Maybe Your Teenage Dummie Can Become Smarter After All

As the parent of a college-age teen, I’ve encountered a lot of proud parents. I’ve encountered even more delusional ones. For example, in making an excuse for their child’s lack of academic ability I often hear some  variation of, “It’s not like he’s a dumb kid. He just doesn’t apply himself.”

How can they be so sure their child isn’t—how can I put this delicately—just dumb? There is certainly no shortage of dumb people running around in the world. It’s not a crime or sin to lack intellect. However, it is a character flaw to be lazy. Yet for some odd reason parents seem to prefer their kids be thought of as indolent rather than unintelligent. In fact, the last mother I know who blamed bad grades on their kid’s mental capacity was . . . my own mom.

“Oh no, he’s applying himself,” she’d tell my exasperated teachers. “He’s just really that dumb.”

The truth is, though, that I was both thick-headed and lazy. None of my teachers would admit this, naturally, since it would have been detrimental to my self-esteem. Apparently, it was fine that I was basically a shiftless Forrest Gump as long as I didn’t feel bad about it. When I finally did start applying myself in my later teen years, I eventually became, well, not smart exactly, but at least less dumb . Turns out there may be some scientific evidence for the change. A new study claims that a teenager’s IQ can rise or fall as many as 20 points in just a few years:

“If the finding is true, it could signal environmental factors that are changing the brain and intelligence over a relatively short period,” said psychologist Robert Plomin at Kings College in London, who studies the genetics of intelligence and wasn’t involved in the research. “That is quite astounding.”

Long at the center of debates over how intelligence can be measured, an IQ score—the initials stand for “intelligence quotient”—typically gauges mental capacity through a battery of standardized tests of language skill, spatial ability, arithmetic, memory and reasoning. A score of 100 is considered average. Barring injury, that intellectual capacity remains constant throughout life, most experts believe.

But the new findings by researchers at University College London, reported online in Nature, suggest that IQ, often used to predict school performance and job prospects, may be more malleable than previously believed—and more susceptible to outside influences, such as tutoring or neglect.

Whether this study holds up to scrutiny, it certainly seems reasonable to treat teenagers as if their intelligence is not fixed but able to increase (or decrease) with effort (or lack thereof). Still, it is important to remind them that intellect is no substitute for hard work. As I tell my daughter, if I had to choose, I’d rather her be hard-working than smart. I don’t know too many people who are hard-working that are not at least moderately successful. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the bright lazy folks I know.