But what makes a truly educational support system for a child? Yes, they need positive reinforcement, encouragement, and plenty of praise. But they also need a safe place to fail, accept disappointments and persevere through setbacks. Doing so will not only honor and value their ideas (both successful and unsuccessful) but will encourage critical, creative and reflective thinking.
Below are just a few examples of remarkable achievements by children. Although you may feel as though some of these are extreme cases--I can hear the communal sigh from here: "Ah...my kid builds mashed potato mountains with her peas and sings into a Magic marker. I don't see a CEO there." To which I say, how do you know? Resist the temptation to build a glass ceiling over that mountain (or Magic marker). Perhaps you're raising a budding cartographer or an audio engineer....
And then...
Three years later: Thomas is 15 years old in this interview.
Feeling the fear and doing it anyway...
Ok. This next one was from a long time ago. But it just illustrates my point. Kids are ALWAYS great thinkers. When they lived makes no difference.
Composed by Amadeus Mozart at age 5.
And lastly...although the video below is a commercial for GE, I felt that its message was the perfect ending to this post.
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