Every Wednesday, I’ll post about multiple intelligences so we can better understand children and why they do what they do.
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Multiple intelligences. Multiple. Not one. Not even two. More than that. Three isn’t enough. Four or five? No. Six? Not enough. Seven? Not even seven. Eight – we have eight!
All of us are born with the capacity to develop eight different smarts. Not just one or two. Eight!
Then why is it that people seem to behave as if they have none? Seriously!? Am I alone in noticing this phenomenon?
Recently, I’ve seen:
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Adults in a doctor’s waiting room cough into their hands and put their hands right back on the arms of the chair they’re sitting in. It wasn’t smart.
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Children in that same doctor’s waiting room with no toys to play with. No book to read. Nothing to occupy their time. No adults appearing interested enough to read to them if they would have thought to bring a book. It wasn’t smart.
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Adults yelling at airline agents at their airport counters. Not only do these agents not control the weather, they can’t change it. It’s not their fault flights are delayed. They don’t deserve to be treated with such disrespect and anger. It wasn’t smart.
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Someone park in a parking spot clearly designated for a particular place of business and walk across the lot to a different business. He wasn’t hiding. No slinking for him. He couldn’t have missed the sign, but I don’t think he thought about it at all. Or did he, and not care? It wasn’t smart.
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Young people walking in a busy street. Not on the side. In the street. They weren’t paying close attention. It’s like they expected all of us to watch out for them so they didn’t have to worry about themselves. It wasn’t smart.
There’s more I could share. But, what have you noticed as you’ve been living life lately?
How are you reacting to my list? Are you thinking, “Those aren’t examples of a lack of intelligence. They demonstrate a lack of character.” It’s hard to separate the two, isn’t it? That’s why, at Celebrate Kids, we teach kids to be smart with their smarts. And, we explain that how children misbehave is a dependable way to determine how they are smart.
Our smarts show up – or they don’t – as we interact with others. We teach children to use their smarts to do good and not harm.
Let me suggest that each of my observations is a demonstration of either a lack of logic smart of the use of logic smart intentionally to do harm. Both are just sad. So unnecessary. Let’s prevent it when we can.
