Talking trouble and a child genius
My son confesses his innate brilliance stops him paying attention at school
As we head out on our nightly walk, my youngest son has a confession to make.
“I haven’t exactly been a little angel today,” he informs me as we leave the house. “Mom may want to have a talk with you later.”
I’m not exactly sure how to react to what sounds like a Crime Stoppers tip-off. He’s only seven.
When I was seven, I was walking on all fours and speaking in monosyllables: “Me not go to bed! More candy me want, yes?”
But somehow, this miniature 40-year-old inherited a precocious gene from elsewhere in the family tree, along with a mischievous chromosome that sees him skirting the edges of responsibility while he speechifies like a career politician felled by scandal.
“This is the new me, Dad,” he explains, as if reading from a prepared script. “I’m still talkative, but I’m respectful.” He certainly is talkative. And while I don’t know exactly what transpired before my arrival home from work, I suspect it has something to do with this boisterous yakker not knowing when to put a lid on it.
After all, every report card he brings home has the same comment — “must learn to shut yap in class,” or some variation on that theme.
Which is the exact opposite of the report cards I brought home in the prehistoric ’60s, which as my mother can attest, always included the line “must learn to speak up more in class.”
Nor do I remember boasting to my dad how my innate brilliance was hampering my ability to pay attention at school.
“The stuff is too easy!” Sam complained when I asked how things were going on the subtraction front.
“It’s hard to focus on something when you know what the answers are. So I goof off.”
He should be solving quadratic equations, for crying out loud. How the heck is he gonna sit still when he’s bored out of his mind?
“Are you telling me you’re a child genius?” I ask as we sidestep a puddle. “And that your gigantic brain is what keeps getting you in trouble?” “Pretty much.” I muse for a moment, then slap him on the back: “That sounds just like me!”
It doesn’t sound remotely like me, but I like the intergenerational camaraderie of this phoney bonding.
And the idea of a genius kid, no matter how ridiculous, appeals to my innate desire to one-up the neighbours.
“He is smart,” concedes my wife, when I fill her in on Sam’s egghead revelation.
“He’s not the brilliant genius he thinks he is, but he’s bright. Also, he gets excited.”
We should probably be concerned. But Alicia and I find the situation amusing and, on a deeper level, something of a relief.
It was only a couple of years ago that Sam seemed in danger of being stomped on — metaphorically and otherwise — by the benevolent dictator who preceded him in the baby basinet by a mere 19 months.
Max, nine, has autism, and while he can be intelligent, charming and witty when not fixated on the texture of his grilled cheese sandwich, one thing he is not is flexible.
“Sam’s personality was getting totally stifled by Max,” recalls Alicia of the “me-lead-you-follow” dynamic that fuelled their early relationship. “He began retreating into himself more and more.” It worked well when Sam was a worshipful toddler whose response to every demand was an enthusiastic “Otay Max!” But when he hit school age and realized he could make decisions on his own — that he had a flair for communication, leadership, empathy — things started to shift. And then — where’s the Advil? — our living room became a war zone. “Sam, you’re not allowed to sit on my side of the couch!” Max will dictate as Sam — like a seven-year-old teenager — flops down with his feet dangling in the air.
This, of course, drives Max crazy, which leads to the same cartoon dust ball you see when Wile E. Coyote goes head to head with the Road Runner.
Sam, in this scenario, is the Road Runner, with enough wily countermoves that — even if he comes up short — his sense of cheerful equanimity remains deliriously unfazed.
“He always had that extroverted personality,” notes Alicia, pleased he’s able to assert himself. “After he got older, the flower petals opened up again.”
Making friends at school helped, as did academic success and, to build self-confidence, the karate class I plonked him into last spring.
At first he was reticent, paired with adults three times his size to practise punches, blocks and kicks.
“I’m only in it for the belts,” he would tell me in a sobering tone.
But after embracing the school’s self-respect mantra and mastering the basics, he began carrying himself with a determined sense of purpose, like Ricardo Montalban in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
“My only concern,” I tell Alicia, “is that he’s going to believe his own press and get a swelled head. We could have a mini-Trump on our hands.”
She shrugs, unconcerned.
“He’s not conceited,” she notes. “He knows he’s smart — he saw his report card.
“And we’re not over-coddling helicopter parents.” She laughs. “But he’s got to shut up more in class.”