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Intelligence

The Elephant and The River

Pleased To Meet You!

Before we put our boats in the river, let’s introduce ourselves. I’ve partly done that already: I’m a psychologist, and my passion is the development of human potential. I’m well along on the parenting voyage — my older son, Paul, is 28 as I write. In terms of easy labels, he’s a computer scientist and a musician. My younger son, Andy, is 25, a potter and an astronomer. They’ll be along every foot of our journey.

Writing this book has been a voyage of discovery for me, as I hope reading it will be for you. Like any responsible tour guide, I’ve tried the river beforehand. I’ve often found myself up side creeks. (I lost my paddle once or twice too!) As I’ve written, I’ve also had to rewrite a great deal, as I searched for the main current. Above all, I’ve gradually come to understand how much of what I now present to you had already influenced my own actions as I grappled with the day-to-day challenge of helping to raise our sons. Like you, I’m still learning. Each time I take to the water, I anticipate both the challenge of the trip and the new discoveries around the next bend.

So, that’s a bit of who I am. Who are you?

Are you a parent? I speak primarily to you in this tour guide to the Intelligence River. I’ve imagined specifically that I’m writing this for someone who has just started, or is about to start, the great adventure of helping a child grow into the world. I’ve imagined that you are an intelligent and competent person, hopeful, but maybe just a bit nervous at the immensity of the task. More than anything, I want to help you build the confidence that will be your surest ally. I want to help you gather in the knowledge that will allow you to say, “I’ll do fine — I can relax and enjoy the adventure!” Beyond that, I hope I can strengthen your confidence that expert knowledge may help and support you, but you’re the true authority on your child! I’ll work to say “You don’t have to be perfect,” but I’ll also try to show you how you can design a flexible plan that is uniquely fitted to your child’s nature and your hopes and dreams.

If you’re a parent who is already on the job and taking a coffee break to talk things over with me, you’ll have lots of ideas of your own — the greater your personal experience, the more you’ll integrate my thoughts with your own knowledge. Perhaps you’re feeling pretty pleased with your child’s development, and just looking for some new ideas. Perhaps you’re a little concerned with how things are going right now. I’ve tried to write the book so that you can begin to use its ideas right away, whatever your child’s age. I’ll offer you some ideas about how to step into the flow of things in the section called “A 4-D Plan For Your Child.”

If you’re a parent who is coming to this book in desperate need to get some help for your child quickly, perhaps because of school difficulties, turn now to Appendix A, called Starting in a Hole. It’s designed to give some quick relief. But come back to the start as soon as you can, please — that’s only First Aid, not the full treatment! And if you’re feeling helpless and hopeless right now, remember this: Kids are difficult to break. They get bruised, so do you. But if you hang in, they will too!

Are you a grandparent? Many, many grandparents are involved daily with the task of raising another generation — sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity, sometimes in a support role, sometimes as the front line. You can be a vital support to your grandchildren. This book presents new knowledge about raising children, but I feel confident that the information here will fit in with the experience and wisdom you’ve developed as you raised your own children. It shows you and your children how you can team together to give your grandchild the best possible start on Life!

Are you part of a nontraditional family? I only ask you so that I can point out that I think that’s a dumb question! We’re living in an era of unprecedented change. It’s not only difficult to keep your feet on the ground, it’s difficult to know where the ground is! Some people still carry an image of a “Norman Rockwell” family: two parents of opposite genders, both in their first and only marriage, raising their natural children in the town where they both grew up, surrounded by extended family, mom home raising the kids, dad working a nine-to-five job. The family of that image has become a statistical oddity. If you are part of the majority who does not fit into that classical picture, I want to be a voice to say to you: “Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that you are somehow doing wrong or in the wrong.” You’re in the majority! And that majority is doing a fine job of contending! It’s tricky, yes. But I’m here to tell you you can do it, and help you as much as I can.

Are you a teacher or an educator? I worked 15 years in the schools, and I’ve experienced both the pains and the pleasures of the toughest and most rewarding jobs on earth. This book is addressed to parents, but I’ve tried to constantly picture your needs as I wrote. If you teach in a private school, lab school, or a setting that encourages innovative teaching frameworks, or if you are looking for ways to support parents who want to broaden their children’s education beyond what you can provide, I hope you’ll find good help here. The Web site that accompanies and supports this book has information to support teachers who want to bring this book into their classrooms or share it with parents. The Internet address is http:\\www.IntelligenceRiver.net

Are you a counselor, psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist or spiritual leader? As you know, many of the families you work with experience significant stress around their children’s education and cognitive development. At a broader level, there is no task more challenging than raising intelligent, perceptive, clear-thinking children who can function in a cultural matrix which seems as problematic as it does inescapable. This book certainly won’t make that challenge go away! But I believe it can be an important adjunct to your work for families, by providing a way to think about constructive alternatives instead of simply accepting what is, and by giving families some tools to take control of their children’s intellectual development.

Are you a child-care provider? The parents who entrust their children to you have — as you know! — the highest expectations ever of the kind of care they want from you. Just “baby sitting” won’t begin to do it. And you, as a professional, demand more of yourself. You want to provide not only safety, love, and nurturing, but every development opportunity you can to the children who are entrusted to you. I hope you’ll find support in that mission here. See our Web site also for conversational “threads” about day care and preschool.

Are you a homeschooler? Quite simply, I think this book offers a new way to think about curriculum -- or, if you prefer, to avoid the whole idea of curriculum. Instead of categorizing the world of learning by subject areas, I suggest here that you organize the academic part of your efforts to encourage the cognitive skills your child needs to thrive.

Now We’re Cooking!

This isn’t a book of recipes, it’s a book about how to cook. My goal is to help you think intelligently about intelligence, so you can really understand how to be a powerful influence on your child’s intellectual growth. From the River parable on, I’ll offer you hundreds of specific activities to guide you. I hope you won’t think of these as recipes, to be blindly followed — “Stir a tablespoon of soccer practice into half an hour of computer programming ....” That would make as much sense as blindly following a recipe without knowing whether you were trying to make a cake or a stew. What matters, with cakes as with kids, is knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing each step of the way.

Sources and Resources

Notes and references that I used in writing the book are given at the end. Books and other resources to help you develop your child’s Intelligence River are listed separately at the end of Develop. You’ll find further support on the IntelligenceRiver.net home page.

Humor Alert!

It’s only fair to warn you: Intelligence theory can be rather heavy stuff. I’ve tried to keep this as light as I can, but I have a ghastly sense of humor, as my own kids would tell you! If you have a strong need for seriousness, feel free to scratch out anything that looks like it’s trying to be funny.