How Can Children Discover their Innate Talents?

 How Can Children Discover their Innate Talents? For those of us who believe in God, we understand that He knew us and charted our destinies before we were born (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:16; Isaiah 49:1, 5: Galatians 1:15; Ephesians 1:4). We also believe that the Father deposited gifts or talents in each soul, for the benefit of humanity (Matthew 25:14-30). Unfortunately, many folks live out their allotted days on earth without either identifying their gifts or utilizing them maximally to the glory of God. This brings us to the thrust of this article. How can parents or guardians assist their children/wards to uncover and utilize their God given talents?

 Recently, I watched a video on Facebook showing Chinese toddlers in a kindergarten class exposed to various skills. The idea behind the experiment was to identify the skill sets of each toddler, and to fashion their education in a way that they are able to hone these skills. That, for me, stood out as a functional education, as opposed to what is obtainable in Africa, including my country, Nigeria, where people are encouraged to pursue non-functional education to obtain mere certificates.

        If the approved educational curriculum does not accommodate skill acquisition or identification of talents along the lines of what is practiced in China, we believe that parents should intervene to help their children. They can do this by exposing them to practical learning situations as toddlers, with the intention to identify their skills set.

        According to a website known as AfriKindnes (https://www.afrikindness.org), a child can learn and develop his talent when provided with the appropriate conditions of learning. We suggest that you do the following:

i. Identify your child’s special interests;
ii. Have an open mind to support and nurture his interests;
iii. Set goals and track progress;
iv. Balance talent development with recreational and other activities;
v. Provide a conducive environment for learning;
vi. Praise his or her effort, and not the ability;
vii. Provide extra opportunity for coaching by professionals if necessary;
viii. Help the child to stay focus on practicing the skill or gifts, as practice makes perfect.