Hoe wenselijk is dat, een 9-jarige aan de universiteit?
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demorgen.bePosted Dec 10, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC
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Het 9-jarige wonderkind Laurent Simons is gestopt met zijn studies na onenigheid tussen zijn ouders en de universiteit. Terwijl de universiteit op de rem staat, willen zijn ouders net dat hij zo snel mogelijk afstudeert. Experts hoogbegaafdheid hebben zo hun bedenkingen. ‘Er zijn gerust nog kinderen die dit kunnen. De vraag is: wil je dat wel?’
Simons Laurent was 6 when he started secondary school, finished it 2 year later. Then went to TU Eindhoven.
“Er werd een heel traject uitgetekend”, vertelt zijn vader Alexander Simons aan de telefoon. “Het idee was dat hij elke week een tentamen zou hebben en voor zijn tiende zou afstuderen.” Maar daar komt de universiteit nu van terug.
The university wants to delay his graduation.
Dat ziet de vader niet zitten. “Laurent wil dit zelf ook zo snel mogelijk achter de rug hebben. Hij wou graag op vakantie in januari. Dat er enkele weken vertraging op zitten, dat kan ik begrijpen, maar toch geen acht maanden?”
Volgens vader Simons is er sprake van pesterijen en wordt zijn zoon inmiddels beschuldigd van plagiaat.
The university obviously denies this.
“Er zijn meerdere hoogbegaafde kinderen die dit perfect ook zouden kunnen doen”, zegt Tessa Kieboom, oprichter van Exentra, expertisecentrum voor hoogbegaafdheid. “Maar de vraag is: wil je dat wel?”
Quote about kids with very high IQs:
86 procent van die kinderen geeft aan zich te vervelen, 64 procent is schoolmoe en bij 43 procent is er sprake van psychische en psychiatrische klachten.
Quote about t accelerated trajectories.
“Het focust heel erg op het cognitieve aspect”, zegt Venderickx. “Maar er zijn twee facetten aan het welzijn van een kind. Het sociaal-emotionele aspect is even belangrijk. Een kind van 14 dat naar de universiteit gaat, dat is een puber die tussen volwassenen zit.
And a final quote from the father:
“Als hij dit diploma op zak heeft, kan hij zich richten op onderzoek. Dan hoeft hij geen tentamens meer te doen. Waarom zou je dat uitstellen? Hij heeft er lang voor gewerkt. Hij wil gewoon waar hij recht op heeft.”
15
It sounds like his father is more concerned with breaking some kind of record than the wellbeing of his child.
24
Maar er zijn twee facetten aan het welzijn van een kind. Het sociaal-emotionele aspect is even belangrijk.
Indeed. Constant study and chasing of goals impacts the emotional growth. Which makes one wonder: what is the goal for this child? Why do it at all? Boredom? Something to just busy themselves with? Or some kind of glory? Being in the spotlight?
Als hij dit diploma op zak heeft, kan hij zich richten op onderzoek.
He'd better focus on actually integrating with people and learning to interact with people. Once in the industry, there's no such thing as the lone professors. That's, uh... children's comicbook stuff, actually.
Research, grant money, working for big corporations or academia... that requires being able to do teamwork. That requires a certain level of emotional maturity and experience with social interaction.
Maybe spend some time on that. It will pay off in the end, it always does.
20
The socio-emotional component is a concern for people with a high IQ, unfortunately there is no "cure" for this. Forcing a gifted child to "spend" more time with other (non-gifted) children seems the obvious way to go but it isn't, there is no common ground. It's also a "hard" problem as these skills are mainly acquired through the appropriate time and experience. Taking away the child's ambitions doesn't sound like a good plan either (I'm assuming they're really his ambitions).
What that kid actually needs is a team of older gifted people to talk with and be able to relate to and a little less media attention.
8
How would they reach him? I “only” graduated secondary school at 15 and started university at 16 and based on my own experiences I’m quite sure he wouldn’t really listen. Why would he? He’s the next Einstein.
I have trouble balancing my ambitions with my personal development while only being 2 years ahead. How the hell would he do that?
2
Poor kid.
Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/CUmsUm0TwZo
8
We have a kid with high IQ. Not as high as this kid but enough to skip a few years.
We didn’t want her to miss any social skills in the future. My daughter had autism. So a few years less on school would make her social weaker than she already is.
She can amuse herself learning languages on youtube.
11
Good call I think. But do stimulate her to keep learning, to motivate herself on her own. When school is easy all your life long it can bite you in the ass later in in your student career by not having much motivation and "doorzettingsvermorgen" (don't know the English word ATM).
Try to talk to some teachers, see if she can get some more advanced exercises while not excluding her from the others. The last thing a kid/person with autism wants is feeling different from the others. Lots of talking about it and therapy helps, trust me.
8
Perseverance?
9
Same. I feel for that kid.
High IQ isn't everything. My kid could easily skip a year. I refused. We're working with the school to diversify in class, to let him do other stuff when the other kids learn to count to 5 (seriously, that's the goal in third year of kindergarten? Djeez). A kid needs to learn how to interact with other kids, how to make friends, how to function in a group and how to be polite and kind to kids that aren't as smart as them, social skills are just as important for his well-being later in life. I plan to enlist him for music school and coderdojo's and things like that to keep him stimulated outside of the school curriculum. I don't want to send my kid to a special snowflake high IQ school either. Or have him be a 12yo kid in a class with 15/16yo's going through puberty. Hell no. At some point, he'll make it to uni "where everyone is smart" - and then he'll learn he's not that special. I want to prepare him for that.
3
This is child abuse. These parents are setting up this kid to fail horribly later on in life. Just look at that smug little face in the picture posted above. This kid thinks he's everything, but I predict he'll only end up being bullied and singled out because of his growing arrogance and ignorance about the way the world works. He'll end up lonely and depressed or worse (suicidal) if these buffoon parents don't start acting differently right NOW.
9
This may be a special case where parents might be pricks on top of the kid being brilliant.
But the thing is that with a high enough IQ a kid's life is very difficult no matter what you do. Putting him in a class of kids his age may be equally damaging and he would feel just as left out and rejected because of the simple reality of things.
At least let him be proud of his accomplishments and build a healthy self esteem while protecting him as much as possible, offer extra activities that don't involve brain activities, like sports.
3
Ocharme
2
The parents aren't the only ones to blame.
Schools also severely lack in helping intellectually gifted students, see this article:
Hoogbegaafd, en toch gebuisd: een op tien begaafde leerlingen bleef al zitten
Lack of motivation and support at school are key factors.
2
That's why the school I work at is in a 'begeleidingstraject' with an expert on the matter.
2
His parents sound like genuine narcissists though
1
I understand how you get that sentiment and you might be right, I just reflect this on my personal situation in the past. At a certain point I also became extremely demotivated and it started showing on my results. My parents were always extremely supportive but I felt like school didn't acknowledge anything.
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Ik wens hem alleszins het beste in alles wat hij doet. Ik vind het echt interessant om over hem te lezen.
1
What people also fail to acknowledge is that Belgium doesn't take gifted kids into consideration anymore. There is no place for them. Because either you choose to skip classes or not, both options and the whole system does not address them, it was not built for them. It also doesn't take into consideration their needs by creating special classes or taking care of them in any other way.
I myself expressed this in numerous post before this whole thing blew up:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/d0v9ic/what_is_there_to_do_for_a_high_potential_kid_in/
So, while not creating such facilities it is indecent to ask anything out of the parents on how to raise their kid. You need to firstly give them options and only after that start making any sort of accusations.
1
I pick up the slight impression that a lot of people in this thread are just plain jealous and do all sort of mental gymnastics to put than jealousy into a politically correct way.
0
I think most people in this thread look beyond the exceptional treat of this kid and see a broader, not so nice picture.
1
If given the choice, would you have wanted to graduate uni at 10 or would you have preferred a loving and balanced childhood?
1
What people should understand is that with a high enough IQ or any other exceptional gift, your childhood and life is furthest away from a normal balanced one no matter what you or your caregivers do for you. And no matter how you put it, the educational system was simply not designed for such people and no matter what you do it's a painful process either you accelerate the kid through it or not. It's not like he is an average kid pushed very hard from behind. So one way to look at it, and solution might indeed be to be done with formal education as soon as possible so he can have more freedom and feel more at ease.
I also think there are far greater kids' tragedies out there that you don't hear about than what this kid is going through. In the end, I'm positive he will be fine. As far as the parents go, yes they may not play by the book or offer him the best kind of parenting, but putting things in perspective it's not the worst either.
My problem is that the arguments brought forward here are from people than have no idea what it means to be a highly gifted kid. On one hand it may be a blessing, but with it comes a whole new array of incomprehensible difficulties and challenges.
To me, a father and parents in general, fighting for their kid, even if it's in an obnoxious way might be better in the given conditions. Because he needs to feel protected one way or the other, simply because he's different and thus most of the times rejected because of the reality of things. He is different than 99.99% of people, so he doesn't fit in no matter what. Even if it's a false sense of protection that harms him in a way, it's also beneficial to an important degree.
Also there's no right and wrong path or way to go about it. I also feel that the university may have chosen correctly to tame things down a bit.
But at the end of the day he's at the mercy of the environment and forces at play just like the rest of us. Also, who's to say we are good parents ourselves for offering our kids what we offer them and putting them through this current educational system. Just because everyone else does it this way, it automatically means it's better ?
2
The only thing I disagree with in your post is about the parents attitude. The father has a very unhealthy approach to his son's gift.
1
What people also fail to acknowledge is that Belgium doesn't take gifted kids into consideration anymore. There is no place for them. Because either you choose to skip classes or not, both options and the whole system does not address them, it was not built for them. It also doesn't take into consideration their needs by creating special classes or taking care of them in any other way.
I myself expressed this in numerous posts before this whole thing blew up:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/d0v9ic/what_is_there_to_do_for_a_high_potential_kid_in/
So, while not creating such facilities it is indecent to ask anything out of the parents on how to raise their kid. You need to firstly give them options and only after that start making any sort of accusations or ethical considerations.
1
Daar kan ons Anunake en Grethake nog van leren.
-6
On a scale from 1 to Dimitri Bontinck, this kid's father is a solid 9. The odds are very high that in 10 years we'll have heard of him again, except in a negative way.
Isn't it cool how you can emotionally/developmentally ruin your children without any legal repercussions whatsoever? As long as you feed them and don't beat them you can do almost whatever.
To be honest you can beat them aswell as long you don’t overdo it and keep them fearing you, nothing will happen to you.
The list of 'child geniuses' that didn't end up being uptight pricks who take themselves too seriously isn't very long. The only one I can think of is Terence Tao.
This article was pretty shocking to read
That poor kid. The interview really makes it look like a parent pet project and on top they're installing a superiority complex into him as well.
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It happens. Sometimes a lot of parents simply can't afford not to work. Also quite a lot of parents put their kids in these school programs where they are away Monday to Friday. Where I come from a whole generation grew up raised by the grandparents or by being left home alone (given the keys and let free to do whatever). Being raised by loving grandparents it's not a bad thing. Or a least not the worst that can happen to a child.
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One of the interviews mentions "Laurent en zijn ouders bewonen een prachtappartement aan de Prinsengracht in Amsterdam". That's not where people who can't afford to not work live.
Same, I was raised by my grandparents for quite a while. I loved it though
His Instagram page is also worth a visit. (Some of the posts about the recent drama are already put down but some of the older ones like the one from the dad pretending to be Laurent and talking about cd&v.
Holy fuck those descriptions look like they are written by somebody with schizophrenia
That is a good description.
https://www.npostart.nl/tv-show/30-04-2017/AT_2072032
In this show from 14:00 onwards there is an interview with Laurent and his parents. Not sure how to describe it all but it did gave me also a holy fuck feeling.
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Indeed! In the HLN article they were really pushing that their kid graduated before his 10th birthday, so of course they can claim he graduated as a 9 year old.
Jeebers christ, as if a 10 year old with an engineering degree isn't a huge accomplishment.