I'm interested in how many of you are mentioning sports. My DD enjoys being active, but is not physically talented. I would say she is probably in the bottom 25% for athletic ability, though not delayed. Do any of your kids meet this description or anything near it, or are they talented physically?
I did. I was considered a hopeless clutz at home as a little boy, but my mom signed me up for football when I was 9. One of the benefits was I learned to stop thinking so much about every movement, just react and trust my body. When I did that, I found it doing things I never thought it could.
I wouldn't consider my soccer-playing DD7 to be gifted physically, because it's not like she has unusual speed, agility, or strength. But what she does have is a control ability well beyond her years... I've seen 5yos who were as likely to throw a ball behind themselves as they were to throw it in your direction, but she could reasonably throw a ball at me at one. At 18mos we'd kick a ball back and forth, and she had an arrow-straight kicking motion that I could never have coached her. Her ball came to me every time, but mine didn't always come straight to her, and she'd be annoyed.
These days she's playing soccer, while she has teammates who are more talented than she is, she demonstrates an ability to think strategically beyond anyone else on the field. She's the only one I've seen who can consistently spot an open player upfield and make a pass to a spot where her teammate can get to it and a defender can't.
All of this I interpret as her maximizing her physical gifts because of her mental ones.
