What to do with natural talent
What to do with natural talent
Today's question: how can I tell if my kid is coasting on natural talent or if they're genuinely being challenged? Such a good one. Let's talk about it.
Matt Thompson, Raising a Warrior.
We're talking about the whole idea of how can I tell if my kid is just naturally athletic. It happens.
Earlier today, I was teaching my Little Dragons class. Kids like seven and under. I got a bunch of kids in there. Two of them, it's their first day. One little boy is on the spectrum. He's just smiling, having a great time. And the dad's looking at me going, is this okay? I'm like, your autistic kid is beaming right now. I think we're great. What he's doing is great. His little sister's running around. She's doing great.
And I got this one kid. Cool parents, cool kid. He's crazy tall for his age. And as I say it once, this kid just does it. Boom. Hey, can you learn to do back falls? Kid, bam. Pop up. Did I do a good job? I'm like, kid, you're killing it, man. Keep moving.
We do a little obstacle course some days. One area is dancing. He just gets there and he's getting down. Starts kicking the target. I'm like, this kid's awesome. He's not working hard. He's just having a ball. At that age, it's fine. Don't care. Doesn't matter.
When they clear seven — and when I say seven, it's a developmental thing, it depends on the kid — then yeah.
First off, if you're not sure if they're doing it because they're just talented. Do you have any special talents?
Again, just like when we talk about kids, a kid on the spectrum, let's say. They're going to have other obstacles. And so when they're doing the process — that's the perform, assess, theorize, drill, and then repeat — what their goals are going to be is going to be very different.
If I have a kid who has something that's in the way of their learning, some kind of a disability, let's say. Then maybe their goal is, can I sit here and pay attention in this uncomfortable uniform to what this dude's telling me to do and execute it. That might be enough. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?