Educators, sociologist and psychologists have debated this topic for decades with varying emphasis. Most parents today are convinced that if they provide as many opportunities as possible for the child, they have done their duty and their children are destined to become "success stories". But this may not be as simple as it seems.

Schools in Malaysia for example, experience time and time again the extraordinary performance from children who come from poor, neglected and even broken homes. This proves that so much depends on a combination of factors both in the heritage and the environment in motivating and enabling children to be proficient in what they do and excel in what they undertake.

As parents, we need to dismantle our mindsets on what we may think are advantages or opportunities. A grand home with the latest computers, or even an up-to-date library does not guarantee the making of a scholar or a genius. Fractured relationships in a home may act as a motivation for one child and completely discourage another. Similarly, good health and early training may make one child into an athlete but may prove futile with another.

Enthusiastic parents can, with the best of intentions overload and completely exasperate the child with options for which he has no inclination or talent. Parents need to keep their ears close to the ground to hear what children are saying and they need to have their eyes up above recognizing that the Creator has given each child a special gift. To provide space, encourage, and cultivate that gift is really the way to success but too often parents have their own agendas for the child's life and make a mess with their well-intended strategies to achieve their own ends in the life of their child.

We need to take our cue from a certain country in which graduate parents were encouraged to have more children as it was assumed that they would produce more intelligent human beings. But it has never been that way. A humble clerk and a housewife have produced a string of brilliant children. How does one account for this?

Talents and temperaments often seem to be inherited but given a different environment and circumstances; where the emotional climate is conducive to the flourishing of latent talent, a child can develop exceptional ability and character. Let us be sensitive to their leanings and help them to develop the uniqueness that is theirs.

Question: Tell me why some kids with every advantage and opportunity seem to turn out bad, while others raised in terrible homes become pillars in the community. I know one young man who grew up in squalid circumstances, yet he is such a fine person today. How did his parents manage to raise such a responsible son when they didn't even seem to care?