Late bloomer

Not everyone is quick off the mark and succeed early in life. Some of us are like slow-boiling pots needing more time to gather wisdom and make sense of the world around us. A late bloomer is a person whose talents or capabilities are slower to develop and this term is used metaphorically to describe a child or adolescent who develops more slowly than others in their age group but eventually catches up and in some cases overtakes their peers in their academic achievement.

When a late bloomer finally gets it, there is a driving force because they have spent a long time digesting ideas, information and knowledge just to come up with some amazing solutions to the world's problems. Their ability are often conceptualize as static property that is hard-wired into the brain by genes that are prepackaged and ready to activate. When tapped, it bursts forth. However, this conception is far too simplistic.

Ability can take time to develop and the genes can take years to unfold. Genes are partly responsible for brain organization and the brain is not completely organized until well into adulthood. Like water to a flower, the environment plays a critical role in the activation of genes. In reality, talent emerges over the course of a lifetime of reciprocal interactions between the developing brain and a stimulating environment.

There are many theories of the way in which children develop as suggested by Erickson, Kohlberg, Piaget, Vygotsy and many others. Although they disagree about how stages of development should be defined and the primary influences on development, they agree that a child's development can be measured as a predictable series of advances in physical, intellectual and social skills which almost always occur in the same sequence, although the rate may vary from one child to another.

Late bloomers should always trust in their abilities to conquer the difficulties in ways that others can only dream of. Instant achievement is not always a fairytale come true. It may take a long time to get there but bets are, the late bloomers will know what they are doing far more than those who got there earlier. People will then have great confidence in the late bloomers’ experiences and knowledge for they have thought so deeply about everything and reached their own conclusions rather than parroting someone else's.

I am very proud my son is a late bloomer. Better be late than never.