Every child is born with unique talents and abilities. Discovering your child’s exceptional abilities as well as interests early on will surely help you in offering better support to them both inside the classroom as well as outside of it. If you are not quite sure where precisely to start, do not worry. We will walk you through how to identify your child’s innate talents so that you can successfully nurture and support them.
How to Identify Talents for Kids
All children are gifted in one way or the other. Some kids can be naturally gifted in all types of different areas and not just academics. That said, gifted children frequently share several of the following traits:
- Being highly alert
- Possessing excellent memory
- Demonstrating high sensitivity
- Possessing good vocabulary for a specific age
- Excelling in abstract thinking
- Displaying immense curiosity
- Being good at problem-solving
- Being a quick learner
1. Let Your Child Indulge in Diverse Extra-Curricular Activities
One of the most optimum ways to successfully discover your child’s unique abilities is to encourage them to explore as well as engage in a wide range of vastly different activities. You can accomplish this through both formal and informal methods. In this way, you will not only be able to witness the performance of your child in diverse situations but also be able to see your child’s most dominant interests. Aditya Birla World Academy, the best international school in Mumbai , lays immense emphasis on extra-curricular activities so that your child’s talents can be nurtured.
- Sign your child up for diverse activities: athletic, artistic, or intellectual.
- Suggest potential activities to your child; however, if they hesitate to go, you must change the activity.
- Although getting your child to sign up for extra-curricular activities is ideal, you must ensure that your child is not overly committed and still possesses the time to indulge in routine kids’ play and activities.
- Ensure that your child indulges in playful activities with friends of diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. This is because someone from a diverse background may introduce your child to an activity that the latter will excel at.
2. Closely Observe Your Child’s Play
Devote time to watch your child during play. Make a note of the duration of the play and what precisely your child does. Do not make an assumption that your child’s play is meaningless or trivial. A child may act or play in diverse ways that reflect their diverse natural interests, abilities, and intelligence. Aditya Birla World Academy, a reputed international school in Mumbai , provides your child an impetus to engage in playful activities. While you observe your child, make sure of the following:
- Make notes in a journal regarding the different interesting things your child does while at play. What characterises your child’s play? Is your child thoughtful and deliberate or emotional and dramatic? This will surely provide insight into his or her abilities.
- Consider the subject relevance or career relevance of what activity your child is performing.
- Observe your child keenly at diverse playful activities. Pay attention to see how they play with other kids.
3. Converse with Your Child About Activities They Like and What They Think They’re Good At
Often, your child will successfully articulate the best insight into his or her special talents and skills . Do not discount the fact that your kid may precisely know himself or herself and his or her talents in a better way than anyone else. Even at a minimum, your child will surely know his or her likes and dislikes, which are surely as important as innate talents for kids.
- Ask children which academic subjects they think they are best at as well as which they enjoy the most. Ensure that you differentiate between talent and enjoyment.
- Quiz children if they think they are good at certain sports as well as which sports they enjoy the most.
- Question children if they think they are good at artistic activities and if they enjoy performing creative tasks.
- It is perfectly normal if children are unable to articulate what they are good at. That said, if they enjoy certain activities, this may provide a hint of a talent that they are unaware of.
Different Types of Intelligence
According to psychologists at Harvard, there are eight types of intelligence.
- Visual-Spatial Ability
- Interpersonal Ability
- Intrapersonal Intelligence
- Logical or Mathematical Thinker
- Bodily-Kinaesthetic Thinker
- Linguistic Intelligence
- Musical Intelligence
- Naturalistic Intelligence
You can closely observe your child at play or in general behaviour, and you can try and gauge their type of intelligence. Often, children eventually belong to multiple types of intelligence. Once we comprehend this, we can try and find the precise activity that suits them, while simultaneously bringing out their talent.
The Bottomline
Each of these types of intelligence can successfully guide you in assessing your child’s special talents and skills. Identification of these can surely bring out the best in them from an early age. We all know how good we feel when we perform tasks and partake in activities that we love.
