Do our teens need to be ‘good’ at something to do it?

A few weeks ago it was this one, and it led me to pose the question….Do our pre-teens and teens have to be ‘good’ at something to do it?

”I have been raised in such an achievement orientated environment, so inundated with the myth of ‘Talent’, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘Win’ at them.” Kurt Vonnegut

It was one sentence which really really resonated to me, and provided an explanation as to why our children may easily give up on things.

When they go through school, a results driven world of doing the ‘best’, getting selected and awards, it’s easy to see how our children are conditioned that achievements are measured by results. School often teaches us that we have to be good at things and the aim is always to get better, and possibly excel.

But….

What if we gave our young people the opportunity to experience and build on a skill set which wasn’t focused on ‘talent’ but just to do something because we enjoy it, not because we are striving to develop a talent, skill or get better at it.

As adults we may have the freedom and flexibility to explore different things and do them ‘just because’. An example of mine was when I started running in my 30’s. Initially I was focused on training for an event to raise money for charity, but a few events in realised I hated being in big events with lots of runners and was much happier pottering around the roads around my home, on my own just using running as a skill to help me manage my everyday life.

So what if the point of doing things is not to be good at them, but the point is that over our lives we build up a plethora of experiences. I think the message this would give to our young people would be immensely positive, ‘draw if you want to draw’, ‘write if you want to write’, ‘run if you want to run’.

I wonder if this would help our young people to become more confident in their choices?

Food for thought….