Discovering your Children’s Hidden Potential

“One’s single greatest strength may be uncovering the hidden talents of another person. ”
– Tom Rath.

Being a parent or even just as friends, most of us would have noticed if there are two people: children or adults in the same settings, in the same background and even if they are your own children their preferences vary. If there are two kids, say in a school setting; while one picks up a book and reads naturally the other one might not be interested in the book at all and cannot concentrate on it. In situations like these, we generally tend to get the idea that the child is not concentrating or might feel they are lazy. Science tells us that this is not true at all! It is not necessary for every child to take a liking to any specific activity. When a child might not be interested in reading, he/she might probably be fantastic in a sport, or in music or dance!

To be successful in life, everybody should dig out their hidden talents in order to prepare themselves for future accomplishments. Being a parent, it is very important to find out the areas of interest and hidden talents in your children to further assist them in achieving their goals and help them reach their full potential. So how can we unlock this hidden potential in a child?

We will be looking at some tips through which you can find your child’s hidden talent and make it possible for them to achieve their goals and reach their full potential successfully in this blog.

Encourage Questions:

Eagerness to question is one of the very important characteristics of a child, so encourage the child to ask questions and give positive responses to their query. This can lead to nourishment in their cognitive development. Like how toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experience, at around 7 years children are capable of thinking symbolically and try to understand things from others perspectives. Likewise kids older than 7yrs till about 12yrs begin to think logically about concrete events, and the young adolescents are capable of thinking abstractly and reason about hypothetical situations. We need to understand their phases of developments, in order to bring out the creativity and the multipotentiality in children.

Creativity is the key to success! In every stage of a child’s development, the caretakers, be it a parent or an academic caretaker i.e. a teacher, needs to understand the child’s developmental stages and where to enhance their potential. Children should be raised internally motivated, and we should give more emphasis on the child intellectual growth rather than just running after grades.

Remember that Every Child is Unique:

As the famous quote goes: “All of us are talented in our unique way. We just need to recognize our capacity and develop our talents to their full potential.”

There was once an experiment conducted to see if trained dogs could run faster than a Cheetah: and the cheetah refused to even move. It is the same case, if you happen to force an elephant to compete with the tiger for a race. It is absolutely stupid and is an insult to both the animals’ varied talents. This is true for all human beings as well.

Some children have an affinity to sports, while others may exhibit artistic skills. Some children could be academically gifted and some could be differently-abled. Every child is different and has a different interest. Not all will be interested in pursuing a technical or a medical education, and Children that exhibit the quality to lead a group of playmates could probably exhibit managerial skills. So encouraging and directing children towards what interests them is important.

Appreciate and Encourage:

AsErica Jong has said-“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”

Appreciation and encouragement are two elements that always inspire people to do better. Make sure to use these, very frequently: praise and encourage your child in their little accomplishments. This will not only help them keep up their enthusiasm but will also enhance the child’s confidence, which will in turn make them get things done quicker and better. In this way you’ll also be able to observe their inclinations towards specific activities, and will make it easy for you to prepare future strategies to guide them through those specific activities.

In all of this, we should never lose sight of the fact that as parents our job is to encourage our child and not to push them into, doing something we want them to do. We provide the care and nourishment and a nurturing environment where our children can grow into the people that they would want to be by not imposing our opinions on them.

Introduce children to different activities:

If a child shows an interest in Arts or drawing you can help them by providing them more materials of paints, colours, and art-related stuff, this will help you find their talents. This is true for music, reading, dance, math science and everything. New places and new hobbies can always be interesting for children, so by introducing them to new activities you will know what they enjoy and what they don’t and most importantly you might also be able to find their strength in any one of those particular activities.

Every child is born with limitless potential and talent and the child should be guided accordingly. It is the duty of parents to help the children Discover and develop their talents, so encouraging the child will help them boost their confidence. The more their mind gets exposed to knowledge of self-realization, the more nourishment the child will get and will try to maximize his/ her potential.

Communication is the key:

Talk to your child often and ask them what they like to do, or what they really enjoy doing without being stressed about it, something that they enjoy doing without a care in the world. What is it they dream to become in the future? It’s ok if you get responses like: they want to be a Batman or Superwoman, ask them what sort of Hero they want to become and why? Maybe they have greater ambitions like helping people or are interested in sports like MMA or martial arts or would want to go into streams like the police or the army to protect people. It is also important to support their choice, if we listen and take initiative from children about their interests they will often directly or indirectly show an interest in a subject, that we as parents can structure their activities and enhance their potential.

At Sherwood High we believe that the journey to success is not always a Cakewalk for everybody. The children may face ups and downs and this should not dissuade us parents, teachers and mentors from encouraging the children in their developing talents. Failure has always proved to be a lesson for us, and we should always encourage our children to take this phase positively. We should keep encouraging them and help them in completing an unfinished task. It is most important for us to understand that every child is different and has different abilities. It is our duty to bring out the best hidden talent in them, because only after polishing multiple times does a diamond sparkle!