Door-2-Math Blog

Smart kids get bored easily. Think about it – if you’re as academically gifted as, say, Federer in tennis, playing at your local tennis club just doesn’t cut it. Over the years, I’ve seen many students who are bright beyond the top-of-the-chart get so bored with their academic studies that they literally start to glide. Why should they bother to shore up the math foundation, sharpen test-taking skills or develop efficient study habits when they can ace all the exams that their peers spend hours preparing for?

So what should a parent do? First and foremost, trust your instinct. If you know you’ve got a hot-cookie on hand, treat it as so. Don’t rely on your nagging to propel the smart kid. It would only backfire and put your parent-child relationship in jeopardy. Instead, locate, place and insist that your prodigy is in an environment that entices him to excel.

For example, a student of mine who held the world’s #3 spot for solving the Rubik’s cube, his father took the time to travel with him to Japan so he could be among his Rubik’s Cube equals. Yes, a 13 hour flight. The result, my student came back with a new appreciation of that “There is always someone who is smarter and better than me in every respect.” He then transformed himself into a self-motivated student at his high school and went on to attend Stanford.

Moral of the story? Change the environment to bring out the best in your child’s gift.