"The Edison Trait"

The Equuschick is currently reading the Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Nonconforming Child by Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D.

She is not actually further than page 51 so you cannot consider this by any means to be an extensive book review or a commendation without reservation. But you can consider this to be The Equuschick saying, yes she loves it. Yes, she identifies strongly.

‎"The convergent-thinking adult wants her (the Edison-trait child) to line up each horse, one by one. The child knows that by the time she has lined up the sixth horse, the first one is off again... The divergent-thinking child needs to try out her own ways to command the power of her thought. She needs to develop skills like hyperfocusing and multi-tasking. As she does, she learns to lead her team of wild horses. And she no longer has to fear that without her knowing it, they will lead her everywhere and nowhere at the same time."


From a passage entitled "A Chariot Drawn by Six Wild Horses," where the analogy for being an Edison-trait child is being a passenger in a chariot drawn by six wild horses. There's excitement, yes, and a feeling at the same time of great potential and powerlessness. You know you can go places, but you're afraid you'll never learn how to be anything but a confused passenger of your wild chariot.

The traditional rules given by adults ("Pay attention, sit still, just try harder," or The Equuschick's personal favorite "JUST THINK ABOUT IT!" etc.) don't work.

You have to be allowed to find a passion and experiment with it, making messy mistakes but persevering for the sake of your passion. And over time, the skills you are accumulating for the sake of the passion (multi-tasking and hyperfocus, etc.) become skills that can be applied to improve every other area of the very messy Edison trait child.

Actually, The Equuschick is of the opinion that this is good advice for every child and adult struggling with how to "do what you know."

Find one area, just any, where you can experience success. Accumulate those skills in an area you have a passion for, you will then accumulate both skills and confidence. Then, those skills can be transferred to other necessary areas of your life.

The passion may seem to be less significant and less necessary than other areas of a person's life, but it is the passion that becomes the springboard for the person lacking skills and confidence to move forward in every other area of life.

Let your children have a passion, please. And let it be of their own choosing.