Being a parent, the onus of helping your child finding his/her passion falls on you. As parents, you would take care to enroll your child in an established school, sign them up for the best co-curricular activities, and ensure you are able to provide the best for them.
However, one nagging question that parents face as their child grows is – what is my child passionate about?
Now, this raises another responsibility for parents – making sure that their child finds his/her passion. This responsibility leaves parents thinking how to help their child find his/her passion.
It is better for kids to find their passion at a young age. Once their passion is identified, parents can support their child to pursue his/her passion and make the child good at what he/she does.
This article will give you answers to the most pressing question – how to help your child find their passion?
1. Build on their natural talent
Kids have different innate talents and interests. These talents may not be visible till they reach a certain age. But once you are aware of what ticks for your child, it is important that you support your child in pursuing that talent. Each child is gifted with different talents. These talents should not be abandoned. So, it is necessary for you to be supportive of these innate gifts.
2. Engage with your child
Communication is essential when you want to find out what excites your child. These days parents are more involved with their mobile phones than with their children. So, take time off from electronic devices and have a heart-to-heart chat. Talk with your child and listen to what he/she has to say. Remember, conversing with your child should be a 2-way conversation. Do not be the strict parent that you have to be when your child makes a mistake. To know what ticks your child, you need to listen, let them lead the talk and ask open-ended questions once they finish. Ask them what makes them so happy and try to engage them in that direction.
3. Allow kids to be bored
Parents try to engage their children in one thing or another so that their child does not get bored. However, a few minutes of boredom is actually good for the child. Leave kids without any engagement for longer than usual and you will be surprised at what things your child comes up with. Being bored gives space for children to come up with new and creative ways to keep themselves engaged. They could come up with imaginative adventure tales, move things around the house, build something of their choice with the things lying around, etc. This will ultimately result in discovering their passion.
4. Throw challenges at them
When you have identified what your natural talents your child has, then throw challenges at them that they are not good at. This will be a learning opportunity for them to try out and learn new things. You can simply encourage them to explore and try out new things they have not done before. Even if they are not interested the first time, doing things once will help them decide if they enjoy doing it or not. This will go a long way in building their passion.
5. Sign them up for activities
Kids will never know what excites them, what they do not like and like to enjoy doing until they DO it. Simply watching it on TV or hearing people talk will make them eager to do stuff, but the real excitement comes with doing things. So, provide them with opportunities to do stuff. Enroll them in co-curricular activities. Sign them up for dance and singing classes. There’s also sports, drama, drawing, and countless other activities you can sign them up for. If your child feels the activities he/she is attending is not interesting, then stop the classes and enroll them in something different. This is simply to find out what makes your child tick. So, remember not to force something upon your child.
Sometimes, your child may not realize what it means to be passionate about something. Or sometimes, finding one’s passion may seem longer than it takes for others. This is completely normal for children. As a parent, be understanding and talk to your kids. Tell them about your passions and how you discovered them. Set a positive example for your child and be a role-model for them to follow.
