Age appropriate achievements

While reading a book, I came across interesting studies and research done by some people and one of them was regarding the people who had migrated from Italy to United State of America. The process started with four- five people from Italy moving first and others followed them and they settled in different parts of USA.One particular group/locality was studied by one of the doctors for the reason that the natives of America and migrants from other countries were suffering from heart diseases and it was one of the major causes of their death. But in this particular locality, this was not the case whereas they used to eat the same kind of food and the genetics also could not be assessed as the factor for not having heart disease because the other group of the people who also came from the same locality of Italy did have the problems of a similar nature as anybody else in America had. The doctor then involved psychologists and other people to find the cause of difference. They studied the life style of different groups in that area and the findings were that the cause of this group being healthy than others was their life style. They were close-knit families and a small society . They all used to work hard but were very fond of interacting with each other by not only sitting inside their houses, but also outside the house anywhere under the shade of the tree or by the side of the house. The researchers found that the three generations used to sit and have their meals together, particularly the dinner.It proves that the joint family system we used to have in our country was of great help to the people to release their stress without any outside help.
This study motivated the other people to find the reason behind some individuals doing better than the others meaning thereby the story of successful people.While doing so they came across some startling revelations which nobody had thought before and that was the impact of age of the person on his/her performance/achievements. They studied specially the players of Hockey in Canada and Basketball and  Football in other countries.
The children in Canada were picked-up by the schools at a very early age and then coached by experts, and then the best were picked-up at every stage till they were of the age group of 18-19 years and proved themselves to be the excellent players who were considered to be representing their states or the country.These people tried to understand what made them different from others to reach this stage. Was it their hard work or the genetic effect or the best coaches available to them? To their surprise they found no concrete reason for this till by chance they came across the date of birth of the players who had made a mark in the game of hockey.They found that out of approximately twenty top players more than forty percent were born between January and March and about ten percent between October and December.This was something which made them to analyse the reason behind their performance. They found out that the cut off age for the young kids who were supposed to be selected for coaching when they were very young was first January every year. This made it very clear that the child who was born on second January will get a chance next year. So if seen carefully the child born in January and the child born in December had  an age difference of approximately eleven months to one year. This one year difference made the maximum difference on the performance of the adult players.  The one who was born on second January 1960 and the other born on second December 1960 would have been considered together and might have been selected at that very young age and as the elimination kept taking place at every stage by the time they were of the age 18- 19 years, the ones who were older could perform better than the others and that is the reason that most of the successful players were born between January and March. The same was found true for other games in other countries also. This concludes that the age difference contribute  a lot in the success of the people.Though the other factors were also responsible for the success but the major contributor for the same was the age.
Then the other group of the people studied the impact of the age on the academic achievements of the children, when they were of the age of around eighteen years, and the result came out to be almost the same.When the children are admitted to a school at the age of four or five years, it is difficult to make any difference at that time but as they grow, it is noticed that the children who are older tend to perform better than others(exceptions are always there). The parents and the teachers do not pay any attention to this fact and start believing that this particular child is not good in studies.Parents particularly believe that one full year of the child will be wasted,without realising the consequences. Though a proper study should be done in the area of academics also before reaching to any conclusion, but the above mentioned studies make us to believe that the age would play an important role in the success of a person of the same age bracket because in schools also you have some cut off date and that may be 31 March or 30 June. If we take the case that the child should be born on or before 31 March 2011 then we find that the child born on 1st April 2010  and the child born on 31st December 2010 will study together and this difference of almost one year will have an impact on the relative success of the children.Thus,it can be concluded that achievements do correspond to age. Also the society should allow the children to grow and then assign age appropriate tasks to them,thereby seeking age appropriate achievements.

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