Meet Kids on the Block Puppet Character, Jinx Braxton

Meet Jinx Braxton

Jinx Braxton

“How’d you get the name Jinx?!?” is the first question asked by many people who meet Jinx Braxton for the first time. Jinx tells her friends that she was born on July 13 which fell on a Friday. When her older brother came to the hospital and saw his baby sister for the very first time he called her “Jinx” and the name stuck. “I like having an unusual nickname,” says Jinx, “because it’s a neat way to get to know people. They’re always asking me about my name and anyway, my real name is Irene, same as my Mom’s, so it’s nice to have a different name that’s special to me.”

Jinx is a very outgoing 11 year old who spends part of her school day in a resource room for children who are gifted and talented. All through her life learning new things has come easily for Jinx and when she started kindergarten her teachers spoke to her parents about what seemed to be a great number of Jinx’s special talents. Her parents, Bob and Irene, who operate a hair salon, were surprised to hear about their daughter in these terms. Jinx’s mother knew that her daughter was full of surprises and that she crawled, walked and talked months earlier than did her older brother when he was small. And Jinx’s dad remembers that by the time she was two, Jinx was reading a number of road signs as she sat in her car seat riding to and from the day care center.

After the school personnel administered a number of psychological tests, Jinx was placed in a program for gifted and talented children. Her parents are very proud of her and the work that she does, especially in mathematics and in art, but they have learned that it is important that Jinx have the time and the opportunity to be a child first. Jinx’s friend, Brenda, is an important part of her life and the Braxton’s are careful to allow Jinx the time and the freedom to have friends her own age and to develop interests that are appropriate for an eleven year old. But even though her parents are aware of the “genius syndrome” and work to keep Jinx from being perceived in that way by her peers, there are times when Jinx must work through the potential social difficulties that being a very bright person can present. Jinx tells her friends that learning is more than getting right answers or all “A”s, and that there are things that are hard for her, too, and that she must work at learning just as they must. Jinx points out to Brenda and Renaldo and to her parents, too, that she is a multi-faceted person with likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, talents, and problems similar to those that all children have and that being bright is just one part of being Jinx.

Through Jinx children learn that the stereotype of the gifted child as having a “computer for a brain,” is a harmful one in that it keeps children from becoming comfortable with one another and from learning about bright children as individuals. In addition, Jinx gives children an opportunity to think about gifted children apart from the “nerd” image so often portrayed in books and television programs, and since Jinx’s family is racially mixed, allows them to see giftedness in a racially balanced context.

Jinx is the featured character in The Kids on the Block program on Gifted and Talented.

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