Connectnigeria Articles

”Teach your kids that most problems in this world are really opportunities in disguise, and innovation comes from discontent.”- Steve Andraka.

Every child has his or her own tastes, abilities, preferences and style. Each child is good at something or several things; a mix of intelligences. Observing the things that your child loves to do gives you important clues about his or her talents. Understanding his uniqueness, pattern and style is a key to discovering that inner treasure in him. Helping your children tap into their passions and their talents is one of the greatest gifts you can give them; you help them connect to the essence of who God designed them to be. Latent skills or talents vary in diverse ways. Every child is gifted; some just open their talent packs later than others. Children are different from each other; they have differing ways of approaching, comprehending, and engaging problems and answers because of various abilities. A child may be good with numbers (the arithmetic world) while another prefers the world of art (painting and drawing). One child may value quiet time while another loves exhilaration. Parents have that singular role, duty and function to discover that natural ability embedded in the lives of their children and nurture it for greatness. Gifted and talented children are from all cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic groups. One of the most important things you will ever do as a parent will be to help your children discover their talents and find joy in developing and using them. What are talents? And how can they be discovered? Talent is the natural ability, gift or skill that has the capacity to be used for development and success. Children can display intelligence in many different ways- through words, numbers, music, pictures (art), athletic or ‘hands on’ abilities. Here are some tips to help bring out the latent skill of a child: Provide broad spectrum of experiences, geared to your child’s interests: Use ideas and theories of multiple intelligences. Each person varies by experiencing and expressing intelligence in different areas. Get them involved with the right peer activities. Let your child discover her own interests. Expose your child to a broad spectrum of experiences. Pay attention to the activities she chooses. This free-time play can say a lot about where her gifts lie, they may activate latent talents. Open your mind and that of your child’s to lots of possibilities. Give your child open-ended playthings. Toys like blocks (bricks) and puppets encourage imaginative play. Also encourage your child to read. Warning: Using incentives to get children to perform sends a message that learning is not rewarding in its own right Observe: Take time to watch your child at activities, let your child discover her own interests. A child will act and play in ways that may reflect differing natural, individual interests, intelligences and abilities. Don’t assume that your child’s play is inconsequential or worthless. Give your child permission to make mistakes. If she has to do things perfectly, she’ll never take the risks necessary to discover and develop a gift. Keep your own passion for learning alive. Find out if your child is introverted or extroverted. Listen to your child: Listen to those things they care about the most, they may provide clues to their special talents. Accept and use his/her tendency to see things differently. Try to build self confidence in your child. Sometimes, let him do what he likes, not what you want. But you can also give directions. Encourage your child to translate his/her interests into stories, pictures, collections, and inventions. Communicate: Ask your child about the things that seem to interest him and about apparent interests that he likes more or less and why. Help your child open up to the beauties and wonders of the world via fascinating questions like: Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Come up with answers together. You can ask your child what they aspire to be in future. Answers to such question will give you an insight, exposing to you what their attention is geared towards. Encourage your child to tell you his/her ideas while you write them down secretly, this will give you a blueprint of what to capitalize on. Encourage independence and limit set rules: Petty rules stifle creativity. Teach them how to live outside the box. Having too many rules is like living in a 4-feet cage; it limits thinking and creativity. Give your child a special space at home to be creative. You can’t say one and expect the other, you tell your child to think outside of the box, but you have them boxed in their entire life. No discoveries means no experience; because there is no creative reference point to begin with. Children should be independent over certain aspects of their lives but need to have limits and boundaries. Don’t limit your child with certain tags or labels which may saddle them with reputations that do not befit or tally with their inner gifts. Encourage, but don’t push, remember you are your child’s best advocate and resource.