A four-year-old boy made headlines this week after becoming Britain’s youngest member of Mensa, the society for people with sky-high IQs.
Teddy, who can count to 100 in six languages including Mandarin, is already well ahead of his peers.
But what happens to kids like Teddy when they grow up?
Two decades ago, Christopher Guerin was in a similar position to Teddy. He was crowned Britain’s smartest boy in 2002 at the age of 12, beating thousands of other kids on the TV show.
“It was something that my family and I didn’t expect at all,” says Mr. Guerin, now 42, of Birmingham. “My face was in all the newspapers, on the BBC News website.” (You can see our report at the time here.)
With an IQ of 162, he was already a member of Mensa — something he joined after watching an episode of The Simpsons and seeing Lisa Simpson sign up.
Mensa accepts people who are in the top 2% of the general population on a recognized intelligence test.
His win opened up many opportunities, including an invitation to watch his beloved Aston Villa play with the club’s chairman and a free trip to Ireland from the Irish Tourist Board – both parents were from there.
He was expected to excel – but he didn’t think it was a negative. In fact, it spurred him on. “Personally, I responded well,” he says.
“I think even if I hadn’t won it, I still would have wanted to excel in what I was doing, but there was definitely a different angle on it.
“I went to a state high school, which meant that academic competition was a big part of the school ethos anyway, so it was a really good environment to fit in and most people responded positively to that.”
Britain’s smartest kid earned three math degrees, including one from Cambridge, and is currently studying for his PhD.
He works full-time as an assistant principal at a secondary school, where he says he uses his experience to encourage his students.
“I’ve held meetings about how to make the most of opportunities,” says Mr. Guerin, who married over the summer. “It doesn’t have to be quizzes or academic stuff, but whatever interests you, it’s really fun.”
Arran Fernandez, 27, was another gifted child – and says he didn’t face any extra pressure either.
He was only 15 when he went to Cambridge University to study mathematics, becoming the youngest Cambridge student since 1773. At 18 he was the university’s top mathematician, known as the senior wrangler.
Mr Fernandez – who was homeschooled in Surrey – says: “Mine [university] Experience certainly wasn’t typical, but I don’t feel like I missed out either. Each experience is unique in its own way.
“Socially, I’ve never really cared about comparing my age to others, so my age hasn’t made me feel different from my peers. Starting at university for the first time is a life-changing and new experience for everyone, whether they are 15 or 18.”
Mr Fernandez, who is now Associate Professor of Mathematics at Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus, says he has always tried to do his best at his job – but “it’s more for my own satisfaction than outside pressure” .
“I found that people generally had high expectations of me, thinking I was a ‘genius’ because of my age, but I didn’t let strangers’ perceptions or expectations affect my psyche or put undue pressure on me .”
But he says he doesn’t like the term “child genius.”
“I was not and am not a genius, but someone who received exceptional educational opportunities and was able to make the most of them.”
He says the opportunities and support he had didn’t make him “better” than anyone else — if anything, they inspired him to “get involved and try to support others to have similar opportunities and successes.” achieve,” he says.
Of course, being gifted as a child doesn’t mean it’s always that way.
Jocelyn Lavin, who grew up musically talented and was accepted into Manchester’s prestigious Chetham’s School of Music, says being considered a child genius didn’t affect her growing up negatively.
But she adds that people in adult working life often want things to be done a certain way – “and they don’t like it when you don’t fit into the box and have your own way of thinking and seeing things”.
She has worked as a teacher and secretary, among other things, and applied for her “perfect role” a few weeks ago.
“So I filled out their application questionnaire and stressed that I felt I could do the job well with my research skills and my ability to find things out.
“However, they responded that my answers to their questions on the form were the opposite of what they were looking for in the role, which made me feel like my job-hunting skills were holding me back.”
For those of us who weren’t child geniuses, don’t worry – Wendy Berliner, an education journalist, says that for adults who go on to become exceptional, it’s often “more to do with character, things like determination, drive, curiosity “. .
“Support is also very important — with people who go on to become high achievers, you usually find someone in the background who is very supportive and encouraging,” she says.
Lyn Kendall, Mensa’s gifted child counselor, says one thing she notices about Mensa kids is how motivated they are – they have a “need” to learn, she says.
She says Mensa runs a self-help group for parents of gifted children, which currently has around 300 families. Being the parent of a Mensa child is demanding, she says. “It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating, it almost ruins marriages.”
Anyone who thinks they have a gifted child should avoid “treating children as something that makes us look good as parents,” says the journalist from Berlin.
Instead, “encourage them as people that you just want to be comfortable and happy in their life, that’s the most important thing,” she says.
And many parents might be in that position right now.
After four-year-old Teddy made headlines for his high IQ, Ms Kendall said she received 38 emails from parents of three or four-year-olds.
They asked for help and told her, “We have one like that.”
Mensa has 140,000 members worldwide – including 18,000 in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
The organization bills itself as “the world’s leading society for high IQs” and says it offers its members a space for like-minded people to connect, grow intellectually and engage in fun activities.
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