There is also room for practicing the art of stealth, or social prudence, in your child’s talent development. By stealth, I mean avoid putting on display your child’s awkward and early attempts at mastering his talent and do not invite the admiration of friends and relatives. Many well-meaning friends and relatives have the popular, but false view, that any talent worth pursuing must spring full-blown out of your child’s first training of his art or science and, if it doesn’t, you should not pursue it all. This negativity could potentially discourage your child (and you) at too early a stage when you are still mapping out the big talent plan for your child’s life. So word to the wise: until the time is ripe, practice the art of stealth.
That is great advise. We tailor what we say to different relatives. Some relatives are very encouraging, while others are very critical. So we wait until we are strong in ourselves about a subject before presenting anything to the critical or judgmental relatives. We show our encouraging relatives right away to help build up our strength of conviction. In the long run they both help. Just that in the beginning like you said. Some people can be to unforgiving or critical. Those same people are great when you want to fine tune something.