My eldest son can recite the mathematical conundrum that is "pi" to 100 decimal places, my youngest son is working to memorize the periodic table. I personally can recall the results from every Superbowl from the time they began up until 1986 (Bears 46, Patriots 10 btw), and my lovely other half  can sing the song La Bamba in Spanish with gusto, despite the fact that she cannot speak Spanish.

Are we a family of geniuses?  Are we the results of some crazy experiment? Are we gifted with bitter sweet super mental powers at the cost of our social skills like Rainman?...

No, we simply do such things for fun. 

About once a month my family and I come together for what we call The Family Challenge. Each member of the family is set a task which they must attempt to master in one week.  Sometimes the tasks are memory based, sometimes more physical, sometimes they are purely for fun. 

One week later we come together again and everyone demonstrates their new learned skills.  The tasks are decided upon by the group and generally take into account everyone’s personal interests, available time and any existing skills.  Tasks are always challenging, but hopefully achievable (although there have been a couple of underestimations of task complexity in the past).

There is no real prize or reward as such, except the satisfaction in completing the task and the appreciation and resultant pride of the rest of the family. There are no penalties or ridicule for failing a task either, it is  the effort which is applauded despite any occasional failures (which are rare).

Why on earth do we do it? We do it because it is fun and it gives us good reason to remember how much we appreciate each other.  It teaches the kids that they can achieve amazing things, if they try hard enough, and at the end everyone has a fun new party trick with which to impress their friends (at the minimum)… although when I'll be able to demonstrate reciting the scrolling intro text from Star Wars again I’m not sure.

The one thing I find odd about the endeavour is how other people react to it.  They say it’s crazy when they find out about it.  In my opinion it’s simple fun for all the family, doesn’t cost a penny and brings us all closer together… what’s so crazy about that?