Thursday, October 16, 2008

Quick before they kill it off

My 14 year old nephew is spending half term writing songs, so he told me on IM (which he and his mates call MSN) yesterday.

I was preparing for a quarterly client review when he fired up the chat, so my instincts were to pour water on it as quickly as possible. Until I remembered a good piece of advice: Praise a child.

It hoovered up some time, but it was worth it. He pasted some lyrics into the IM window - pretty typical teenage stuff - highly emotive, raw-sensitive, and longing for acceptance. Over and over he said they were 'rubbish', but I stuck with my praise, saying I was really proud that he was being so creative and using his imagination. Then he pushed me on specific feedback. Eek.

So I stuck with it. I went back through them and applauded him on making them emotional and sensitive, for using very visual metaphor ('closing of a door' on his advances to a girl) and for being honest about his feelings. He loved the feedback.

Taking it on a step, I gave him some ideas of how to build momentum for his new interest, based on some of the techniques I'm rolling out at the office. I suggested that he get his favourite songs and try and write some of his own stories on top of the lyrics, replacing them but fitting in with the structure and meter. Again, he soaked it up. I suspect that he'll adopt far quicker than office-bound adults.

He's at an age when he's already been exposed to 9 years of beating the imagination out of him at school - of thinking vertically and logically. This is exactly the problem we all suffer from in a world that demands more and more ideas, but which is built on structures desigend to stamp out creative thinking. So encouraging my newphew to engage his imagination isn't just spiritually rewarding for me, it's critical for him. As such contests like rubberband are great, but show how corporations are beginning to value children's imaginations highly.

I've been thinking a lot about kindness right now, and this praising a kid thing not only ties into that, but also helps you feel more positive according to Lynda Field, which is useful at times of stress, like this month.

Also, however, my Spidey-sense is tingling with 'kindness' and 'optimism' a lot right now, and both seem like happy bedfellows. From the William James quote in the sidebar in this article (I know it's the Mail, was the in-laws copy, not mine, honest) to this World Changing article about 'active optimism' to even lovely ad agency, W + K's blog 'Welcome to Optimism'. Last night I had a dream that I was in a nightclub during the day with W+K's creative team making things with millions of Lego bricks - it seems I can't even hide from the glass half full approach even in sleep.

Feels ironic, given that the news is reaching a strange kind of zenith of pessimism, to sense that optimism is about to become a driving force in the world. Maybe it's change in the air. And change can be good, but only if we make it that way.

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