They Are Not Dispersed, They Are Multipotential

Our society values ​​in a very positive way people who have a well-defined interest, a single life objective on which they focus to develop it to the fullest.

Multipotential children: talent under pressure

Since we are little, at school, children who concentrate on their homework without getting lost are rewarded, while those who do not faithfully follow the teacher’s instructions or jump from one activity to another are punished and labeled as hyperactive.

Pressure at school

On many occasions, even to make them stop their activity and become more like other children, they are even drugged with amphetamines, “for their own good” they are told.

It is paradoxical, but many of these children who are negatively considered and marked as “scattered”, may have a different intelligence, faster and more creative than that of their peers.

Although they do not meet the prototype of the brain child or know-it-all girl who gets good grades, these little ones, who do not focus on a single area of ​​knowledge and who go from one hobby to another or even alternate several interests simultaneously, are part of a subgroup within the wide range of High Abilities, that of the so-called multipotential children.

Pressure during adolescence

When these children reach adolescence, in their studies it is very difficult for them to choose a single area of ​​knowledge.

They are not either science or letters, they are at the same time science and letters, so they greatly enjoy subjects as (apparently) disparate from each other such as physics or literature, philosophy or mathematics, sports or plastic.

Pressure at the university

Later, already in university, to the despair of their families, some of them leave their studies half finished and enroll in another totally different career that, at that time, stimulates them much more than the first choice they made.

Throughout their lives, these multipotential people suffer enormously as due to their inquisitive and restless (active) nature they are branded as scattered, lazy and inconsistent.

Many of them spend their childhood under pressure from their parents and teachers, who predict a dark future for them if they do not focus on developing a normal profession like that of the other classmates.

Lucia’s case

Lucia was one of these girls who showed multiple interests throughout her childhood. As a child, in the afternoons, she went to music classes, practiced athletics, spent hours looking at the plants and insects in the garden and also liked reading very much, devouring one after another all the books that fell into her hands.

However, instead of being valued and supported at home, her parents spent their days pressuring her and comparing her to her sisters, in their view, much more successful and focused on studies. “Who covers a lot little squeezes” or “you throw everything and you hit nothing”, they used to say disparagingly.

But she continued with her multiple interests, she really enjoyed her hobbies and managed to be very good in each of the aspects that she worked. She had times when she became interested in photography or cooking, showing herself to be very original and creative in all the activities she undertook.

Lucia never completely abandoned her hobbies, but when she felt that she had fully squeezed one subject, she left it on the shelf to move on to another and continue learning. However, despite the fact that he never stopped studying and researching, his family continued to reproach him for not focusing and continuing to “peck” everywhere.

Self-esteem in free fall

Due to the immense pressure they receive from childhood, many multipotential people end up being convinced that their (supposed) dispersion shows that they suffer a very serious problem. Their self-esteem is seriously damaged and some reach the point of wishing they could be like others.

However, try as they may, they cannot go against their nature and prevent their brain from jumping from one interest to another, from one idea to another. Sometimes, they end up falling into a deep depression or suffering an anxiety attack because they look different and think they are less capable than the rest of the world.

How to support them

When these people come to my practice, my support is helping them get to know each other in depth, including understanding how their brain works.

Free yourself from conditioning

Once they free themselves from the shortcomings and conditioning of their past and stop thinking that they are the ones who have a problem, they can find the advantages of being multipotential.

His thinking is not linear, but arborescent.

They do not link one idea with another consecutively, but an idea can suggest several ideas simultaneously and, in turn, each of these new thoughts branches into many others, being able to become, as I mentioned previously, very original .

Combine knowledge

Their particular brain and all the experiences and learning from so many different areas that they accumulate throughout their lives, makes these people very innovative and creative. They, combining their different knowledge, find new solutions, create new inventions, join disparate fields and reach conclusions that no one had previously reached.

As we can suspect, they will never be people who are comfortable in an office mechanic job, but when they manage to reconcile with themselves and free themselves from all the negative messages they received in their past, they begin to combine their knowledge and usually start their own business.

Dare to explore

We would have to value multipotential people much more and not hold back children neither at school, nor when they choose which extracurricular activities they want to try.

Let them explore and investigate.

Children are always learning and we do not know in what original way they will combine these learnings in the future. In fact, the great creative people, regardless of the area in which they develop their work (art, cooking, engineering, etc.) are the ones who collect information from different places and combine it to create something new.

So are geniuses

Picasso, for example, would never have painted the Young Ladies of Avignon if he had not been interested in the art of African masks, Romanesque art or even Cycladic art. This innovative work by Picasso represented a before and after in the history of art, surpassed the past and opened the doors of the future.