Some people can discourage. Probably most of us. It is not difficult. Especially where there is clear evidence of a lack of anything to encourage. But normally mothers are different. They can “see” and “believe” things that nobody else can.
There are only a few things that are more important that will change a child’s life, than encouragement and praise. And it is not only mothers that can do it.
I got this story in the book How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.
Many years ago a boy of ten worked was working a factory in Naples. He longed to be a singer. But his first teacher discouraged him. “You can’t sing,” he said. “You haven’t any voice at all. It sounds like the wind in the shutters.”
But his mother, a poor peasant woman, put her about him and praised him and told him she knew he could sing, she could already see and improvement. She went in order to save money to pay for his music lessons. That peasant mother’s praise and encouragement changed that boy’s life. His name was Enrico Caruso, and he became the greatest and most famous singer of his age.
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