Customer Reviews

Accidental Genius

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Kearney's present an honest and heartfelt picture of their struggles to raise a profoundly gifted child. Unfortunately, they proceed to make recommendations based solely on their personal experience.

They wrongly assume that they are responsible for Michael's amazing mental development, being unaware that there have been many others like him, and that such prodigality is inborn.

They also equate learning with intellectual development and feel that by allowing Michael to learn as much as he wants and as fast as he wants, they have fulfilled his intellectual needs.

They also present their plan as the ideal solution, offering no alternatives for parents who may want something more substantive for their child than rushing through the educational system.

This has been an extremely controversial book in discussions among parents of profoundly gifted children. Those who wish to allow intellectual, emotional, and physical maturity a chance to develop in an integrated way are generally highly critical. Parents who are eager to see their children move as swiftly as possible through their schooling, possibly setting records along the way, and saving themselves money as a side benefit of college compaction, praise the book highly.

I see it as an interesting personal memoir that has become undeservedly influential.

This is a description of what the parents of Michael Kearney did in the first 11 years of their high IQ son. And it is just that. "And then....and then ... and then) It suffers greatly from the flatness of the (description of the) persons involved, the lack of emotional insight in Michael, the repetition in the actions (they fight a lot of the same fights with a different schools, they do a lot of brain stimulation at home), the lack of inspiration, and the fact that it describes only the first 11 years of this boy's life. Actually it's less a book about the boy, then it is about the parents. Beside that: it may look like a 200 page book. But since the space between the lines is twice as large as normal, it actually is just a 100 page book.

On the upside: especially Michael early years (0 to 3) are fun to read, because some of his progress is really incredible. And most important: the book ends with a large bibliography on giftedness.

But all in all, it's quite a lot of money for just a little bit of information.

I initially read this book because I have always felt that school was a place that encouraged conformity and regression toward the mean, rather than socialization and creative thinking. Toward that end, I ordered "Accidental Genius", the story of an incredibly precocious child whose parents battle a school system inequipped to deal with prodigious child minds and parents committed to children's well being.

The book, however, was a large disappointment. First, I have a very hard time getting past Cassidy Kearney's self-reported tale of what amounts to in-vitro child abuse. During her pregnancy with Michael, she refused to eat following a doctor's seemingly innocuous admonition to her to watch her weight in her second trimester of pregnancy. She even states that her vanity impeded her from stopping this behavior, despite the fact that she developed toxemia, was warned that she might lose the pregnancy, and was risking the mental and physical health of the child if indeed he/she would be born. Tired of his patient's narcissm, the doctor induced Cassidy almost two months early, and malnourished, jaundiced Michael was born. Cassidy makes another comment that she wanted the pregnancy to be over so she could remain thin and not have to worry about battling others to eat. SICKENING!! As someone who cannot have children, I find her selfish behavior repugnant to the point of being criminal.

The book continues with Cassidy's "Don't bother me" mode of parenting. Despite the fact that her child beat the medical odds in the most miraculous of ways, she continues to whine and complain, labeling him "severely" gifted as one would label a child "severely autistic" or "severely disabled". She constantly reiterates how exhausted she was in raising both Michael and his equally precocious sister Megan [sic]. The burden of raising these gifted children became so great that her husband Kevin was summoned home from his job in the military to aid in the great undertaking of raising these children. One day in a store, for example, Cassidy sees other children having tantrums and admits while Michael "annoyed" her at times, at least he didn't act like THAT. Umm, should we add Dr. Spock to the bibliography, maybe? This is all part of what you deal with as a mother or father! While child rearing is no doubt the hardest job there is, isn't this a bit histrionic? Surely these gifted children had boundless energy, endless questions and questioned authority. But considering the way Michael was treated (or mistreated) in the womb (and considering Megan (sp?) had health problems that had nothing to do with her mother), shouldn't this state of exhaustion be replaced with more gratitude?

The story is candidly written and honest, and I appreciate that. However, the tale is replete with all things cerebral and has little affect. We get a great sense of the hours the parents spent advocating and nourishing their intellect, often in the face of the jealousy, ignorance and misconception of others. This is laudable and the best part of the book that parents of other gifted children can learn from. However, despite assertions to the contrary, I fail to see where anyone ministered to these children's souls. A good example of this is an account where Michael, still practically an infant, was standing beside an obese woman in a grocery store (I believe) who was purchasing some ice cream. Michael then vociferated his thoughts that this woman was, "enormous" and shouldn't consume the confection. Michael later learned that he should whisper rather than shout these things, which clearly embarrassed his parents. What is frightening is that this account is told as an example of his giftedness. Whispering cruel things about a fat person was seen as a benevolent alternative to screaming them out; no one ever discussed that these statements were cruel and should be refrained from (despite the contention that gifted children were replete with a quality called "moral courage").

In summary, the book is an excellent chronicle of parents who nourish the mind of an incredible child and serve as his tireless advocate. I did not feel that Michael was pushed to learn. He was encouraged to explore his own potential which he not only enjoyed but demanded. Again, I laud the Kearneys for working to fight a school system that just can't handle a child who is smarter than the adults who run the system. This aspect of the book, as well as the well-developed bibliography at the end, is commendable indeed.

As a book, "Accidental Genius" suffers from a good degree of sexism (more attention is paid to Michael than his equally capable sibling), flatness of narrative, and lack of emotion. It's hard to read the message when you've got a messenger that does a lot of complaining. Anyone who can't have a child or has a disabled child knows what real exhaustion, pain and struggle are. The woes of teaching your toddler algebra pale in comparison. Get over it.

"Accidental Genius" is a wonderful book to help parents of profoundly gifted children understand the way these children learn and process information. It helps to make sense out of the speed they need to go in their studies. The Kearneys also help those coming along behind them to better understand the dynamics of working with various academic bureaucracies. If I had read this book 4 years ago when I first started homeschooling my profoundly gifted son, I would have understood his frustrations in following a linear curriculum and I would have accelerated him differently. We are facing our 10 yr. old entering college full time and are very nervous about the prospect. The Kearneys' insightful book helps point out the pros and the cons of such a venture.

I applaud their heart-wrenching honesty as they tried to explain in their book the reasons for the path they took. All may have different paths in this dark and uncharted forest of giftedness, but I'm glad the Kearneys left a map to explain the terrain!

This is an excellent book about how the parents of two profoundly gifted children struggled to help them flourish in an educational environment that did not recognize their needs. Although there is quite a bit of literature about parenting gifted children, there is not much to read about the profoundly gifted children. The primary authors in the area of profoundly gifted children are Miraca Gross and Leta Hollingworth. This book adds the parent's perspective. What this book reveals is that most educators and psychologists do not understand children who deviate too far from the mean, and parents of profoundly gifted children need to become steely advocates for their children. The first two thirds of the book describe the parents' efforts to educate their children from infancy through (early) college. There are some very interesting differences between their two children that really make the differences between the concepts of giftedness and achievement very clear. The last third is general information about giftedness and the profoundly gifted.

"The prodigiously gifted can invent whole worlds and then disappear into them. Likewise, they can screen out or ignore the world. Their parents must be ruthless anchors into reality for them," the Kearneys write in ACCIDENTAL GENIUS (p. 180). YES! I thought as I read these words. YES! These dedicated parents write honestly and well about the joys and tribulations of raising two profoundly gifted children. Their son, Michael, has set world records for reaching educational goals at an early age, and their daughter, Maeghan, is learning enabled in many ways. The conflict comes when the children's passions for learning are thwarted by an inflexible system that refuses to admit that they exist. Maeghan spent some time pretending that she couldn't read after one of her teachers insisted that she was too young to do so. Reading of the Kearneys' stalwart insistence on creating learning paths for their children, at the appropriate cognitive level and pace for those children, has inspired me as a parent. "Many people simply don't learn effectively . . . (when) the teacher lectures and the students take notes," the Kearneys say. They refused to limit their children's learning to proscribed paths, and as a result, they have encouraged individualization of education for profoundly gifted learners. When a student is one in a million, and the school puts all of the kids together in age-grouped classes, what happens? That extremely gifted student often goes underground to fit with the group, becomes isolated, or just wastes hundreds of hours of learning time. The Kearneys didn't let it happen with their children. They found alternatives and options to the doldrums for their brilliant children. After reading this book, you could feel hope that perhaps our staid educational system could change, at least one family at a time.

Imagine this. Doctors tell you your premature child may be burdened with slow mental development throughout their life. The child is fussy and can't sleep without some kind of mental stimulus- a quick fire candidate for ADD drugs. Rather than medicate you quickly find the best way to calm your child down is to interact with them and the child picks up things quickly. In fact, your child loves learning, retains most anything you present it and can recall the same information with voracity. You've hit the jackpot! Your kid should cruise through their classes and is likely to be the pride any school they attend. Colleges will be lined up around the block with scholarships and your baby's future is assured. Right? Not even close.

The Kearney's found themselves in just this situation and quickly discovered there is a vast difference between learning and the US education system- big emphasis on the word "system". The first thing they found is that our system prefers children to step through it at the it's pace- not the child's, regardless of how disinterested the child may be in the curriculum. The first assumption our education makes is disinterest represents laziness or reluctance to learn- even if the child has already learned the material, finds repetition dull or just needs a small break. Aside from trying to feed a bottomless mental appetite the Kearney's had to make a very difficult decision: Let the public education system take a bright child and knock that bright light down to a normal level and possibly create endless behavioral problems in the process, pay an expensive private school to do the same or home school their child and hope the state recognizes their efforts. They tried the first two but eventually accepted the last option and even then they were always plagued by double standards, dimwitted officials, inept professionals, and little to no outside help. In fact, it seems that rather than foster intelligent students the US education system is simply more interested in simply reporting that they have students. Why is this? Because our education system is a joke.

Think about how teachers are resented on all sides, ridiculously underpaid, under budgeted and checked by conflicting bureaucratic standards then think about how dumb someone must be to consider that as a career choice. There is humor or at least an illustration of a nation which pays education lip service but doesn't really take it seriously. Perhaps the thought of intelligent children eventually competing for our jobs is frightening. Perhaps the thought of not raising a generation of consumers who define themselves only by consumption is frightening to corporations. Perhaps the old guard (i.e. Ivy League alumni with vast contributions) are happy with things the way they are. Again, who is most precious to our future- another parent's prodigy or our own child? And does our education system really matter when two of "the best Ivy League" schools are churning out people like George W. Bush through? To quote him "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." This book highlights the problems with and conclusion any hopeful parent will discover about raising a gifted child in America: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. It may bankrupt you, bring you under suspicious of child endangerment, create envy in pretty much every parent you know and wear you to a nub, but that's the gift of having a gifted child in our current system.

Should you be looking for "how to create a prodigy" advice, there really isn't much here. The parents don't outline lesson plans. In fact, they seemed to simply do what many parents should: encourage, support, provide positive reinforcement, take their child's education seriously and try to make learning as fun as possible for their child. In that respect I believe they deserve an A+. The rest (prodigality, genius) is really genetic.

I would give this book five stars but the editing is the worst I've ever seen in a published work. Numerous spelling errors and accidentally repeated passages litter the book. Even the title is odd considering the authors state repeatedly and clearly that they don't consider their children geniuses, but prodigies. I had to wonder if anyone actually bothered to edit the manuscript at all or how drunk they were when they did. I can forgive the shoddy jacket artwork but I really feel the publisher did a half-hearted job on this one, which is unfortunate for such an interesting book and wake up call for our national education system.

Yes, that's right... this was a fascinating story. And it was easy to read almost non-stop until I had heard it told. However, the book really does have many shortcomings. Perhaps just because the story is so fascinating that it raises all sorts of questions that are not addressed here. Most notably missing is Michael's own view on his childhood. How could the parents not think of including him in his own story? His own analysis would be at least as insightful as that of his parents. Especially since some of the speculation engaged in by the parents is of limited cogency. Particularly unsettling, in the midst of an already loose and casual narrative style, is the large number of spelling errors or similar proofreading errors that are in the book. Apparently this small press charges more money but offers less quality in its product. The story is fascinating and merits a 4 out of 5 rating for its interest alone. But the parental interpretation could have greatly benefited from editing, proofreading, and supplemental material provided by a third author - either a subject area expert or their "whiz kid" himself. Strangely, they refer to Michael's autobiography as if it is a published book somewhere, but web searches have turned up no sign of it. Nor is it included in the reference section at the back of this book. This book is fascinating, just as if one could meet directly with the parents and talk with them all day long. However, it really feels like a draft manuscript, rather than a polished and completed work. I am grateful it's available, but the story and subject deserved more thorough treatment.

This is a courageous, honest, brave and sometimes humorous book about raising gifted children. It takes you on a journey and gives you insight into the doubts, the worries, and even the triumphs of dealing with children who have the capacity of understanding complex issues like an adult.

Even though their situations may be different, it can give all of us with gifted children a much clearer picture of our options and choices, so that we may also have happy well-adjusted children in an era where intellect is not valued.

This book has been a great inspiration to me and my children. I now know what I must do!!

GREAT! Couldn't put it down. I think that this is a "MUST READ" for parents of highly gifted children and a sometimes-funny "GOOD READ" for all of us. Parents of gifted children are finding this book an "aha!" experience. In spite of being two of the most precocious children on record (Michael is at, or close to the reported precocity levels of William Sidis), it is astonishing (and a little frightening) to me how often the Kearney children were misdiagnosed or mishandled. When Michael was born toxemic, and prematurely, the Kearneys were told that he might be brain damaged and retarded. They went all out from Day One to stimulate his mind. They little imagined that they would be confronted with a super-prodigy-an "accidental genius".

To me, one of the striking aspects of Michael's upbringing is the fact that his parents are doing their level best to insure that (unlike William Sidis), he and his comparably brilliant sister, Maeghan, are well adjusted to the world. The Kearneys have evidence that there may be thousands of children showing up around the country with the kind of energy and rage-to-learn that has characterized Michael and Maeghan. The Kearneys think that their dedication to keeping their children supplied with fresh knowledge allowed a flowering of their children's minds that made possible their full mental development. They are very concerned that other children are, perhaps, being misdiagnosed, just as were Michael and Cassidy, Of course, our school systems may not be well-geared to accommodate children at this level of rarity, and yet, these are the children who on whom we are depending to light the world. For the parents of such children, I think "Accidental Genius" is a necessity.