Page 9 – 10k to Talent – Discover and Develop Your Child's First 100 Hours of Talent

Visualize Part of Your Child’s Future Talent

For my daughter who is heading down more of an art-related path, I inspired myself by typing the following keywords in the Google search engine for images:

watercolor children’s illustrations fairy tale -anime

What you will see are hundreds of thumbnails of illustrations that have a watercolor art style and in the process of telling a story. Though she is not at that level of ability, those images are currently very reflective of how she communicates through art. Add and remove keywords until the search results start reflecting part of an ideal productive potential for your child; in my case I removed “anime” by typing a minus sign next to it. Note that my daughter will still need to add modern skills to her core art skill to be of market value to others.

No Longer Be Boring

Jonathan

Zanzibar Postage Stamp — Why choose a canned geography curriculum when you could use your grandfather’s stamp collection to study geography? Play up your family’s uniqueness and your child will no longer be boring (Photo credit: write99)

If you live in a little community by the river, why do you drive into the city to take a basketball camp instead of enjoying a water-rat lifestyle? If the elderly grandfather who lives with you has an amazing international collection of postage stamps that he has collected over a lifetime, why are you insisting on discarding it in favor of buying a curriculum package for geography that has no emotional connection to your family? I would rather get to know your child who hikes and builds forts regularly along the edges of the river and the child who tells me about the changing world through his grandfather’s stamps, than spend any five minutes talking to a child who has followed the canned educational life. So stop trying to downplay your family’s uniqueness and instead play them up into your child’s life and into the construction of an interesting talent.

The Courage to Make Decisions

Jonathan

Runner on Blue Trail — The growing ability to make his own way, to be decisive, is an enormous side-benefit to the child who is talent focused (Photo credit: Montgomery County Planning Commission)

There is at first only a subtle difference in evidence between the talent-driven child and the traditional curriculum-driven child with regards to that strength of character known as decisiveness. Parents tend to overlook that difference at first as simply a quirk in personalities and only see that both are otherwise hard-working. But then that trait of decisiveness starts compounding daily and yearly into such amazing strength that it clearly sorts the children between decision-makers and those that wait for work instructions. That character of decisiveness will manifest itself as:

the ability to make priorities
the ability to be swift to commit to a different course of action when needed
the ability to recognize the emotional and physical dangers in a specific field of human talent
the ability to act in a comprehensive way that earns respect from others
the ability to communicate with others in the language of ownership and responsibility
the courage to make decisions in the face of incomplete knowledge.

Don’t Apologize

Jonathan

English: Panhandler in Oceanside, California. — Don’t let your child be a panhandler for compliments. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Train your child not to apologize for what is not his responsibility because it wears down on the goodwill of your child’s admirers. An example is “I’m sorry I don’t have a stronger voice like this other famous singer, but I will still sing for you this song I’m practicing.” False apologies make your child come across as someone who is fishing for compliments and sympathy when such feedback is not yet owed to him. If in the course of documenting through video an aspect of your child’s performance, there is a slightly embarrassing part that your child did or said (such as having forgotten to take care of a distracting tuck of the shirt), but feel the rest of the content is still worthy, then it’s okay to apologize. Your child apologizing for not having rich enough parents to buy even bigger or better tools for his talent is not okay, because it is not his responsibility or his fault.

My New Project is Coming

Jonathan

My new project is a detailed e-guide on how your child can blog to demonstrate and document the progress in his talent.

Name Ten Things to Learn to Do

Jonathan

What are ten things your child could learn to do in the following year that would demonstrate to an expert that your child is serious about his talent? If you can name those ten things, you will be able to identify the next actions your child need to take to make them happen. Instead of randomly engaging in one or another task, your child will be able to pave the way to connecting with more advanced individuals in his field. To help you find out what those ten things would be in your field of talent, start asking the experts directly. And a very good place to find willing experts to respond to such questions would be in dedicated self-help Internet forums.

Does Your Child Have a Tag Line for his Talent?

Jonathan

As your child progresses in developing a talent, you can discover more actions he can take by creating a tag line for his talent, just like a business does for the service it provides. A tag line is a summary phrase that is catchy enough to be easily remembered by others and unique enough to describe some specific value being brought to others. So for example, a son with a growing baking and cooking talent, may grow a tag line that reads “baking Asian cuisine for California-fresh palates”. This tag line would help others resonate with him in his aspirations and would create a natural list of next actions that your child should undertake in order to become much better. Who would you think is more likely to be acting on his talent on a daily basis: a child who states that his interest is baking in general or a child that says he is trying to become better today at baking Asian dishes to please American tastes?

Passwords Your Child Can Remember

Jonathan

How to create passwords that both you and your child can remember:

First, create a memorable phrase that has at least seven words:

“apple pie for breakfast and dinner”

Second, string the first letters of each word in that phrase together and add a digit of your choosing to the end of it:

“apfbad2”

You know have the root of your password that your child will be using for each login.

Third, when you are ready to create a new account and password, simply remember your root password and add onto the end of it the first letter of the website’s name. So for example, if you were create a gmail account on the website for google.com, your password would then become:

“apfbad2g”

Jump In Already!

Jonathan

Do you jump in like an exploding bomb or do you prefer to gingerly work your way in to the cool, refreshing water of the swimming pool? Really, it doesn’t matter what your style of entry is. But enter your child, you must, into a life of refreshing change that builds talent early in his life. You can go all-in by giving everything over to talent building first and then figure out later how you can accommodate the more traditional school obligations. Or you can start by changing just the first hour of your child’s school day so that it incorporates some talent building and then gradually work your way up to changing the rest of the hours over to some more talent building.

Grow Your Child’s Talent Like You Hike a Forest Trail

Jonathan

Growing your child’s talent to 10,000 hours of world-class talent is akin to hiking forest trails. At many bifurcation points along the trail you will have to make decisions as to whether to continue to the left or to the right. Some side-paths will only be visible and available to your child because of his unique position in time, place, and in his network of relationships with others. Some clearly marked trails will be overcrowded with lots of other traditional students: noisy and impossible to get around to the front of the crowds blocking your child’s way. In the same way, you should encourage your child to keep moving forward, but to jump onto different side-paths as he sees opportunities that will take him around obstacles and onto unique and less crowded learning paths.

Cycle Up on Your Talent in 13 Weeks

Jonathan

Books — A method for mastering the book knowledge of any subject in 13 weeks, via Levi at NeoLibre.org (Photo credit: henry…)

I love practical tips on how to master an aspect of one’s talent, that is if it can be implemented by your child today instead of years later in college. That’s why I like librarything.com as a way to find books today related to your child’s talent interest and my son Caleb (13) is currently using it to collect his own specialized library. But this tip from Levi at www.NeoLibre.org takes the book approach for building up talent one step further. Check out his cyclic approach to finding and reading the most relevant books in your field in a systematic fashion, all-the-while gaining speed and traction. It’s a cyclic reading method for mastering the written knowledge of any topic in 13 weeks – all it needs now is a catchy name for the method.

Stop Without Deleting your iPhone Apps

Jonathan

Stop those iPhone apps from using computer power, without having to delete them. www.thewiredhomeschool.com

Do you know how to shut down your iPhone apps without deleting them? I’m embarrassed to say, I did not until My Man Tech Friday revealed the tip to me on his podcast. Check out how to do it on John blog post: http://www.thewiredhomeschool.com/2013/06/best-tips-to-speed-up-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod/ I don’t mind having all sorts of play apps with ponies and cute animals for the younger children, in part because they make great rewards that don’t cost me a dime in chore money. But the apps do tend to proliferate and overcrowd the iPhone. Those I don’t delete, I can now just shut down their use of computing power until they are actually being used.

Follow TheWiredHomeschool.com for Useful Computer Tips

Jonathan

Your child must learn how to engage and dominate his field of talent with modern tools in order to speed up his talent growth – and that also means engaging with all the various tools connected to the Internet. Yes, just as your child could use the car for nefarious activities, he could use the Internet for evil. But if you are training your child’s character, you, as the parent, can and do teach your child how to use the car properly to greatly increase his opportunities for good, all-the-while driving defensively. In the same way, you can teach your child to use the Internet to greatly improve his life and his talent. This is where I recommend you follow John, from www.thewiredhomeschool.com for down-to-earth practical advice on how to manage the computer devices in your home – and to keep you looking more hipster than your kids.

Blog with Emotion to Open Doors

Jonathan

Door — How do you get the expert to open his door to your child? Hint: the answer is in blogging (Photo credit: Klearchos Kapoutsis)

At some level of his growth, your child will want to interact more with experts in his field of talent. The problem he can run into is that experts don’t have time to open the door to gawkers and will only tolerate those who are just as seriously committed as they are. How does your child show is he part of the committed ones? He shows it by documenting his performance, over time, through a blog that others can easily check. He also does it by writing in that blog with emotion and inquisitive engagement, and not just facts – that is how he will open up those doors.

Reverting to Average

Jonathan

English: Young soccer team (Union Geretsberg).... — Swallow away your child’s time into overcrowded skillsets until his real talent potential disappears. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reverting to average is a real danger that can happen to children that show beginning signs of real talent growth. What is the cause of this reversion to average? It is caused by putting a child into programs, educational or otherwise, that are already crowded with thousands of other participants, where the programs are designed to produce in them copycat skill sets. This can be done putting your pre-teen budding engineer into an after-school soccer team year after year or by putting your art-serious daughter through the same history classes as all the other top-heavy verbal children. End result after 2 to 3 years will be children who are just average in whatever they do. They will have lost that critical formation time over to human activities that will have no room for them in their future adult lives. Root cause: parental peer-pressure driving us to want so much to look like our neighbors that we can’t see our children being swallowed up into mediocrity.

Too Early for Talent? Interview

Jonathan

English: Playing the game RISK Español: Jugand... — I don’t wait for my young son to stumble into talent on his own, I work with him to aggressively seize some opportunities while dropping others. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is it too early for the talent discovery process with a child who is not yet 12? Check out this interview I did with Wardee Harmon from GNOWFGLINS regarding my 9 year old son Gideon and his beginning talent. Notice how young Gideon is not on his own, wandering the hallways of a library or dumped off at group sports in order to stumble into something that he can call his own. No, his talent development depends on me, his parent, and depends on a number of opportunities that we decide to cultivate or not to cultivate. I am not my son’s passive guardian, but an active planner with him.

The Lion Must Be Fed

Jonathan

What happens when your child finds a talent that he can be passionate about? What happens when you as a parent use your years of experience as an advantage to guide a passion toward being relevant to other people or the marketplace? What you have is a lion that will keep growing in all its splendor and at times, in all its passionate fierceness. On the one hand, many teenagers are couch potatoes with a seemingly bottomless pit of self-loathing and indecision. But then, in some children, a lion is finally awakened and the time of nursing and nurturing is over. Enter Dad, the natural lion tamer in the family.

Wedding Rhyme Strategy for Joy Miller’s Fivejs.com

Jonathan

Joy Miller, author of the homeschooling website fivejs.com website, did the crisp graphic design and layout for my ebook workshop “How to Discover and Develop Your Child’s First 100 Hours of Talent.” Because of our conversations on this interesting topic of talent development, she asked me to do a guest post for her personal blog. I happily agreed and here’s what I came up with: “How to Build Talent in Your Child: A Wedding Rhyme Strategy.” Check out the graphics she did for that post too! This is the take-away I wanted parents to get: yes, develop a traditional talent, but make sure your child finds a way to weave with a few other skills to make a real, modern, and valuable talent.

Here in a pretty little 17th century wedding rhyme, I give to you a simple strategy for talent building:

Something Old

Something New

Something Borrowed

Something Blue

Meet SwordQuencher and ScarabCoder

Jonathan

Drop Hammer — “DropHammer” would be another good nickname for a child with a talent related to modern blade smithing (Photo credit: TheGoldGod)

There is a great opportunity for children on the Internet to create nicknames to reflect their talent focus. This gives them some status and allows others to easily find them online in the context of their talent. Instead of creating a user name like “BigJohn” or “John1235” which sounds like a child who still needs to find a focus, how about creating a user name that helps your child fit into the little online communities of people who have his same talent focus? Try instead “SwordQuencher” for a young knife maker who knows that you have to quench blades to harden them properly. Try for example “ScarabCoder” for a young programmer who learns by re-using small bits of code from other more experienced programmers – just like the scarab insect re-uses discards for his own purpose.

One Year’s Worth of Talent Essays

Jonathan

Caleb (13) blogging his 181st post related to ... — Caleb (13) blogging his 191st post related to his talent #unstoppable #10ktotalent #homeschool via Instagram 10ktotalent

Do you have a goal for how often you want your child to practice writing about his talent? It’s not good if your child is currently writing ten little essays or articles on any number of random topics for every one article on his chosen long-term talent. Instead of writing about such things as his latest vacation or a description of his team’s last winning baseball game, what if every one of those essays were replaced by an article describing an activity or principle of his talent? You can continue having your child practice all sorts of writing methods to satisfy outside requirements, but you can apply those methods in the context of your child’s talent. If you re-orient his writing focus, now how many essays do you think he could write up on his talent in one year’s time?