What ever happened to the acceptance that we can be average at some things?
We have somehow become a society that teaches our children that if we aren’t in the top 5%, we need to work even harder or move on and find something else to do – that we are great at. It is an all or nothing mentality that leaves our children over-scheduled and spread too thin, and us driving them (literally) to every class and lesson in the pursuit of perfection. We need a little more room for average in our lives.
When I see my children struggle to decide which activities to do, how much time to dedicate to them, and how much pressure will be placed on them to be amazing, I long for days when being mediocre in some things was considered OK. I’ve never met anyone who was perfectly amazing at everything, but I have met plenty of people who were frustrated and depressed, trying to achieve perfection around every corner. I wonder how their lives would be different if instead of obsession with perfection of everything they were able to find joy and excitement (and some extreme greatness) for their passions in life.
I can sew. I’ve made some quilts, Halloween costumes for the kids, pillows for the living room, and repairs to various garments for the family. I even got an Award of Merit when I was 9 for a green corduroy skirt I entered in the county fair. But I am not a great seamstress. I also don’t have a burning desire to join a quilting guild and become one. Yet still, I like to sew. I guess I’m average at sewing, and that works for me. The question is: Do we teach our children that average is OK sometimes, or do we push for perfection in everything they do?
From the day our children are born, they have potential. As parents we see our sons throw their sippy cups across a room and we are ready to sign them up for the Major Leagues. We see their potential. What we fail to see sometimes are the differences between potential and passion, and how to balance the two.
Potential is the possibility of success. The more potential we have, the closer we can be to success. Our children can have true potential in many areas, but that doesn’t mean that they have the passion for or the interests in pursuing those.
Passion is the strong enthusiasm for a particular activity or idea. Again, our children can have many and varied passions. Sometimes they have passions and lack the potential, while other times the passion drives the child enough to create success where minimal potential once appeared.
The danger of potential is when we or others around our children see the potential our kids have and decide for them that there should be a pursuit. A baseball coach says, “Hey – you’ve got a great arm. Join our travelling team and come to these extra sessions every day.” Or maybe you think your child could be a superior violinist, so you sign him up for extra lessons. While these are fabulous ways to motivate and support children, the danger is when their coaches or we as parents do this and fail to ask – Do you want to do this with your time? Are you passionate about this activity and want to devote the extra time and energy it will take to pursue this at a higher level? Giving our children tools to succeed is invaluable, but pushing them to perfection along the routes we have chosen is disrespectful of their own interests and goals.
Our kids have school, homework, responsibilities at home, church, and in the community. Then there are sports, music lessons, and specialty courses and classes to choose from, through their schools, community education, and private instructors. They have all of these choices and they still only have 24 hours in a day. They need the freedom to choose which activities to try, to stick with, to leave by the wayside, or become a central part of their lives. Not every activity has to be a priority.
More importantly, they need the freedom to be average. They need to know that it is OK to have interests and find ways to incorporate those into their lives without having significant goals for those activities. Imagine your life right now – do you only do what you are perfect at doing? Maybe you can cook a great meal on Friday nights, but don’t want to attend culinary school. Life is full of things that we can do without having to perfect them.
Give your child room to decide which directions in life create excitement and enthusiasm for him, and let him pursue those with great passion. Find those superior teachers for him, get him to the best lessons, and support him on his journey. But let him be average along the way, too, with other interests that might just spark a flame, but not burn down the building. Average is the balancing point between those amazing moments when your child feels like she can conquer the world and the times when she feels like she just let down the world. The world is too much pressure – just let her be average at some things!
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