Observation and Appreciation

I am conscious of my limitations. One weakness is difficulty in, if not inability of, appreciating younger ones when they achieve their goals of performance. And children in family and in office would agree with this statement.

My belief is, if one achieves what one is expected to achieve, one should not expect appreciation. And this should apply to all younger ones too, whether at work or in family.

Of late I have tried to at least analyse why am I like that. My conclusion is I tend to set expectations which could be higher than normal. This invariably happens in relation to tasks I am proficient at performing. I am aware such subjective evaluation based on purely my yardstick may make me 'not a very welcome guest' in many groups.

Considering better late than never, I am developing habit to be appreciative of children's successful completion of tasks and at times failed attempts to achieve success.

I consider myself an observer and a learner, which is confirmed by Clifton's StrengthsFinder 2.0. I have been observing this young child, entering his teen and high school, currently having vacation, with working parents who get on with their respective jobs from relatively early morning (for vacation, very early morning) and remaining occupied till almost evening. This means the child is practically on his own, for five days a week. Fortunately for him, he is an Indian in a western world, having advantage of Indian values and western means.

I have been observing him for a couple of months now. They have recently moved into own house and getting acquainted with and setting up services. Do It Yourself (DIY) being the norm, family is in continuous state of discussing what all needs to be done. The younger one listens attentively. He interjects with suggestions and reminders but hardly audible.

His daily routine is highly predictable. He wakes up at leisure. But once up, he seems to be referring to a to-do list in his mind. He will mildly suggest "We have to..." and waits for response. I wonder how can a child be a motivator instead of needing to be motivated to do.. ?

In these two months I have seen him causing and completing removal of English Ivy creepers from over a huge area in their back yard, programming sprinkler system, repairing closet doors, locks and blind wands, scraping and painting garden swing, hanging large tv on wall, finding and helping buy required hardware and equipment, all hard manual jobs. He has taken on himself responsibility to ensure we get our dose of entertainment by switching on TV at regular show time and cricket broadcasts.

He attends his music classes, his extra credit subjects including personal health, does his daily exercise as taught in his study material, prepares for learning Spanish as Second language in school starting now and on his own created Internet of Things by connecting all smart appliances to his mother's phone.

I asked him how many equipment has he brought under remote control and which apps has he used. He sent me this list:

He has a couple of systems on his list and I believe he will complete them.

I wondered what is required to make such a child! And I recalled a profiling tool which helps in identifying top talent themes children are borne with. I suggested he takes Clifton's StrengthsExplorer, a tool developed by Gallop's psychologists for profiling young children and he did take. The analysis gave following summary:

While I have not observed evidences of the first one, I can vouch for the other two being his strengths used profusely.

I wish I had some of his talents. I also hope he builds on his strengths and grow up as a good, responsible human being.

PS: I wrote this sometime back and then it appears I did not post it here. I believe anytime is good time to confess, learn and grow