Lessons from the Polgár sisters: Develop children’s skills while young

If you’re not an avid chess enthusiast you probably have not heard of the Polgár sisters who became world champions in chess. They are the three daughters of László Polgár, a Hungarian psychologist, and Klara, a Ukrainian teacher.

László studied many individuals who were considered to be geniuses in their field. From his studies, he concluded that with the right and proper training, any child could be turned into a genius.

In the late 1960s, when László was wooing Klara, he proposed his theory and explained to Klara he would want to have children who will become experts in their field.

Klara, being a teacher, was convinced of the unique plan of László.

When they got married, they talked about the field that they would like their children to be an expert in. The two options that they considered were languages and mathematics. During that time, there was no top-level female mathematician in Eastern Europe.

However, László and Klara decided on a third option that is easy to objectively say if their system is working. Both of them decided on chess.

In one interview with a reporter, Klara said, “We could do the same thing with any subject, if you start early, spend lots of time, and give great love to that one subject. But we chose chess. Chess is very objective and easy to measure.”

Klara and László had three daughters. In April 1969, they had Susan, followed by Sofia in November 1974, and Judit in July 1976.

The Polgárs were determined to control the education of their daughters. So they decided to homeschool them and devoted lots of time to teaching chess.

The result of their experiment did not take a long time to see amazing results. When Susan was just four years old, she won her first tournament by topping the Budapest Girls’ Under 11 Championship with 10 wins, no losses, and no ties. When she was 15 years old, she became the top-ranked woman chess player in the world.

Sofia, the second of the Polgár daughters, had an extraordinary chess performance. When she was only 14 years old, she topped the Rome tournament that included many male grandmasters. At one time, Sofia was the sixth-ranked female chess player in the world.

Judit, the youngest of the three, beat the other two older sisters. At 15 years and five months, she became a chess grandmaster. During that time she was the youngest, man or woman, to get to that highest level.

How did the Polgár sisters and other top-world performers reach their level?Almost all of them started their skill when they were young children and they had parents who had made up their minds that they wanted their children to be an expert in a particular skill.

In the 1980s, psychologist Benjamin Bloom headed a project to answer the question: What are the childhood experiences that world experts had that could explain their extraordinary performances?

Bloom and his colleagues chose 120 experts in six fields—Olympics swimmers, tennis champions, concert pianists, research mathematicians, neurologists, and sculptors. From this group, they looked for common developmental traits.

They found four influential factors. First: These exceptional children found a play when they were very young that eventually pointed to their field of interest. Second: Parents of these children had a particular interest or knowledge of the field that these children will pursue to become an expert. Third: They had older siblings to model from and compete with. And fourth: These future experts were lucky to have parents who are great motivators.

Leonardo Leonidas,
M.D., FAAP,
nonieleonidas68@gmail.com