Finding and Nurturing Your Child’s Passions

Parents want their children to succeed and have a good future ahead of them. This is why they are adamant about their children receiving good quality education and excel academically. However, parents would also want their children to take interest in and pursue things they love to do. This will allow them to have fun, an outlet to enrich their creativity, and even be a means to discover themselves more as well as the world around them. As such, identifying and enriching one’s passion from a young age may also allow children to identify and choose a future career easily.

However, identifying a child’s passions is easier said than done. This is because since they are still young, there is a lot of room for them to discover and experiment on potential activities they may be interested in. As parents, it can also be a challenge in guiding and helping them identify their passions.

But fret not! In this article, we’ll discuss several ways for parents to help their children discover their passions and pursue them for the better. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.

1. Exposure to different activities

The first way to discover your child’s interests and which ones they may want to pursue is to properly expose them to different activities. Of course, how can the child discover what they want to do without the exposure or knowledge in doing so? Take for example, if the child is not exposed to activities such as sports, chances are they will also not be interested in them. Without showing them all sorts of activities, they wouldn’t be able to determine which ones they are interested in or what they want to do.

Parents can discuss with their children what they are already interested in or maybe things they can find interest in. This way, parents will also already have ideas which activities they may look for to enrich these interests.

If the child is showing signs of interest in arts, you can enroll them in art classes or pottery classes. If the child is engaged in Science and Math, parents can take them to science centers, planetariums, or science museums. They can also enroll the child in programs such as robotics, coding, or horticulture. Children can also show interest in performing arts and parents can help enrich their interests by enrolling them in drama, dance, or singing classes. They can also spend time in a library with a storytelling activity program. As such, if the child is interested in sports, there are also several sports they can try to find which ones they are most interested in. The possibilities are endless and it’s only up to the parents to do their research on activities that can help their child discover their passions by exposing them to these activities.

2. Encourage what the child likes

3. Observe your child

Now you’ve exposed your child to various activities and encouraged your child to pursue what they like, it’s now time to observe their reactions. Children are more transparent if parents take the time to observe them throughout the activities they have been exposed to. However, some children may also take a long time to decide whether they are passionate about something or not. If this happens, don’t nag at them to hurry up in finding their passions. It doesn’t work that way. Finding the right passion takes time and since for a child, the possibilities are endless, it may take longer. If the parent keeps nagging at them, they may pick something completely wrong for them just so their parents can keep quiet.

Some of the things you may take note of are if your child keeps asking about a particular activity or constantly asks you to take them to this activity. As parents, you should also take note of how they react to the activity such as if they are excited on the day of the activity or if they are not. If you can also see your child talking about the activity to someone else and sharing their experiences, chances are they are genuinely interested in the activity.

4. Help them practice optimism

If your child is entirely a novice in an activity but you see them really interested in it, it can even be more difficult for them to deal with failure if they come across it during the activity. It’s already a very cutthroat and tough world out there with competitions wherever you turn. For children, it can even be harder for them to compete with others who are already in different stages of mastery with the certain activity they are interested in. This can even cause more pressure on your child.

Take for example, your child is interested in arts and you’ve enrolled them in drawing classes. They join in and see the others doing full-on sketches with depth and dimensions already while they are still starting out with learning shapes and lines. They will feel more pressure to learning it as quickly as they could so they can catch up with the other students. As such, if they fail to do so, their confidence may take the brunt of it and incidents like this may cause them to be disheartened and not continue on with their passions, thinking they have already failed the first step towards it.

Parents want their children to be the best they can be and in order for them to achieve that, parents must also teach them to be optimistic even if they experience failure. These failures can even be teaching moments for the child in order for them to come out stronger than before.

A good way to inspire optimism is to relate to what your child is going through by telling them personal stories of challenges you have also faced and how you have gotten past them in order to become better. As such, help them also understand that everyone starts somewhere and not everyone will already be good or an expert on the first try. They can take their time to hone their passions and turn them into skills. All the negativity will not help them achieve that.

5. Don’t judge

Everyone has their own different interests and passions and sometimes, your child’s interests may clash with your own. When this happens, don’t immediately judge them for it. And most importantly, don’t assign gender roles for activities your child is interested in. We are already in a more open-minded, progressive age so refrain from doing this especially to children. There is nothing wrong with a boy interested in ballet or a little girl interested in combat sports.

Children are sensitive to the world around them. As such, they are also more perspective than adults think and because of that, when they feel that they are being judged for liking something, they may feel rejected as well because their parents don’t accept the things they love. This can also develop strain in your relationship with your child. Children will have many interests at their age. Some they will outgrow and some they will bring to them into adulthood. It takes time for them to pick which ones so you have to be patient with them.

Conclusion

Children will only be children once and as parents, you should let your child enjoy their childhood and let them discover the world around them. It won’t be easy to predict which passions your child may have or what they want to pursue next. As parents, the best thing you can do is show support to whatever passion they choose as their happiness is what should matter in the end.

Carelle

Carelle is a teacher who has been through the ups and downs of the teacher and learner life. She wishes for every learner to gain educational satisfaction that will help embody the people they want to be in the future.

Finding and Nurturing Your Child’s Passions

1. Exposure to different activities

2. Encourage what the child likes

3. Observe your child

4. Help them practice optimism

5. Don’t judge

Conclusion

Carelle

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