Tag: blog

talent building and blogging

Start Your Child’s Blog with Posterous

Jonathan

https://posterous.com/

To start your child’s first blog today that takes just minutes to set up, I recommend using Posterous. Five of my children currently use Posterous because they can update it from phones, web browsers, and even by email. You can load just pictures too, which is very convenient for younger children when they want to show more than explain or discuss what they are doing. The blog will also allow you to have it titled with the right descriptive you want without having to yet buy a domain name. I recommend your child creates multiple blogs, one for each big skill he is developing as part of his talent.

How to Pitch Yourself to Next Level of Expertise

Jonathan
Use Physical Item to Help Walk Through Presentation
Use Physical Item to Help Walk Through Presentation

Is your child trying to pitch himself to the next level of expertise in a club or asking a group for an opportunity to exercise for them an aspect of his talent? I asked for advice from my friend Carl Miller, an expert on staging yourself in theater and an accomplished public speaker. Here are some tips I came away with:

  1. Have child create a portfolio of his accomplishments, whether of the physical items themselves, or of the photos of the work, or the paperwork.
  2. Give a presentation that sounds natural by simply talking and walking through the order of your portfolio.
  3. Pass around in the audience a physical item that represents your abilities and helps the audience follow the details you want to emphasize in your presentation.
  4. Finish the presentation with a direct appeal to what your child wants and with an attitude that, because of the portfolio of accomplishments, the request is a reasonable one to make of the audience.

 

Start Your Child Blogging Today with These Five Questions

Jonathan
Child 1
Gradually Flex Writing (Photo credit: Tony Trần)

Dovetail your child’s standard historical study with a blog post related to his developing talent as it was during that time period.

Start your child writing blog posts today with these five questions:

  1. Does the blog post focus on answering one basic question?
  2. Does it relate to his on-going focus in some way?
  3. Does it relate to the historical time-period he is studying?
  4. Is there a personal observation or interpretation?
  5. Is there something you can compare to that will help your reader understand what you are saying?

I gently ask those questions of my children every time they write and they gradually flex their writing accordingly. At this early stage, it is more important that they start writing something in their own words about their topic of interest then it is to delay because they don’t have an excellent writing style.