How to Reveal Talents in Your Kids?

Do you dream about seeing your daughter a theatre prima and your son an invincible Olympic champion? Your dreams can come true if you recognize the children’s abilities in time! What is the age when the kid may prove to be another Mozart? And what can you do for the early development of skills to bring impressive results in the future?

Development of the child’s abilities

It is only half the battle to discover the signs of a great talent in your kid. The most important thing is to find a way to develop the child’s abilities in such a way that you do not discourage him/her from practicing these abilities in future!

How to discover a child’s abilities? Watch him/her!

It is virtually impossible to name the exact year, day and hour when the child begins to demonstrate abilities. Children’s age is very flexible. The same things can be noticed in a one-year-old toddler and in a three-year-old kid.

But this difference is not an indicator of talent in one child, and lack of talent in another child. To get the secret knowledge about your kid’s apparent abilities from the earliest days, you need to watch him/her. However, if a one-year-old toddler speaks well, runs vigorously and sings songs, do not rush to call him/her a genius at once. Psychologists define this condition as the child’s high rate of development. Parents are advised to continue to monitor the abilities their son or daughter demonstrates: watch them carefully and without fanaticism.

Having noticed the talent, be careful not to suppress it

No matter how proud you are of your little miracle, be restrained. Do not cover all the walls with your kid’s drawings and do not ask him/her to read poetry for each random guest. The parents’ task is not to sing odes of praise to the kid, but to guide him/her competently and carefully, thus stimulating the child’s ability to develop.

If your toddler is excessively active and shows champion qualities, do not decide for him/her what sport he/she will be involved in. Over time, the inclinations will reveal themselves. But if you seek to speed up the process, present the kid with some suggestive items: a soccer ball, a hockey stick, little skis, or a gymnastic tape. Watch the kid carefully to conclude about the kind of sports your son or daughter will like most of all. This will help you decide what to do next!

Another example: If the kid has made scrawls in a few albums and even on the wallpaper, do not rush to blame him/her. On the contrary, encourage this hobby: buy more paints, markers, and pencils of different types. Let the child choose the “tool”, which he/she likes, and keep drawing. If a two-year toddler endlessly sings songs and imitates superheroes, watch your little artist and listen to him/her. Let your kid arrange home concerts once a week. Perhaps this will be a rehearsal of future performances on a big stage.

Signs of talent in a child

The first sign of the child’s talent at any age is the speed of performing various tasks. When a boy or a girl quickly grasp the information and do something ahead of their peers, their talent is obvious.

The second sign of a child’s giftedness in a particular area that he/she demonstrates regularly is being involved in this occupation. In plain words, the child must clearly enjoy what he/she is doing well.

Detailed analysis

The most dangerous thing that loving parents can do is trying to develop the child’s abilities by overloading the gifted kid with a theatrical circle or a circle of photography. Or all the methods of early development taken together… Psychologists are often faced with the phenomenon when a three-year-old kid is engaged in learning French, drawing, singing, fencing, but the mother feeds him/her with a spoon. It is clear that such an approach does harm to the child, whose talents should be developed consistently and in accordance with age.

If your toddler is active in various fields, but nothing stands out in particular, special diagnostics will help identify the child’s “main” capacity. The procedure for identifying the kid’s inclinations includes:

• detailed consultations with the parents and the child;
• stepwise testing of the kid;
• analysis and interpretation of the results;
• creating an individual plan of the child’s development as a result of testing (depending on the availability of certain skills).

The consultation also reveals how the level of your kid’s development exceeds the norm or simply complies with it.

To diagnose the abilities of the child aged less than 3 years, use the so-called projective techniques which rely on various drawings, games, exercises, and acting out scenes from fairy tales. The game creates a completely organic environment for realizing the child’s potential.

Development of the child’s abilities is a routine occupation

So, your kid has demonstrated a particular ability. Excellent! During the next stage, or stages to be more precise, it is necessary to send the child to the section or studio of a desired profile. To recognize the child’s talent is only half the battle. The most important thing is to develop the child’s talent in the right way. And this is what only a wise and professional mentor (a coach, teacher and choreographer) can handle.

Sometimes two- or three-year-old kids get skates or are introduced to a musical instrument. This early involvement of the kid in a particular occupation is admissible if the child’s need for such classes is apparent, and parents’ ambitions are not a key factor.

Coaches and mentors are also needed to form the child’s self-esteem. Gifted boys and girls often solve problems not the way others do. But educators and teachers rarely tolerate manifestations of eccentricity. Their response can “extinguish” the kid’s self-esteem and to some extent even inhibit the development of the child’s abilities. But the support and the faith of a “leading” person, on the contrary, can significantly contribute to developing skills. In addition, a mentor will help develop motivation as the most important thing for the child’s abilities and talent!

Support group

So, if you have recognized the child’s abilities and found a mentor in time, the problem is almost solved. All the parents need to do is to support their gifted son. Look out: at one point, the child will rebel, feeling tired of his/her busy life. It is important to be ready in advance and discern whether this is a whim or a complete failure.

However, observing the child should not be mixed up with total control! From the very tender age on, it is useful to teach your baby to be self-sufficient. Start with a spoon that the kid should be able to hold in his/her hands by the age of two years. Gradually force the child to plan his/her occupations. This skill can be developed from the age of three to four years. Let the toddler come up with his/her own plan of action every day. In future, you will not have to stand over him as a constant reminder of something.

How to reveal the child’s abilities at “home”?

How to recognize your child’s abilities? Here are some practical recommendations given by leading psychologists:

The method of “six circles” suggested by Alice Paul Torrance helps to diagnose the child’s intellectual abilities and creative thinking. The kid is given a sheet of A4 format with two rows of three circles of the same size (4.5 cm in diameter) painted on it. The kid is offered to finish the drawing and paint the circles so that they could be part of certain subjects or stories. Next, the children’s creations should be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• productivity – the amount of circles that the child was able to turn into images;
• image development – the fullness and variety of details of the depicted objects;
• originality – an unusual way of presenting images;
• quality of the picture – the accuracy and the use of colors while drawing and coloring.
• The higher these indicators are, the more obvious the child’s abilities become.

How to develop the child’s ability

The question of children’s talents has interested scientists from all countries and continents for a long time. American psychologist Howard Gardner wrote a book “Frames of Mind” in the early 1980s where he identified seven types of talent and intelligence:

Type of talent – What do children do?

Verbal and linguistic

Good reading skills from an early age, intuitive error-free writing, mixing with other children easily. Fields of activity: journalism, writing, teaching, law.

Numeric

Such kids find it easy to do math, solve logical problems; they get interested in programming and computer technology. Field of activity: engineering.

Spatial

They think in images, fancy a lot, love to paint, sculpt, and have a vivid imagination. Fields of activity: architecture, design, painting.

Physical

They prefer exercises, practical actions and hand labor to studies and theories. Fields of activity: sports and building professions.

Personal

They perceive what is happening around at the level of emotions, which are rich beyond measure. Very intuitive. Field of activity: acting.

Inter-individual

They love and know how to communicate with people of all ages. Fields of activity: politics, trade.

Environmental talent

They know how to observe and study nature, flora and fauna. Fields of activity: biology, botany, horticulture, taming animals.

Working to achieve the result

It is important to recognize talents in order to develop the child’s abilities and obtain tremendous result! If this is the desire of one of the parents, the effort will be wasted. If the mother dreamed of a circus profession, it is not necessary to send her plump daughter to a school of acrobats, especially if the latter loves to sculpt with clay. And if the father dreamed of becoming a hockey player, he should not drag the kid with an absolute ear for music to the skating-rink.

Praise is very useful and effective for the development of children’s abilities, provided that it is correct of course. Praise your son or daughter not for the presence of skills, but for their efforts and achievements. For doing their best, for activity and actions. Then the result will surely come.

Adults have no right to bet what talent the child has – he/she is not a race horse! You cannot invest serious money in the child’s “great future” and look forward to having the dividends. Your child is not a business project. Besides, all boys and girls without exception have the right for reckless childhood.