I’d add another call for caution with this approach. This got longer than I meant; the short version is: beware of getting in to an arms race with smart people, particularly ones you love, because one or other of you will lose.
A bright child will be able to out-manoeuvre you in areas where they are motivated and you are not. If not now, soon. Think about it: there will already be things they are better at than you. (Some of those games, for instance.) Better not to rely long-term on a strategy that only works if you are able to continue to out-think them.
To spell it out, the risk is motivating him to avoid you learning about his behaviour, rather than motivating him to avoid the behaviour.
That was my experience as a child. Between about 11 and 16, I hung out with a bunch of troublemakers, but was regularly able to evade almost all the negative authority-imposed consequences their actions led to, largely by being much better at subterfuge than the others in the group. (The others in the group were among the least bright in the cohort.) My parents were both smart—but I knew more about what I was up to than they did, and was much more motivated in practice to avoid punishment than they were to enforce discipline. And it did my relationship with them no favours to regularly succeed in hoodwinking them.
(Add-colour aside anecdotes: I recall being punished by a bright teacher for some infraction. I protested the size of the punishment—I admitted a minor wrong, but (truthfully) claimed that I hadn’t been involved in the main naughtiness. They didn’t buy it. A while later, evidence emerged backing up my case that I didn’t do it. The teacher said “Well, count the unjustified bit of the punishment as being for all those times you did do it and weren’t caught.”. Which I don’t think was meant to strongly emphasise to me the vital importance of not being caught, but it did. I am also perversely proud of a new school rule being instituted because I had semi-successfully argued that I shouldn’t be punished for breaking a rule that didn’t exist. Luckily that arms race was abandoned by mutual consent before it got out of hand.)
This is also my experience a parent. Obviously, I don’t know of any instances where my kids have evaded my ‘surveillance’ entirely successfully. But I have caught some cases close to my ability to detect, and it seems very unlikely that they do things behind my back only right up to the edge of my ability to detect and not over it.
I’d advocate trying for more genuinely negotiated engagement with them. It’s really hard, and not something that you can just do like that. But I certainly try for “we urgently need a discussion about whether that action is a good idea because we seem to disagree strongly” as a frontline response ahead of “do that again and I will stop you having X that you like”. (Another bonus to the discussion approach is that it leaves the door open to the kid convincing me to change my mind and thus coming out of the situation a winner.)
Back on the original topic, I very much expect that taking an active interest in what the kid’s up to, and how bored they are or not, and trying to keep them positively engaged (as in this post!) is an excellent step to avoiding the negative outcome here.
My counter strategy for him trying to do this: no video games!
This strategy seems optimal for achieving the goal of maintaining your personal social dominance and in signalling your affiliation with the authority figures that the child chooses to defect against. Depending on just how gifted and resourceful the child is it may or may not result in the child optimising around you in the same way that they would optimise around any other part of the problem.
Okay, so. I really can’t say very much, between Generalizing From One Example and not knowing anything about specific circumstances.
I am going to say that there exists a certain kind of intelligent child who will see what you are doing, resent you for it, and initiate a downward spiral that leads to a rather unpleasant relationship going into adulthood.
Not saying that this is an example, but … be a little careful.
My counter strategy for him trying to do this: no video games!
I’d add another call for caution with this approach. This got longer than I meant; the short version is: beware of getting in to an arms race with smart people, particularly ones you love, because one or other of you will lose.
A bright child will be able to out-manoeuvre you in areas where they are motivated and you are not. If not now, soon. Think about it: there will already be things they are better at than you. (Some of those games, for instance.) Better not to rely long-term on a strategy that only works if you are able to continue to out-think them.
To spell it out, the risk is motivating him to avoid you learning about his behaviour, rather than motivating him to avoid the behaviour.
That was my experience as a child. Between about 11 and 16, I hung out with a bunch of troublemakers, but was regularly able to evade almost all the negative authority-imposed consequences their actions led to, largely by being much better at subterfuge than the others in the group. (The others in the group were among the least bright in the cohort.) My parents were both smart—but I knew more about what I was up to than they did, and was much more motivated in practice to avoid punishment than they were to enforce discipline. And it did my relationship with them no favours to regularly succeed in hoodwinking them.
(Add-colour aside anecdotes: I recall being punished by a bright teacher for some infraction. I protested the size of the punishment—I admitted a minor wrong, but (truthfully) claimed that I hadn’t been involved in the main naughtiness. They didn’t buy it. A while later, evidence emerged backing up my case that I didn’t do it. The teacher said “Well, count the unjustified bit of the punishment as being for all those times you did do it and weren’t caught.”. Which I don’t think was meant to strongly emphasise to me the vital importance of not being caught, but it did. I am also perversely proud of a new school rule being instituted because I had semi-successfully argued that I shouldn’t be punished for breaking a rule that didn’t exist. Luckily that arms race was abandoned by mutual consent before it got out of hand.)
This is also my experience a parent. Obviously, I don’t know of any instances where my kids have evaded my ‘surveillance’ entirely successfully. But I have caught some cases close to my ability to detect, and it seems very unlikely that they do things behind my back only right up to the edge of my ability to detect and not over it.
I’d advocate trying for more genuinely negotiated engagement with them. It’s really hard, and not something that you can just do like that. But I certainly try for “we urgently need a discussion about whether that action is a good idea because we seem to disagree strongly” as a frontline response ahead of “do that again and I will stop you having X that you like”. (Another bonus to the discussion approach is that it leaves the door open to the kid convincing me to change my mind and thus coming out of the situation a winner.)
Back on the original topic, I very much expect that taking an active interest in what the kid’s up to, and how bored they are or not, and trying to keep them positively engaged (as in this post!) is an excellent step to avoiding the negative outcome here.
This strategy seems optimal for achieving the goal of maintaining your personal social dominance and in signalling your affiliation with the authority figures that the child chooses to defect against. Depending on just how gifted and resourceful the child is it may or may not result in the child optimising around you in the same way that they would optimise around any other part of the problem.
Yyyyyeahhh...
Okay, so. I really can’t say very much, between Generalizing From One Example and not knowing anything about specific circumstances.
I am going to say that there exists a certain kind of intelligent child who will see what you are doing, resent you for it, and initiate a downward spiral that leads to a rather unpleasant relationship going into adulthood.
Not saying that this is an example, but … be a little careful.