Promoting talent

The best for the child - that's what every parent wants! Helping your child to find their gifts and talents is an important undertaking. But how can this be done? Children are full of different interests and are often bursting with enthusiasm for everything new. It is not always easy to find out where a special talent really lies. And then you might ask yourself: How do I encourage my child in a targeted way without overtaxing them? Here you will find suggestions on how you can support your child in discovering and trying things out.

"Impressive, this brushwork: sweeping and controlled at the same time. And how much the horse looks like a horse - almost not like a cow. I'm sure not many four-year-olds can do that so easily. Where's the next painting course? Maybe there's a great artist slumbering inside this little man. On the other hand, that ball security on the soccer pitch yesterday was nothing to sneeze at either. And then that joy of storytelling! From which corner of his brain does he always come up with these exciting stories? But one thing is for sure: he's not going to be a math genius. We're all not that good with numbers in our family ..."

Do you sometimes have similar thoughts when you watch your child? Perhaps you ask yourself questions like: How do we recognize a special ability, a passion or a real talent in our child? And how can we help to develop and encourage this inclination? You should know this: Encouraging children has a lot to do with fun and the freedom to try new things.

It is not so easy for parents to find out whether a child has a particular talent in one area.

Firstly, toddlers in particular are very erratic when it comes to choosing their current favorite activity. However, this is a good thing, especially in the first few years of life: Because the variety of impressions and experiences that your child has are valuable stimuli for brain development. Hearing, seeing, touching, moving, smelling, tasting, feeling - the more senses are stimulated, the more diverse the networks in the brain become.

On the other hand, parents are all too easily influenced by their own desires, experiences and inclinations. If you push your child's development too much in the direction you want, talents outside of your parental imagination may remain undiscovered.

At the same time, however, parents are important role models when it comes to developing a deeper interest in something. This is because children first discover the things that happen in their immediate environment. If dad is an enthusiastic singer, it is very likely that the child will also become interested in music and singing at some point. And it is a natural parental role to be a bit of a talent scout. However, being a good scout also means accepting it when your child is not so keen on something - even if the singing dad would like to share his passion with the child.

In most cases, the search for a real talent depends a lot on developmental freedom. As a parent, you can carefully observe what your child is enthusiastic and motivated about:

• What does your child particularly enjoy?
• In which activities does he or she show perseverance over a longer period of time?
• What are they particularly good at?
• What does your child understand very quickly? Does he/she want to know more about this area?

Try it out, discard it, try it again - it takes patience and time to find your own comfort zone: Whether in music, sport, or rather in art, whether in language, togetherness, spatial imagination, motor skills - or somewhere else entirely. Children who are allowed to test themselves freely in different areas may only be enthusiastic about dancing for a short time and then suddenly only be interested in building sets. But they gain valuable experience and a growing sense of themselves and their abilities.

Encouragement doesn't just consist of the freedom to try out all sorts of things. Sometimes your child also needs to develop some stamina, concentrate on one thing, practise, fall down, get up again and keep practising. Only then can you tell more clearly whether your child really likes something or not. Finding the right balance here is not easy: too much encouragement leads to stress, too little causes talents to atrophy.

It may also be a challenge for some parents not to develop too much ambition when looking at their own child. The task for parents is therefore to be sensitive and to sense what the child wants - or doesn't want. Parents should always avoid a typical pitfall: comparing themselves with other children!

A child who constantly has to meet expectations will hardly be able to discover their own potential. If, on the other hand, they feel loved and accepted for who they are, they will have enough emotional security to dare to experiment.