How a tiny genius can change your life
The brilliance of children and why we’re missing out
If you have kids, you know what noise is. You hear it all day… every day.
That incessant chatter sometimes bothers me to the point where I totally block it out. Not because the noise itself is annoying, but because I think I’m above listening to what seems on the surface to be nonsensical ramblings.
Much like an iceberg, the view from the surface is deceiving. Children are a nearly bottomless pit of innovation, creativity and passion. Kids are the most brilliant people on the planet.
As adults, we have our methods and systems for doing everything from paying bills to brushing our teeth. Many of which we’ve used for years. Kids don’t have those same thoughtless routines (assuming we haven’t already forced our methods on them). They have fresh takes on how to do everything. The key is to decide if you are willing to (a) listen and (b) admit that your child may be smarter than you.
I have 7 years of college/post-graduate schooling tucked firmly under my belt and it doesn’t hold a candle to the things my children can teach me in an hour when I’m willing to keep my mouth shut and listen.
When it comes to “knowledge”, of course I’m better at math and computer programming than them. But genius isn’t something that you learn out of a text book. Given enough time, anyone could learn math as well as (or better) than I have. But genius, the kind of genius that children possess, can’t be taught in a classroom.
The genius of children comes from lack of boundaries and freedom from limited thinking.
Once your mind becomes constrained by experience and failure it’s hard to get back to limitless thinking.
The simplest way to get back there may be to surround yourself with people that have mastered thought without constraints. That’s why I’m going to shut up and listen to my kids tonight. Forget about being the teacher. There is plenty of time for that. Tonight I’m going to be the student.
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