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Home › Articles › School and Learning › The Myth of Giftedness

The Myth of Giftedness

Do You Want a Gifted or Hardworking Child?

By Jim Taylor, Ph.D.

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Giftedness is revered in our culture. Inborn talent – whether intellectual, athletic or artistic – ensures children will be successful. How many times have you heard "Tiger Woods was born to play golf" or "Sarah Chang was destined to be a brilliant violinist"?

Well let me clear something up: No one is born to do anything, certainly not to swing a golf club or play a violin. The only thing that can be reasonably said is that some children are born with certain abilities that can help them excel at a particular activity. However, giftedness is no guarantee of success; the world is full of gifted failures. Yet so many parents hope beyond hope that their children are gifted.

Children have also fallen for this myth of giftedness. Whenever I speak to children, I ask them whether they would rather be gifted or hardworking. With almost complete unanimity, children say they would rather be gifted. When you're gifted, they say, everything is easy. Yet parents and children don't realize that giftedness can be as much a cross to bear as it is a gift.

Problems With Giftedness
Because gifted children succeed at an early age with little effort, they have no ownership of their successes ("I got an A, but I didn't even study."). Without ownership, gifted children don't learn the connection between their efforts and their outcomes, and, without that link, they can't take pride in their results. They can't say, "I did well because I worked hard." They may also develop the belief that they will always succeed in the future without effort.

Another problem with being labeled as gifted is that natural ability is not something that children can control. Gifted children didn't earn their giftedness. They were just lucky that their parents gave them good genes. Also, when gifted children succeed, they, of course, attribute their success to their ability. Unfortunately, if they attribute their successes to their ability, when they fail – which they inevitably will sooner or later – they must attribute their failures to their lack of ability (they must be stupid or untalented) and there's nothing they can do about it.

Challenges of Being Gifted

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