Before You Speak, THINK.

Have you seen this picture floating around Pinterest? I absolutely hate this sign and get mad every time I see it, although I know that is not the intent of the message.

As a child I was smart enough to the answers to a lot of questions my teacher asked. But for fear of being wrong or sounding like a know-it-all, I rarely raised my hand. This continued through high school and college. I had teachers here and there who would encourage me to speak more in class, but those two same fears crept in my mind before I opened my mouth to answer a question.

In graduate school I worked for an amazing professor who was the first person to really help me get out of this self-defeating behavior. Everyone should feel confident enough to voice their opinion whether others agree or not! This professor always encouraged us to speak our “half-baked ideas” because someone else might be able to finish it. She is now a consultant that helps businesspeople start and carry out meaningful conversations in order to “get things done”.

Yes, I think children should be taught to talk kindly to others and speak the truth. However, I wholeheartedly disagree that everything a child says should be inspiring and necessary. What a boring world we would live in if we didn’t have the small conversations that led to inspiring and necessary ideas. In other words, maybe what you want to say isn’t inspiring or necessary to you or your teacher, but it could change the world for someone else or get them to think in a whole different way.

My point is: encourage your children to speak their mind, say hello to strangers, answer questions in class, and contribute to conversation. It will pay off in the end. Maybe they will turn out differently than me and be more comfortable in classrooms full of brilliant (and average) students or more comfortable at business networking functions.