, Syahidah, was reminiscing.

“One day, when I was nine years old, I came to understand something: as an adult, you have a choice. I wanted to remember this, when I grew up, so I said to myself: remember this – as an adult you have a choice.”

Her gaze was curiously inward and a little fond, as if touched by the little girl she had been.

“Well, you did remember.”

“Yes.”, she said quietly, pleased.

I was touched by this account. It was a sweet notion, that the little girl she had been, should try to communicate with the adult she was to become, by deliberately seeking to remember an insight she had had, into adulthood. It struck me as quite a mature thing to do for the little girl she had been. It meant that she understood the unfolding of life and what she would one day become. It also meant that she felt a need to speak to her older self, when she was no longer around to be able to do so. It meant she sought a sense of continuity between the present, that would one day be past, and the future that had not yet become.

Syahidah grew a little rueful beside me, as she dwelt on her younger self’s thought.

“Of course, when you become an adult, you realize that it is sometimes a little more complicated than that.”, she observed, cryptically.

“Yes. Sometimes. There are obligations.”

We agreed, in silence – but also, I think, in appreciation of the child she had been and the wisdom she had shown to understand that quintessential difference between a child’s life and an adult’s life – but also to have wished to communicate it, to her older self.

I had never met the child she had been – but I felt then, that she had been an impressive one, in a way, for she was, even when so young, seeking to understand what life was and how it is lived, at different ages. My wife would have been an interesting child to speak to, I think. Then, again, no doubt that is why she became an interesting adult to speak to!

It is funny to consider it but I feel this tale of my wife’s brought her younger self into the room with us, as if she did, in fact, manage to speak to the future: I felt her presence, on my wife’s tongue, in my wife’s eyes and in the expression on her face. My wife’s nine year old self had succeeded in bridging time, to speak with us, across all those years. She had, in fact, spoken to the husband she could never have guessed she would one day meet. How strange -and how touching. There was a depth to that moment, that reached back across the decades to a little girl, who no longer was, and a thought that had endured.

Thank you, Syahidah, for sharing that moment. It brought your childhood alive, for me. I glimpsed who you had been and sensed the wisdom you had, even then. Thanks.

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

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.)

Tiarnan on moral complexity.

Last month, Tiarnan, three, at the time, was talking to his mother about character. He stood still before his mother, with his customary serious expression on his face, when he is about to mention something of significance. It gave him a presence that demanded attention - so Syahidah duly gave it to him.

"Mummy, you shouldn't always choose the good guy, because sometimes the good guy can be bad, and the bad guy can be good."

It was an interesting comment, for it showed that Tiarnan's understanding of morality and character had gone beyond black and white, and now incorporated every shade of grey, too. For him, character was not clearcut, anymore: there were ambiguities and blurrings of categories. To me, this seems a sign of a maturing grasp of the nature of people - for no-one is perfectly one thing or another, but a blend, instead, of various dispositions. Tiarnan has come to understand that, already.

Seeing childhood, from the outside, as I do, as a parent, it amazes me how quickly, very young children come to understand the world, when you consider how little time they have had to do so. They seem to come an insight of what it is all about upon very little exposure indeed. It seems to me that they are better able to do this, than a typical adult: ie. come to an understanding based on little information. Young children, in my experience, do this very well.

In a way, this is very revealing, because it goes beyond the world view that Hollywood would have little children believe: that of the pure good guy and bad guy division. Tiarnan has seen much Hollywood fare...but he has also been observing the world itself. His conclusion is clear: all is not clearcut, the world is not black and white, but grey. It is, I feel, a step towards a maturer understanding of the social world.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 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.

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.)

Tiarnan and the public bar.

Today, Tiarnan passed by a bar and peered inside. He saw people of most ages, sizes and races (except for one) gathered together with pint glasses in their hands, sipping beer and chatting. We carried on walking.

A minute or so later he pointed back at the bar and said that he wanted "susu" - which is Malay for milk. We both laughed. He had concluded that, since it was a place where others were drinking their (unknown) drink, that he would be able to order "susu" for himself, there.

As he asked for milk, I had this image of Tiarnan, the toddler, clutching a glass of milk, surrounded by a bunch of beer-drinking adult onlookers. Funny.

It is interesting to watch Tiarnan's social understanding on display: the way he speaks of the world, tells us his perception. What is notable is that he is usually basically right in his interpretation of the meaning of occurrences and places - even though he has very little experience from which to reason. I think babies learn and understand more deeply, more quickly and more correctly than is generally understood: at least the ones I have observed do. It is very rewarding to watch them piece together their understanding of the world. So much of it is of their own deduction - very little is actually imparted by direct instruction from the parents, I realize. It would be unfair of me to take too much credit for their comprehension of the world: it is largely down to the children themselves. It always was, I suppose.

When Tiarnan got home, he got his "susu" alright.

(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, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)