Happy Summer Olympics!
Pick any Olympic athlete, in any event, from any country and you’ll find family members who, without a doubt, believe in them. And the athletes know it. Listen to any interview long enough and you’ll hear them credit their success to support from their families.
It’s one of the best parts of the Olympics–and it readily applies to raising a gold medal writer.
You see, whether you are coaching a child who wants to become a famous author or coaching a child who struggles to put pen to paper, you can believe in your writer too. In fact, this Olympic-style family support is the secret to helping them succeed.
How to make this happen? It comes down to one thing. And it sounds so simple you might not believe us at first.
Here it is: Really believe they can do it.
That’s it. The rest will follow because the truth about writing is that everyone can become a good writer. Everyone. It takes effort of course, but writing is one of those things where practice pays off.
Knowing this truth makes believing in your young writer a lot easier, doesn’t it?
If writing isn’t something that comes naturally to your child, this knowledge gives you permission to take heart. It doesn’t have to come naturally. Just keep giving them opportunities to keep after it and it will come.
On the other hand, if writing is your child’s passion and they dream of becoming a famous author, the same idea applies. They can get there. Just keep giving them opportunities to keep after it. As author Krystin Crow once said at our summer writing camp, “The only difference between me and everyone else is I never gave up.”
In short, giving Olympic support to your writer means believing in them
And if you really believe in your heart of hearts that your child can do it, you will be right because this genuine belief isn’t something you can fake. And when it’s really there, your child will eventually latch onto it and make it their belief too.
And a page at a time, you’ll watch your writer get closer and closer to their own gold medal performance. Can’t wait to read it!
