Supriya's Attention-span

Lately I've been impressed by Supriya's attention-span. She has been working on her hand-stands incessantly. It felt like any time I saw her she would be trying out her hand-stands. And of course she mastered it and now can do it against a wall on demand.

Then there was drumming. As I wrote before, we'd have Billy Joel's Greatest Hits playing in the van and she would be drumming away. She kept at it nonstop and has now mastered the beat. It was a little trying on my ears on a few occasions, but my principles kept me from telling her to stop! She was learning something great out of her own volition - who was I to interfere? She has really come a long way over just the last month or so. Manisha and I are seriously thinking of getting her a drumset for her birthday in April.

I have observed the same thing in many different activities (computer games, jigsaw puzzles etc.). When she is engrossed in something that is challenging, she is in Flow and she can be at it for hours. And I consider it my solemn duty to protect & encourage such activities, for it is through them that she is growing up and realizing her potential. I guess one could call the attention-span for a particular activity a "co-incident indicator" since it signals some underlying core strength/weakness.