Barely 2% of the population is HPI. And yet, according to young parents, it seems that 99% of children are HPI. So either there’s a ball in the soup, or there’s a ball in the soup. In one case as in the other, it’s a soup that we no longer want to drink (not convinced by this choice of spun metaphor but if that can reassure you I am absolutely not HPI). But how are these young parents led to believe that their child is HPI? We searched and tried to find you some explanations worthy of the name.
1. They are rich
Some time ago an article from the DNA media agitated the web with this somewhat provocative title “No your child is not HPI you are just rich”. And for good reason, on the sociological level it shows how this diagnosis is part of a form of class struggle. Rich people being more likely to have their children take tests (at 500 bucks a test, YOU SURPRISE ME)
2. Their children are boys
Not that boys are more gifted than girls, but quite simply because we tend to have our child tested more when it’s a boy than when it’s a girl, so that inevitably biases the result.
3. They think that a child who is bored in class = a child who is too smart for class
The fault of a book (among others) released in 2008 which unfortunately did very well Too intelligent to be happy (450,000 copies sold) by Jeanne Siaud-Facchin. A psychologist specializing in personal development, she has subsequently been criticized for the received ideas she conveys about HPI, starting with this one: the causal relationship between suffering and intelligence. This is how lots of parents have started to think that their child who is depressed in class or who is just getting sick was necessarily gifted. It would be known if all the children who are bored in class were geniuses.
4. We have less and less confidence in school
Paradoxically, it was in the 1970s in a context of democratization of schools that interest in giftedness crystallized. Basically, the more students have access to the same unique knowledge, the more we wanted to detect the singularity of our cherubim. It’s not me who says it, it’s Wilfried Lignier author of The petty nobility of intelligence: a sociology of gifted children.
On top of that, distrust of schools coupled with teachers’ lack of resources leaves more and more room for parental power. They want what is best for their child (and in the end this is quite normal) and will therefore ask that the teaching be adapted to him and not the other way around.
5. They think that a child who has memorized the numbers up to 10 and the alphabet before first grade is necessarily smarter than everyone else
Many parents train their children to play smart monkey before first grade by having them memorize tricks. Great good for them but if the brat recites the lesson very well it just shows that he is able to learn something by heart but not that he understands its usefulness or can apply it in another context.
6. Their child is temperamental and kicks balls at everyone
Eh yes. I know it sounds surprising, but it is often the case. The parents of a super boring child, will have an annoying tendency to declare that their child is undoubtedly unsuited to his environment (and from unsuitable to gifted there is only one step, a step which takes the form of a clinical test). Very practical for not having to educate your kid while letting people believe that if he’s stupid it’s because he’s smarter than everyone else.
7. He is still just a child
We notice that parents often think that their child is HPI until he becomes a teenager. Because like all teenagers, he is dumb and ugly and no longer reflects the fantasies of giftedness hoped for since his earliest childhood.
8. Everyone can recognize themselves in the distinctive signs of HPI
If I believe this site (the first proposed during my Google request), the HPI child is recognized by the following criteria:
– he gets bored
– he does not cause too much harm
– he is curious
– dyssynchrony = he is very clumsy in certain tasks and very good in others.
– he has a sense of justice
– he has a sense of humour
– he struggles at school
– he struggles with people
I have no children but according to these criteria, even my cat turns out to be HPI. Suffice to say that it is easy to diagnose your children yourself.
9. They rely on their own diagnosis or online tests
Again parents do not always make the effort to make a serious diagnosis (and for good reason, it costs a ball) but it goes without saying that online tests are all crap and offer no valid answer. Worse ! The tests carried out in the clinic also deserve to be questioned, the results can depend on a lot of parameters such as the stress of the child, his emotional state at the time of the test, etc.
10. The HPI series made France HPI-addicted
Thank you Audrey Fleurot what. With this bullshit the fantasy around the HPI is stronger than ever.