How can parents tell if their child is a prodigy? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Believe me, this is a loaded question.

When my son Josh Waitzkin was six and a half he was beating me at chess without even looking at the board. I couldn’t understand how this was possible because I considered myself a decent player. My wife and I began taking our rambunctious boy to Washington Square Park after school where he played against adults who were addicted to the game, some of whom had given up careers and even marriages because their passion for chess was so consuming. At six and a half, Josh often won against good amateur players. How could this be? It felt like magic. My wife Bonnie once reflected after one of these sessions in the park, “Josh plays like there’s an old man living inside of him making the moves.”

We were thrilled. It was amazing to be the father of a little kid who repeatedly pulled off miracles in the royal game. I almost felt like I was creating magic on the chessboard, that I was in training to become a champion.

When Josh was seven he was playing in scholastic tournaments, and usually he took the first place trophy. He won his first of eight national scholastic chess championships at the age of eight. Every event he played in he was expected to win, and he usually did. And when he occasionally did lose a game it felt wrong to me, deeply wrong as if something primal had shifted in the universe.

Our kid was a chess prodigy. Everyone said he was… Everyone but Josh.

When Josh became old enough to understand the meaning of “prodigy,” he resented it and declared, that’s not me.

How’s that possible? I would ask him when he was eleven and twelve, traveling abroad to compete for scholastic world championships against other national champions. If there was such a thing as a prodigy, my kid was it. I loved the magic and romance of the idea. I loved being the father of a miracle maker. It annoyed the hell out of me that Josh dismissed the idea.

“Of course I knew I was more talented than most players in Washington Square Park,” Josh explains many years later. “But that was not whom I rated myself against. Before I was a teenager and for the rest of my chess career I was competing against national champions from around the world. These were my peers and I wasn’t naturally better than these guys. Some were much more talented than I am and some weren’t. I’ve always resented the term “prodigy” because it is completely antithetical to the essence of competition and excellence, which is born from work and struggle. In chess there are many factors that go into high level play: an ability to calculate, creativity, courage, fighting spirit, being able to shut out distraction, relentless training, a willingness to look straight at your weaknesses and take them on as a way of life. Many world-class players could calculate better than I could. But I was a good fighter. I learned to shut out distraction by blasting Gyuto Monk chants on my stereo when I studied chess positions. Being a chess prodigy or a prodigy of any kind is an entertainment, an ego trip, for a parent or for fans who don’t really know the game. For a player, it’s kryptonite. If you buy into that idea as a chess player or a musician or an athlete—the illusion that winning will come easily because you are touched by god—you’re finished. You’ll never be any good.”

You can find a copy of Deep Water Blues or Fred’s other novels at his website or Amazon.

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