Celebrate Your Talents"
What is a talent?
Webster’s Dictionary defines talent as, “A characteristic feature, aptitude, or disposition of a person or animal.”
Another definition that I like is Buckingham & Coffman’s in their groundbreaking book, First, Break All the Rules: What the world’s greatest managers do differently, “any recurring patterns of behavior that can be productively applied.”
Both definitions imply that talents are part of your genetic programming.
It is anything that you naturally do well.
For instance, academically inclined people are generally good in English or Math, rarely both. If you are good at English, then English is your talent. You genetics allow you to better grasp new concepts and problems solve new possibilities.
In the past, well-meaning parents, caregivers and teachers focused on deficiencies instead of talents. The thinking was that if you are already doing well in a specific area, then you don’t need any help with it. Greater focus was placed on balancing out a child’s deficiencies or fixing the problems. Unfortunately, focusing on a child’s deficiencies usually leaves the child feeling deficient, broken, and less than others.
Too much time spent on deficiencies can lead to lower self-esteem.
Ironically, children with low self-esteem don’t learn very well, which makes it difficult for them to learn how to correct their deficiencies.
I propose a new perspective, one where the focus is brought back to talents. At a basic level, I think we all agree with behavior management philosophy that teaches us to focus on the positive over the negative. We use phrases such as “Praise a child 10 times for every 1 time we punish.” I suggest that we take it a step further and…
…focus on your natural talents.
How do we do this?
Seek awareness. Develop the habit of looking for talents in your children. Use the following to help guide you in discovering a child’s talents:
- Caring and/or a good helper
- Creative and/or has a good imagination
- Energetic or fast
- Funny
- Has a good memory
- Likes to build and/or fix things
- Makes friends easily
- Organized
- Patient
- Problem solver
- Strong
Now what?
Catch them using their talents!
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