are your children smarter than you?

[butterflymommy]

I have been reading lately about the inheritability of IQ. While IQ is thought to be ~75% genetic according to twin studies, one thing that I'd read before is that IQs tend to gravitate toward the average even if both parents are highly intelligent. So two high IQ parents might not necessarily have high IQ offspring.

 

Off the top of my head I can think of a few families with highly intelligent parents where at least one child in the household was, for lack of a better term, not nearly as smart as the parents. In one case the parents repeatedly marched into the school their son attended demanding to know what the school was doing wrong, since their son was bombing math (the dad was an engineer). In another case a son never finished high school, even though one parent was a physician and the other a scholar. Neither sons had any LDs.

 

So I'm curious how the hive fits this profile. In your unscientific opinion, are your children smarter than you and DH/ the father? About the same? Not as smart?

 

To answer my own question, of our 7 kids, 4 are definitely smarter (DH has most of the brains in terms of our genetic contribution though:tongue_smilie:) and 2 others, while bright and creative, are inconsistent academically and definitely have their struggles. But what surprises me is that the ones who are smarter are so much brighter than either DH or me, since this goes against the trend of reverting to the average. Even more interesting is that no one in DH's family is anywhere near as intelligent as he is. Neither of his two brothers even come close and neither of his parents were highly intelligent.

 

If you're interested in the topic here's an interesting article:

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/miller-text

Edited November 11, 2012 by butterflymommy

[OrganicAnn]

I don't know if DD is smarter or not as smart as I am. I had a high IQ and no learning disabilities other than eye issues. My DD has had 100x more books read to her than I did. She has a big vocabulary and big imagination, but she also has some LD and was a premie. So it is difficult to tell. I don't know what DH's IQ is.

[butterflymommy]

I don't know if DD is smarter or not as smart as I am. I had a high IQ and no learning disabilities other than eye issues. My DD has had 100x more books read to her than I did. She has a big vocabulary and big imagination, but she also has some LD and was a premie. So it is difficult to tell. I don't know what DH's IQ is.

 

You don't have to know IQ-- just make an unscientific guess. DH has never had his IQ tested but he is leaps and bounds ahead of me.

[kalanamak]

Other. I think kiddo is = Dad+Mom/2. So, both above and below.

Edited November 11, 2012 by kalanamak

[Nakia]

I can't even begin to answer that. I am what people call "book smart" but I wouldn't consider myself exceptionally intelligent. My husband struggled in school but is now an electrician. My kids are all very bright, but my oldest is definitely on the "book smart" side like me. My middle is more creative. I think it's hard to tell with my youngest because...well, she's young.

 

I think "smart" is a weird word. It's hard, for me, to pinpoint what it means, and I don't like to say someone is not smart because that means "dumb" to me. Ugh. I'm confusing myself.

 

As I go along on this parenting journey (and embark on LD testing for my middle dd), I care less about my kids being what society calls "smart." My kids are who they are, and they have to work with that.

 

And there's a difference between being unintelligent and ignorant. I think people are more often ignorant than not intelligent. kwim?

 

So yeah, I don't know. LOL.

[Julie Smith]

To my knowledge we have no one in our family who is obviously smarter (or not) than the other members of our family.

[higginszoo]

We're all in about the same range, I think. I don't put a whole lot of faith in IQ scores, but I do have them for myself, dh and the two older dc, and they're all close. The littles seem to be in the same range.

[melbotoast]

Other. I think kiddo is = Dad+Mom/2. So, both above and below.

 

:iagree:

[butterflymommy]

I think "smart" is a weird word. It's hard, for me, to pinpoint what it means, and I don't like to say someone is not smart because that means "dumb" to me. Ugh. I'm confusing myself.

 

 

The whole notion of intelligence gets controversial because it's associated with inferiority or superiority. But, as someone who is terrible at math but had a brilliant engineer dad, there is a reality to being able to excel academically-- or not.

 

Personally I would rather have highly moral and exceedingly kind children over pure "human calculator" intelligence, if faced with some kind of absolutist choice.

[Kathryn]

I don't know how to answer this. DH and I are not academically-matched. He has learning disabilities that his parents did nothing about and he says it's too late for him to do anything about. So, I have no idea about him. I'd say our older son is about on target with where I was academically/IQ-wise. I'm not sure on the 3yo yet. He's starting to read and add, which is earlier than his brother, but his comprehension skills are nowhere near what his brother's were at the same age.

[happypamama]

I'm just going to say that so far, our children seem to be exactly what we'd expect for being products of the two of us. Our older two have very complementary strengths and weaknesses, but then again, so do DH and I. (I lament that he works so many hours, because I think I do fairly well educating our children, but together, we'd be a heck of a team.)

 

Our third child is going to go very far in life -- aside from IQ, he's got a very strong EQ, and he has a LOT of drive.

 

And really, we're all a bunch of geeks, anyway. :)

[FaithManor]

All of our kids fall within 5 pts of our parental average except one. The youngest is 40+ points higher. The other three were challenging enough; he keeps us on our toes in a big way.

 

Dh's sibs were tested and fell within 10 pts of their parental average. Dh, however, blew his parental average by 33 pts on the top side.

 

My brother, sister, and I were all tested. He and I were about 15 pts. above our parental average and my sister was 15 pts. below. Parental average was fairly high.

 

Faith

Edited November 11, 2012 by FaithManor

[bluemongoose]

In our family...DH is way more intelligent than his mother and he obviously gets it from his dad. I would say his IQ (unscientific guess) is also higher than his father, brother, and sister as well. He is the youngest and he is very very smart.

 

I am smarter than my parents. Both barely made it out of high school with passing grades. They did not go on to college as they struggled so much in school. I would say I am average- to slightly above average in a couple of subjects. I had to work hard in school, but I was a 3.5 gpa kid in both high school and college.

 

Our children so far seem to take after DH. I know they will pass me up. They are doing things with much more ease than it ever came to me.

[elegantlion]

I voted that he is smarter than us. None of us have had IQ tests, but ds inherited the smarter genes from both of us. DH is very spatially smart, he can see things in 3D, which is perfect for construction. He's very good at memorizing numbers and processes. He's not what you would call "book smart".

 

I lean more toward creative intelligence, but more artistic than dh. I'm smarter when it comes to academic-type knowledge.

 

Ds ended up with the best from both of us.

[Renee in NC]

We have a whole range, including a brilliant 14yo who STINKS at academics (his genius is mechanical, and was apparent by age 3.)

 

My 11yo's first measured IQ was 62 and then 9 months later it was 84. Now? Probably even higher - I expect he'll hit well-above average eventually.

 

I have one with low IQ, and it is pretty consistent with his behavior/aptitudes. However, at 10yo he can cook and do landscaping. He'll be fine.;)

[Hedgehogs4]

I have been reading lately about the inheritability of IQ. While IQ is thought to be ~75% genetic according to twin studies, one thing that I'd read before is that IQs tend to gravitate toward the average even if both parents are highly intelligent. So two high IQ parents might not necessarily have high IQ offspring.

 

Off the top of my head I can think of a few families with highly intelligent parents where at least one child in the household was, for lack of a better term, not nearly as smart as the parents. In one case the parents repeatedly marched into the school their son attended demanding to know what the school was doing wrong, since their son was bombing math (the dad was an engineer). In another case a son never finished high school, even though one parent was a physician and the other a scholar. Neither sons had any LDs.

 

So I'm curious how the hive fits this profile. In your unscientific opinion, are your children smarter than you and DH/ the father? About the same? Not as smart?

 

To answer my own question, of our 7 kids, 4 are definitely smarter (DH has most of the brains in terms of our genetic contribution though:tongue_smilie:) and 2 others, while bright and creative, are inconsistent academically and definitely have their struggles. But what surprises me is that the ones who are smarter are so much brighter than either DH or me, since this goes against the trend of reverting to the average. Even more interesting is that no one in DH's family is anywhere near as intelligent as he is. Neither of his two brothers even come close and neither of his parents were highly intelligent.

 

If you're interested in the topic here's an interesting article:

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/miller-text

 

I personally don't think intelligence has much to do with success in school. I think there are highly intelligent people who end up appearing not so smart because they were not given the right environment growing up. My brother was brilliant, but after living with my father (who was also very, very smart, but was a jerk), being abused, being told he was stupid, making very poor choices and getting into lots of trouble, he became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and acts every bit what he was told he was...but glimpses of his genius peeks through sometimes. it's weird.

[go_go_gadget]

I have no idea. Sometimes I think they're about the same, sometimes smarter, and sometimes it takes them four hours to brush their teeth and I despair of their futures.

[LazyDazy]

In this family I'd say that dh and both sons are of higher intelligence than I. One son has been tested, while I don't remember the score he was just a few points too low to be labeled in gifted category (whatever that is). I am amazed daily by the ideas my boys are able to comprehend. Of course I may be totally bias and they could very well be just as ordinary as me. ;)

[Impish]

Not yet...;)

[catz]

We are all probably close on IQ here. And we would be categorized at the HG+ range. However, I think I had some 2E things going on that resolved as I aged and I very much made it my business to blend into the wallpaper at school. My DH was bored out of his mind in elementary school and found himself some inappropriate outlets in high school. High school was a fairly good experience for me. We both shined in college. I would say, neither of our families made any kind of effort to "get" our quirks or engage us even though they run through both sides of our family tree.

 

Honestly, it's good my GT kids are homeschooled because simple acceleration would not necessarily be a good and easy fit for their asynchronous natures. And I definitely agree IQ does not necessarily equal good achievment in a typical classroom. I think that a bright child with a compliant nature will do best, or at least appear to be doing the best, in an environment like that. Our brand of GT tends to be visual spatial, and that doesn't always shine will in a typical classroom environment.

 

And I do think as kids age, the less the number actually matters. I know a couple profoundly gifted kids coming into their teen years who I truly question how well they will really be able to function out in the real world.

[Mommy22alyns]

I personally don't think intelligence has much to do with success in school. I think there are highly intelligent people who end up appearing not so smart because they were not given the right environment growing up. My brother was brilliant, but after living with my father (who was also very, very smart, but was a jerk), being abused, being told he was stupid, making very poor choices and getting into lots of trouble, he became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and acts every bit what he was told he was...but glimpses of his genius peeks through sometimes. it's weird.

 

This is so on the money. I "should have" been more of a success than I am.

 

I think the girls are near to my intelligence. I have a slight edge over DH in a completely informal test. I did repeatedly test into gifted programs at school.

[Melissa in Australia]

impossible to say, so I voted that it varies with each child.

My DS18 is way smarter than me in some areas. He has had a formal IQ test, and the results are that his IQ cannot be determined ~ he has Dyslexia but for things like Math he doesn't use short term memory at all. Hew is doing Aerospace engineering and absolutely loves it.

DH has an IQ way above mine. I am only just above average, whereas he is way up in the high superior range.

As for the rest of the children they are too young to tell. just about all of them have dyslexia, which tends to show that they are above average IQ wise.

[butterflymommy]

You know what's really interesting? At least as the poll stands now, those that are the "same" or "some smarter some not" (which would likely cancel each other out to "same") are almost exactly 75% :eek: just like the twin studies (which actually don't conclude inheritability, just genetic influence on IQ). Still that's kind of uncanny!

[joannqn]

I voted that we are about the same because there are things my kids know and can do that I can't and things I know and can do that they can't.

[JenC3]

Hmm, my dd has a whole other skill set than I do, dh's family is quite mechanical. Dh and are matched, but he is more focused and committed. Ds seems like me AND dh which could get him far. Dd2 is the charmer, but I think might have a "lower number." We'll see. I think they're all smart enough to do well in life.

[KidsHappen]

I have six kids and three of them are defintely smarter, two are just as smart as me but not my hubby (who has ten points on me) and one that I just don't know about. I used to be smarter than I am but as I age I am defintely losing it some and my meds don't help.

[Ali in OR]

I'm sure I would answer differently on different days, but after struggling with helping 12 yo on her math this weekend I'm definitely feeling a lot smarter than she is! ("You need to distribute the 2. What happened to the negative here? -12+14 is not 5." Etc.) We have one disabled dd (cognitively more like a baby), so we've got her beat easily. The other two need to apply themselves a bit more and then maybe they can come close to us, but right now we're the smart ones! (Dh is smarter than I am--EE bachelors and masters in 4 years. I did the easy engineering--IE, and became a high school math teacher, certified in English too).

[Parrothead]

We are all about the same here.

[bolt.]

My children have recently learned an entire language, syntax-perfect, within the same few years that they learned walking, eating, reading, writing, drawing, swimming, running, singing, basic theology, yoga and most of the social mores of a foreign culture. There's no way *I* could do all that in 3 to 5 years. Therefore, they are definitely smarter than me.

Edited November 11, 2012 by bolt.

[Farrar]

I have no idea. Sometimes I think they're about the same, sometimes smarter, and sometimes it takes them four hours to brush their teeth and I despair of their futures.

 

:iagree:

 

I have no idea how to answer this poll.

[LisaKinVA]

My dh and I both know our IQ's...we're within 2 points of each other.

 

My mother says I have 5 kids "just like me." And, apparently, I was enough of a handful that she didn't want anymore girls....my being a handful had nothing to do with my being a girl (which she now knows).

 

Our older 3 could be as smart or smarter than dh and I. Younger two, it's difficult to tell. Personality plays such a part of how things manifest themselves. The youngest needs speech therapy, but there is nothing that would indicate she's of a significantly lower IQ. Blondie seems to struggle more, but we're getting her tested for dyslexia... there seem to be obvious-to-me vision issues, but all we can find thus far is a slight near-sightedness, and a slight astigmatism in one eye. She also doesn't *care* about school. She has no drive in that direction. She's happy to play and twirl, and since she's six, I'm not pushing really hard. She does her minimum school work, and we have lots of educational activities for her...if you listen to her speak she's definitely picked a lot up.

[tex-mex]

As a child, I tested 30 points higher than parents and siblings. If you met my family, you'd realize they were either right at average IQ or below average IQ. ;) Not sure if that says a lot for me... but I was a square peg trying to fit in a "round" hole with my kinfolk.

 

My dh tested into Mensa while in High School on the other hand. Ds recently tested about 8 points below dh's IQ and considering his rare liver disease can have some serious cognitive issues due to toxic buildup of ammonia that can deteriorate the frontal lobe... he is doing pretty good.

 

Now, before ds' coma in 2004, he was VERY intelligent -(more so than dh)- but his IQ dropped due to some brain trauma & coma with his rare (genetic) liver disease. And my MIL, dh, and ds were very intelligent -- highly talented in science/math, but all of them struggled with Dysgraphia. Interesting topic.

Edited November 11, 2012 by tex-mex

[Greenmama2]

I voted that it differs. Not really sure about the younger one, I suspect he is close to ours or maybe a little below (or maybe he's a late bloomer) but DD was obviously very intelligent from birth and I wouldn't be surprised if she was much higher than either myself or DH (who is very intelligent). I had hyperthyroidism in her pregnancy and an endocrinologist warned me to expect a highly intelligent baby if she survived.

[tex-mex]

 

Personally I would rather have highly moral and exceedingly kind children over pure "human calculator" intelligence, if faced with some kind of absolutist choice.

:iagree:

I personally don't think intelligence has much to do with success in school. I think there are highly intelligent people who end up appearing not so smart because they were not given the right environment growing up.

:iagree:

 

 

And I do think as kids age, the less the number actually matters. I know a couple profoundly gifted kids coming into their teen years who I truly question how well they will really be able to function out in the real world.

:iagree:

My people or kin, who were not that bright still outshine my dh and his brilliant family of doctors and surgeons. Street smarts or common sense can trump high IQ.

[Michelle in AL]

Both are definitely smarter than me. I base this on ACT scores and ability. Thier dad got a similar score though back in the day, so they probably have his brains.

 

The oldest is an aeronautical engineering major and is finding her first yr easy. The younger one who seems less academically oriented tested higher on all her standardized tests (only be a couple points though).

[SKL]

My kids were adopted, but yeah, I'm pretty sure one of them is smarter than I am, and it's a little scary.

 

I think a lot of things can happen to cause variance in IQ despite both kids coming from high IQ families. Minor brain damage from various causes comes to mind.

 

That said, my sister's second child was a micropremie who had multiple brain bleeds and was expected to be very limited. But at 18mos she was talking in sentences; she seems significantly sharper than her full-term older sister was at the same age. So who knows?

[Aspasia]

My kids are really young, but we notice differences in how quickly they pick things up. Dd seems pretty average. DS seems rather bright. Dh is fairly average as far as intelligence goes (but he's a super hard worker so he's pretty successful). I have a pretty high IQ.

 

I voted that our kids are the same as us, because I think that's probably how it's going to turn out.

[Scarlett]

Interesting. I voted that my child is smarter than his parents. I do believe that much of that might have to do with our education vs our son's.

 

Both my XH and I did fine in school. I was basically a smart slacker and he was a smart partier. My ds12 is smart in a way that reminds me of my brother....and that doesn't bring me much comfort because my brother hasn't done so well with 'life' even though he was/is? very smart.

[ccolopy]

They're both definitely smarter than I am. DS is smarter than DH, but I suspect DD is somewhere between DH and me.

[Jenny in Florida]

I chose "smarter than," but I dithered a bit.

 

I've been certain for several years that at least one of our kids is smarter than I am. The child in question, however, does not think I am right.

 

The other child, who does not immediately and obviously exhibit the same super-smartness as the sibling, tests by pretty much all objective measures at the level or perhaps a little higher. That child seems convinced of his/her intellectual inferiority.

 

If we put any stock in IQ tests (about which I harbor a variety of concerns), I can tell you that, while my husband and I are both well into the gifted range, there is a not-insignificant difference in our scores. However, I suspect the positions might be reversed if we were tested again with current instruments, since it seems the focus of the tests has shifted from verbal to more visual-spatial reasoning. And one of us is stronger than the other in each of those areas of ability.

[Jenny in Florida]

I personally don't think intelligence has much to do with success in school. I think there are highly intelligent people who end up appearing not so smart because they were not given the right environment growing up.

 

And sometimes it's not about a child's immediate, personal environment. The world is not built for really, genuinely brilliant people. It can be tough for folks who have so much trouble finding their place AND who feel every, single bit of it more deeply than everyone else, too.

 

People seem to think that smart folks have it easy. But, beyond a certain range, it's rarely the truth.

[Jenny in Florida]

As I mentioned in another thread, I am(was) a member of Mensa. My dh is also quite smart.

 

Our children are intelligent, although I don't think they qualify for Mensa. Just guessing since we've never had them tested.

 

See, I live in a world in which qualifying for Mensa is no big deal, kind of a given.

 

I'm saying this not be be "braggy," but to give context to my comments about smart people finding it tough, sometimes, to figure out how to function in that dreaded "real world."

 

I'm seeing a couple of common misconceptions come up in comments here.

 

First is the idea that "smart" and "academic success" are the same thing. They aren't, although they can be related. When my kids were little and trying to come to grips with feeling different all the time, I used to explain to them that intelligence is kind of like a bucket, while education is what you put in the bucket. IQ is an attempt to measure the size of each person's bucket, how much ability each of us has to learn, our potential for intellectual growth. A person can be born with very high intelligence and, for any number of reasons, not make the most of it. While another person who has a smaller "bucket" can achieve more by working hard and getting good support. How well a person does in school is not actually a great measure of smarts. In fact, traditional school can be torture for a genuinely brilliant person.

 

The second is that there is some kind of binary choice between being "smart" and being "kind" or emotionally aware. (As in, "I'd rather have a kid who is moral than one who is a calculator.") In fact, one very common characteristic of profoundly gifted kids is their unusually mature emotional awareness. These are the kids who start worrying about death at age three, the ones who spontaneously become vegans at age four when they become attuned to the suffering of animals, the ones who "just know" Mom is pregnant when she hasn't even been to her first OB appointment, the ones who start charitable foundations before they age into double digits after hearing on the news their parents didn't think they were listening to about a humatiarian crisis.

 

Honestly, I didn't really start understanding my own growing-up experiences until we had our daughter and I started researching in order to be a better parent to her. I'd been raised knowing I was "smart" but without any meaningful context about what that meant. My husband had the same experience. So, we expected our kids to be "bright," but we didn't really understand what we were dealing with until outsiders started commenting. After a lot of years spent communicating with parents of other "scary smart" kids and a whole lot of books and websites read and re-read, I learned almost as much about myself and I have about my kids.

 

I wonder, sometimes, how different my life might have been had anyone taken the time to try even half as hard to understand me -- or my husband -- back then.

[LucyStoner]

I don't know. The only thing I know for certain is that my sons have way more educational opportunity than I did. My intelligence got focused early on survival. I started a babysitting business to help my family make ends meet. In middle school I graded hs papers for cash. I did as little as possible in school so as to maximize my time working and studying the stuff I was actually interested in.

 

I also agree wholeheartedly with Jenny. School has little to do with smarts. My son would do terribly in regular school despite exceptional academic talents. That is why we homeschool. I did well in school but only because it was so unchallenging that I never worked at it at all. My husband, freaktastically brilliant (and emotionally savvy), once dropped out of college. Turns out he also had ADD and parents who didn't look into it when he was young.

 

If I were guessing I would say my older son is an outlier and is as high or higher than my husband and our younger son is somewhere between the two of us. We can't compare IQ scores because my husband and I took them as children on tests that are artificially inflated compared to the ones used today. Our older son has been tested twice- once to school and once for his HFA diagnosis.

Edited November 12, 2012 by kijipt

[swellmomma]

Based on IQ testing I know that ds14 has a lower IQ than me(by over 20 points), whereas dd13 has a higher one by 3 points. When they were tested, I was told ds's score should have been higher, he could complete many of the puzzles etc correctly but not until after the timer. DD got bored 3/4 of the way through and stopped trying, so they said her score should have been higher too. Who knows with the other 2, they are young yet. I will say that kids with intelligent parents will have a diverse upbringing with exposure to many different experiences and learning opportunities which in turn increase IQ. My kids have had many more opportunities and experiences than I had and I think that increases their IQ and can explain how they would in the end wind up smarter than me. I think if ds didn't have so many learning issues etc holding him back he would surpass me just like dd has.

[blondeviolin]

It's hard for me to know...mostly because my husband was an undiagnosed dyslexic for much of his life. The push in his home was for an awesome work ethic. (And, boy does he have one! He is a much better worker than I am!). Because of the dyslexia, especially, though, schooling is difficult for him. His education was also sorely lacking in history, science, conceptual mathematics (he was a plug-and-chug kid), vocabulary, and grammar. Spelling was emphasized via lists and tests, but did not take because of the dyslexia. He is learning things this year along with my first grader (mostly in the content areas).

 

I will also say that my IQ is quite high. My family is full of HG+ people. What we think of as "normal" is completely off as what others do. That also makes it quite difficult to tell.

Edited November 12, 2012 by blondeviolin

[Tap]

I would say they are about the same.

 

DS is very smart, but he had was challenged in homeschool and has advanced academically beyond dh and I already. He is smart but has earned every bit of knowledge he has gained. He isn't the person who hears something once and just 'gets it'. On the other hand he tested firmly into college calculus at 15yo, so there is something going on in there ! He is not overly observant, cunning, or especially great at logic. Normal range, but not exceptional. DS likes rules so he knows what trouble to avoid.

 

 

DD14 is average/smart academically, but she is very good at solving problems. She thinks in 'the round' and looks for ways to get around obstacles. She loves to build things with free form materials (Ds liked Legos/Bionicles) and doesn't like constraints.

 

 

 

If they were both finding their way through a maze, ds would finish by using trial and error. He would find his way out, by knowing which way he went and backtracking when he goes on the wrong path. He would use knowledge of where he has been, and applying this to deciding future paths.

 

 

DD would find a way, but not by memorizing where she had been. She is more likely to look for paths on where she had not been yet, knowing the exit will be on one of these paths.

[LibraryLover]

All of my kids are totally smarter than I.

[IsabelC]

I don't know for sure, and it depends a lot on how you want to define 'smart'. But if I had to bet on it, I'd guess that we have one less smart, one about the same and one more smart.