Well Done-How To Raise A Genius

This is what a genius looks like. This is Thomas Edison who holds the world record for patents at 1,098 recorded patents. His major contributions include, but are not limited to, the phonograph, the microphone, the first commercial power station, the first industrial research laboratory, an electric railroad, key elements of motion picture apparatus, and of course, the lightbulb. But his genius wasn’t always so obvious.

Here is the rest of his story:
One day as a small child Edison came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. He explained to her that his teacher had given him the paper and told him only she was to read it. He then asked her what it said. Her eyes apparently welled with tears as she read the paper aloud to him, “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and does not have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself.” And his mother did just that. She taught him at home until she became ill and passed away.

Many years later, after his mother had died, as we know he became one of the greatest and most celebrated inventors of the century. One day, many years after her death, he went through his mother’s things and found the letter his teacher had written to her so many years earlier. He opened it and read it for himself. It said: “Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.”

Edison became emotional reading what that the letter had actually said and later wrote in his diary: “Thomas A. Edison was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the century.”

What we believe of ourselves, what our children believe about themselves, can make the world of difference. As the result of a mother who refused to label her son as mentally deficient and thereby discard his future, the world was wonderfully gifted with so many inventions we all enjoy and use everyday without realizing how they came about. One of Edison’s colleagues once noted, “Edison never questioned whether something might be done, only how.”

May we all be more like Thomas Edison’s mother. May we see more than what appears to be in front of us and see what could be. May we be encouragers of our children and each other. And to Mrs. Edison we say, “WELL DONE and thank you!”