Nursery brilliance

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 22

Nursery brilliance

How to be a Gifted Parent. By David Lewis. Souvenir Press, 1985. 275 pp. (Reviewed by Diane Prout) The trouble with books like this is that the author is generally speaking to the converted. Any parent who takes the time and trouble to study Lewis’s findings among under-fives will simply have his own ideas confirmed — that all children (especially his own) are born with a capacity for brilliance. Those less perceptive or educated are unlikely to bother and will remain blissfully unaware of their ability to stunt their children’s potential for creative, social, and intellectual growth. However, Lewis’s case studies make interesting reading and his practical recommendations in relating to preschoolers are largely common sense. The need for bodily contact, verbal communication, and mental challenge are not confined to the very young. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the power to absorb knowledge is pretty well set by the time a child reaches school age. Ingrained patterns of learned fear, anxiety and dependence are handed

on from one generation unto the next and there is not a great deal we can do about that The parent who smacks, threatens or bullies a child into "being good” probably knows no other way of regulating aberrant behaviour. The parent who provides a stimulating environment rewards, or positively reinforces good behaviour, is bound to have a cheerful, out-going child who thrives on opportunity. Everyone loves a warm fuzzy rather than a cold prickly. In spite of the author’s insistence that all children are born potentially brilliant most adults, I suspect would rather have a happy, well-adjusted child than a precocious Einstein with incessant demands for novelty. This is not to denigrate the various institutions set up to cater for the gifted child. Heaven knows, we need our share of gifted and talented pathfinders in this world. "How To Be A Gifted Parent” should be. made readily available, through Plunket, kindergarten and play centre libraries, to anxious and concerned parents. It is very readable, and offers reassuring and sensible solutions to problems of inadequacy in child-rearing.