Do more intelligent parents have smarter kids? This question actually pops up quite a bit. After all, we all want our children to be more successful than we are and what better gift for the baby to have than a high IQ. Smart people have success and become rich, right?!
You might get the idea of which direction this article is heading. As an example you might have heard about the Chinese Tiger Mom that raises her daughters with a high level of discipline. Her kids get punishments for under-performing. Under-Performing? Well, their Mom has raised the bar extremely high to increase the motivation for her children. Even when going on vacation these children have to study extremely hard. The question that comes out of this is something like “can this form of raising kids make them smarter and more successful?”.
One major factor that separates successful people from less successful people is the ability to keep things under control. Successful people have a higher level of self-discipline. They do less procrastinating then less successful people. Some people get born with this skill, while others learn this skill when growing up. Now if we look at extremely intelligent people, can we see the same basic idea? Some people get born as geniuses while others go to school and become really smart through education. One big take-away though is that no matter how hard you study, it is pretty much impossible to make for a high IQ level that the other person might be born with. However, it is important to note that the person with the high IQ can totally go under if that brain is not being pushed to function on that high level. The lack of challenge can “dumb” down people, but that is also true for anyone of us if we stop challenging our self’s.
No matter how high our IQ is when we are born, by becoming educated and by challenging our self’s we can literally move when it comes to brain power. It might take a little more work compared to “Baby Genius Einstein”, but there is a lot of room for advancement. And at that point it does not matter how smart the parents are. Kids can over-come natural limitations when being pushed and motivated. I am not sure if the Tiger Mom approach is the better – after all, we only have one childhood and if the only thing you remember how hard your Mom did push you – I think there are better ways of doing this. However, I have to say that if there are no challenges and no pushes coming from the parents the childhood might be wasted away, too.
Do you know your basic IQ level? Here is a fun way to test your IQ and compare it to your friends. Click here to get started.
