As this Onion article, titled "97-Year-Old Dies Unaware Of Being Violin Prodigy," hilariously points out, to become a violin prodigy, you need more than just memory, attention to detail, drive, and a rebellious streak. You also need someone to give you a violin.
We'll never know how many would-be musical prodigies lived and died under the rule of the Taliban, which bans almost all music.
But refraining from actively discouraging prodigies is not enough. Even though prodigies tend to master their skill on their own, they still need tremendous amounts of support from their environment, and particularly their parents.
In her story titled, "Gifted students shine when mined," the Monitor's Stacy Teicher Khadaroo quotes Ruth Lyons, head teacher at the Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy in Hartford, Conn. "In a lot of circumstances, high-potential students don't manifest their gifts unless they've been given the opportunity to develop them," she says.
Parents have been shown to have even more of an influence on child prodigies than teachers. All parenting involves a balancing act between expectations and freedom, and with the prodigy it's even more so.
And, as Winner notes, nurture is a two-way street. Prodigies evoke actions – often drastic ones like moving across the country – from their parents. She writes: "Family characteristics that may well profoundly shape the gifted child's development are at least in part set in motion by the presence of the gifted child. It is not only the family that creates the child: the child also plays a role in creating the family."
