There was a little girl who got into trouble because she was always restless in class. She would shake her legs, get up and walk around and could not keep still and pay attention for more than 5 minutes. The teacher called her mother in and told her there was something wrong with her daughter.
The mother took the girl to a doctor to see what was ‘wrong’ with her. During the consultation, he asked to speak to the mother privately, then he turned on the radio as they left the room. They watched as the little girl got up and danced.
The doctor said: “There is nothing wrong with your daughter. She is a dancer.”
Later, when the mother enrolled her daughter in a dance school, the little girl exclaimed: “Finally, people like me! They have to move to think.” The girl grew up to become Dame Gillian Lynne, a famous British Ballerina, Theatre Director and Choreographer of World Renowned musical ‘Cats’ and ‘Phantom of the Opera’.
Imagine if the mother and daughter had accepted the label that ‘something was wrong’ with her daughter, just because she did not fit into the ‘normal’ school system. She may have grown up thinking she was useless and would never have had the opportunity to realise her fullest potential and gifts.
This was the same thing that happened to me when I was a student. I was told by my teachers that I was a ‘daydreamer’, ‘underachiever’ and ‘weird’ for not following the rules and not being able to listen in class. It turned out that these ‘disabilities’ were actually gifts that allowed me to dream of huge goals and have the creativity to write books and make millions of dollars in business and the stock markets by ‘seeing things differently and breaking the normal rules’
So parents and teachers, always remember that each child is born with unique gifts and each child is destined to be amazingly successful… our job is to help them find it!
Thank you for sharing this great post.