The wisdom of children

A month or so ago I told you about Dave Scarlett’s tremendous Thinking Bench newsletter. What I particularly like about it is the fact that he sometimes writes about his daughter, Bryony, in order to illustrate his insights. I like it for two reasons. Firstly, I know how hard it can be to admit that we have a normal life outside our professional one. To write about your own child in a public way, even a newsletter, takes us out of our comfort zones. Secondly, we can learn more than we think from our children. They are an inspiration.

So, in this newsletter, I want to tell you about my boys, 11 year old, Josh and my 12 year old, Sam.

Last November, when I attended the UK Professional Speakers’ Association convention, I was lucky enough to hear Mollie Harvey talk about the power of the storyboard. She explained how by sticking her own head onto Carol Vorderman’s body and fixing into onto the fridge door she dropped a dress size. Then, when she wanted to find a way to afford to go to a conference in the US, she stuck up brightly coloured notes inside her car sun-visor, on a pinboard in the office and all over the place, which held a symbol that represented her desire to go on this trip. One said, simply £2000, another said the name of the city she wanted to visit, and so on. Before long, she found the money to go on that trip.

On the Sunday afternoon, when I came back from the PSA convention, I told my children about the storyboard and how it could make some dreams come true. Then we made our own. I found a large cork board and planted a pile of old magazines, coloured paper, felt tip pens, scissors and pins on the table. Dividing the board into four, I said we’d each have our own corner and that we could do whatever we wanted, make up any pictures, write any words or cut out any mad shapes we liked, to represent our dreams, however wild or wonderful. We called our board The Dream Board.

Sam is no sportsman, but he put a pair of running shoes on his quarter of the board. ‘To make me better at sport,’ he said. And he put on a picture of an electric guitar: ‘To make me better at the guitar.’ He cut out a sofa and drew a stick man, representing himself, on it to make him have ‘more time to rest after homework’. And then there was a shiny bed, some strawberries and various other things.

Josh cut out a huge picture of a rugby champion. ‘Because I want to be a rugby champion,’ he said. He drew a musical note with a smiley face in it ‘because I want to start being happy about practising my saxophone’. Then his face went all serious. He started hunting about in all the kitchen drawers. Soon he found a photo of himself with his mates, all pulling silly faces and put that in his section.
‘I want to be a better friend, too,’ he said.

Before long the board was crammed with photos, words and symbols.

A few weeks later, Josh was practising his sax three times a week – a vast improvement on his previous best of once under duress. He got into the A team for rugby. Things were hotting up. Josh’s bedside lamp had been broken for about six months. Ian had never got round to fixing it. I thought it was a boy’s job and ignored it.

‘If you don’t fix my light this weekend I’m putting it on The Dream Board,’ hurrumphed Josh. Ian fixed his light.

Then two weeks ago, Josh sat a scholarship examination for the school he wants to go to in September. We had told him that we would really like him to try to win a few awards to help us with the school fees, otherwise it was not certain he could go. He already had a picture of the school badge on The Dream Board, but he wanted more. He had a music scholarship coming up. One of his sax pieces was the Sinatra song ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me.’ One evening I found the entire book, open at that page, balanced on top of The Dream Board.

Josh won an academic and a music award.

Last year Sam came 70th in the school cross country competition, out of 80. On Friday he came 49th. What a score!

But just before I leave my children and their achievements courtesy of The Dream Board, I would like to share with you something else Josh did last month.

His school were putting on a production of Peter Pan and Josh wanted the part of Hook. So did all the other boys. Boys who had been taking Speech and Drama lessons for six years. Josh has not had an acting lesson in his life.

This is what he did:

Firstly, he cut out the words Peter and Pan and stuck them on The Dream Board.

Secondly, he believed he had a chance of getting the part (his mother was not so confident).

Thirdly, he not only learned his lines for the audition, he learned everybody’s lines.

Fourthly, he made his mother rehearse with him five times a day for a week.

Fifthly, he telephoned our babysitter, Lucinda, aged seventeen, who is doing Theatre Studies for A level and asked her to come round and coach him for an hour.

Sixthly, Josh learned to project his voice so well, that he was convinced he was the best ‘projector’ in the audition.

Seventhly, he did the audition and believed he had the part (I didn’t!)

In June, Josh will be Hook in the school play. Lucinda and I will be in the audience.

Lessons learned?
That I should have more faith in my child’s determination for one. But also that if you want something you have to believe you have a chance, you need to go the extra mile and be not just the best, but better than the best. I learned that you need a support team and most importantly, it pays to get a coach.

Jo Parfitt
Believe in blue sky