How Do You Perceive Your Child?

Different skills are needed for different situations. The concept of time can be radically different for some people. A farmer has to consider soil preparation and planting knowing full well a crop will not appear for at least weeks or months. Decades ago as a hunter, you had to act quickly as you were probably looking for your next meal. There were no refrigerators or freezers so it made no sense to stockpile dead animals. The hunters concept of time was very different from that of the farmer. One wasn't "right" and the other "wrong" . . . they were different. And each was right in its own way.

Truly, you can do well even if you're a "hunter in a farmer's world". What a terribly dull place this would be if we were all clones of each other. But the farmers around us may not see the benefits of being a hunter or vice versa.

Thom read the following to illustrate this point:

Can you guess the identity of the recipient of these two letters from Mom and Dad? The first is from Mom when the son was 16 years old:

"Your work is an insult to your intelligence! If you would only trace out a plan of action for yourself and carry it out and be determined to do so, I am sure you could accomplish anything you wished. It is that thoughtlessness of yours which is your greatest enemy."

And from his Father, when he was 19 and had just graduated from military academy:

"There are two ways of winning in an examination, one creditable; the other the reverse. You have unfortunately chosen the latter method, and appear to be much pleased with your success."

"The first extremely discreditable feature of your performance was missing the infantry, for in that failure you demonstrated beyond refutation your slovenly happy-go-lucky harem scarem style of work for which you have always been distinguished at your different schools."

"With all the advantages you had, with all the abilities which you foolishly think yourself to possess and which some of your relations claim for you, with all the efforts that have been made to make your life easy and agreeable and your work neither oppressive or distasteful, this is the grand result that you come up among the 2nd rate and 3rd rate class who are only good for commissions in a cavalry regiment?"

"I am certain that if you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle useless unprofitable life you have had during your schooldays and later months, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of the public school failures, and you will degenerate into a shabby and futile existence. If that is so you will have to bear all the blame for such misfortunes yourself."

Ed Note: Fortunately this individual didn't consider himself a failure and give up trying. These letter writers were the parents of Sir Winston Churchill as exerpted from Churchill: A Photographic Portrait by Gilbert, Published by Wings Books.