The genius in your family doesn't stop

Genius Bastille Paris

I’m going to make this quick. You may not be a genius, but you have genius in you. The same goes for your child. If you see the genius in them, don’t say a word about it. 

Let’s say your child is fascinated with numbers. They have an ability to do calculations that amazes you. They play with dice, marveling at the sums of the pips they calculate in successive rolls, one right after the next. They can count as quickly as you do, even quicker. Whether they are looking at the pips that turn up with every roll, or even if you ask them to think about different combinations. They don’t have to think about it. They just know. 

This is something different than counting. It’s in their body. 

 

I have a child like this. They have an uncanny ability to anticipate patterns that makes it near impossible for me to ever win at a simple game of rock-paper-scissors. Fast or slow, they win better than 4 out of 5 throws. It’s in their body. This is the same child who once said, “Bodies don’t last a long time. Bodies stop. Not like numbers, ‘cause numbers never stop.”       

 

Notice when someone in your family has an ability that is beyond the range of your experience. What do you do? Do you laugh? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you praise them and call them a genius, or a weirdo?

 

Recognize that when you call someone a name, whether in praise or blame, you introduce them to an experience of self-consciousness that may obscure the reality of who they are. We affect the way people think of themselves, and how comfortable they are with failure when we focus on what they can accomplish more than the efforts they are making to grow. 

 

Respond to your child’s efforts by describing what you see, and wondering about what they might do next. Focus on their efforts and persistence instead of what they accomplish. That way, if they encounter a situation that challenges them in ways they have not encountered before, they can continue to rely upon and strengthen their identity as a persistent person who tries and fails, and tries and fails again.

 

The genius in your family may seem like it is in someone’s body, but it is not of their body. Bodies stop. Bodies fail. The genius in your family is not in what a person accomplishes, but in the heart they have to keep going when things do not work out the way you, or they, or anyone might have expected things to happen.   

 

* GODSPEED stands for “Gather Only Data in Sync with the Purpose of Every Excellent Deed.”