September 2012

Curriculum for Character and Talent

You are doing great if you can turn your character-based Christian curriculum into a curriculum that can also build up your child’s talent like this fictional report from “Practical-Dad”:

It was awkward at first to red-pen words out of my son’s character-based curriculum questions and insert instead an aspect of his architecture talent that he wants to develop, but I am growing confident. For example, he had a short writing assignment that asked him to talk about the kind of power that Julius Caesar exercised over Rome. I re-worded the question so that it asked him to talk about how the public buildings were used at that time to exercise the power of Julius Caesar. Amazing! He is now excited about writing his essays and we have had to tell him several times in the last few days to stop and come to the lunch table.

Acquire a Personality While Acquiring a Talent

Jonathan

Speaker's Society Presentations — If you want your child to attract the attention of others with talent, then make sure your child is also developing a talent. Photo from Speaker’s Society Presentations (Photo credit: MDGovpics)

Your child is acquiring an attractive personality while also acquiring a talent if you can report something similar to fictional “I-got-my-eyes-on-you-Dad”:

“It was clear that our daughter was well-rounded educationally, but she had nothing specifically of her own that she could be proud of to show off to friends and relatives. No wonder she was just wanting to hang-out so much at the YMCA. She gave my wife and I lots of extra ideas on parts of the talent discovery workshop and she completely and enthusiastically bought into the idea of developing a talent of her own. Wow, her conversations with us and other people lately are a lot more intense and focused and she blogs to her passion regularly. She is clearly developing herself into that ‘interesting’ girl that no amount of logo-wearing T-shirts and summer camp activities were doing for her. ”

Finding Focus Will Build Child’s Talent

Jonathan

Your child is finding talent-worthy focus if you are reporting something similar to fictional “Frazzled-Mom”:

“At first, my 13 year old son panicked at the thought of not seeing all the many friends in his different programs, but once he realized how much more interesting the two remaining activities were because he was able to focus, he quickly forgot about the other (shallow) friendships. One of the activities we kept involves participating in the Remote Control Airplane Club of our town and getting pointers on how to fine tune gas and electric motors from older retired men. He feels like he is ‘one of the guys’ and is getting all scientific on us at the lunch table talking about aerodynamics. We don’t understand all this new found knowledge he is explaining to us, but we love it!”

Think Outside Standard Career Labels for Child’s Talent

Jonathan

You are beginning to think outside of standard career labels for developing your child’s talent if you can report something similar to fictional ‘Not-Afraid-to-Get-My-Hands-Dirty-Mom‘:

Five months after taking a talent discovery workshop and discussing our concerns with our son about being in a market with too many painters, we have dramatically re-apportioned the type of time he is spending in the family business.We now have our son spending half his work time with a local tool rental company that needs detailing and small repair help on new cutting-edge sand blasting equipment that gets returned. He connects well with the customers and his employer is recognizing his value as a budding salesman in the painting industry. Combining another new skill with his already extensive painting skills is really getting all of us excited about what other skills could be merged so he can be amazingly productive and desirable in the marketplace.

Family Bonding Through Building Talent

Jonathan

Your child is strengthening his family bonds by developing his talent if you can report something like this fictional ‘Love-My-Alma-Mater-But-Not-That-Much-Dad‘:

We had always felt that if it wasn’t an official course taken at an official school, that somehow it had little value. Once we realized how shortsighted we were, we redesigned six months ago a “custom curriculum” of our own that involved me, my sister who is math professor in another state, and my father who is a retired pharmacist. The children’s grandpa sent us by Fed-Ex his old microscopes and even some old-fashioned lab coats. Skype came to the rescue with lots of fun late night conversations and tutorials and I was surprised by the amount of family bonding that has come out of this.

Turn Hobby Into Talent By Creating Value for Others

Jonathan

English: Photograph of a guitar taken in a loc... — Even a guitar loving boy can morph his hobby into a talent by bringing value to others. (Photo credit: Wikipedia; author: Dane Austin Carney; Permission: Creative Commons License)

Your child is moving from hobby (value to self only) to talent (value to others) if you can report something like this fictional Mother-of-an-Artist:

My 14 year old guitar playing son started making custom guitar decals over the past year for his friends, discovered that some styles are more popular than others, and is even selling a few of those on Etsy and eBay. As a result, he is interacting with a lot of other guitar players and is starting to buy and sell and fix up used guitars. Just last week, he got his first request to do the web art for a small online music store because a music composer saw his art on a student’s guitar. He still loves his music, but he seems a lot more energetic and upbeat about the future.

Hobby brings smiles – Talent brings cash

Jonathan

Boy with cool glasses — Is your child developing a hobby or a talent? Find out before his time runs out and you have to let him loose on the world.

What is the difference between a hobby and a talent?

A hobby is a skill that is designed primarily to please yourself.

A talent is a skill set that is designed to please others.

You know that a developed talent pleases others because they are willing to pay cold, hard cash for your output. For your hobby they will only pay you with a smile.

Twaddle is Result of Lack of Talent Focus

Jonathan

Twaddle Face When There is No Talent Focus — Twaddle Face is what your child will get if you let your curriculum drive all your memory lists. Take control and make memory work serve your child’s talent instead.

Busy, busy, busy, but do you care whether your child is memorizing the list of names of the California Missions or memorizing the list of Vice-Presidents of United States? If it is all the same indifference to you and your child, then your homeschool curriculum is turning into dreaded twaddle. STOP! Your child is probably mentally purging that information as fast he is finishing his history quizzes. Focus on the purpose of your curriculum and make memory lists count toward your child’s 10,000 hours of talent development. Your child with science talent can memorize the names of the most influential inventors of the 1800s and your child with art talent can memorize the names of the top art pieces of the 18th century.

Work to Increase Early Skills to 10000 Hours of Talent

Jonathan

Early Child Skills will Dissipate if Not Nurtured — Born with or Nurtured into Early Skills in Childhood? Either way, it only matters if those skills are actively developed.

Is a child born with certain natural abilities at birth or is a child unconsciously nurtured by his parents to favor particular traits over others? From a 10,000 hours to talent perspective, the chicken-or-egg debate over this question is a moot point. Whatever small advantages a child is given or born with at birth, it will avail to nothing if those advantages are not actively nurtured. It is clear that early skills that are not developed and worked at, do in fact dissipate over time, at least to the point of not being of any advantage over someone else who later in life applies himself and learns the same skill from scratch. Yes, rejoice over any early skill your child has, but also work at it hard to increase its rewards.

Change the Name of Child’s Talent Over Time

Jonathan

Give a name to your twelve year old’s beginning talent. But don’t give a name yet to your child’s final talent destination, the one that will launch him into the world several years from now. Don’t give it a name yet, because you don’t and cannot know how his talent will evolve from its first 100 hours all the way through to its full 10,000 hours of development. Maybe his first talent name is “YoYo Entertainer” because he is able to delight his friends and relatives at gatherings and birthday parties with his YoYo tricks. But as he acquires other skills, his final talent destination may take him to a place where his talent title becomes “Physics Entertainer – teaching science online through the power of toys”.

Inspiring Words from Proverbs 31 for Daughters to Make Cash

Jonathan

Inspiring words below were excerpted from Proverbs 31 on the ideal virtuous woman. This will encourage your daughter to develop her talent in such a way that she can trade or make cash from it for her future household:

she is like merchant ships; she brings her food from afar…

she considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard…

she senses that her gain is good; her lamp does not go out at night.

she makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies belts to the tradesmen…

give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.