Give Our Children a Chance

I am not trying to be some inspirational speakers or some random guy who gives you a speech about life. This is merely my note to remind myself and (hopefully) it can be a reminder for you who reads this as well…. and partially it’s also the urge to write about the topic that suddenly struck my brain!

Some people might think of a chance as roll of a dice or any other luck-based systems out there in this world. I guess the more ‘stylish’ term is opportunity. Chance and/or opportunity can be quite a luxurious item to have in this ‘modern’ life. However, it might not be as hard to obtain as you think.

Natural Talents

I am a firm believer of one’s natural talents as I have seen it with my own eyes. Someone who is really close to me can actually play the piano without ANY prior lessons in playing the piano. That person NEVER attended any piano lessons in his/her life and yet s/he can just sit down in front of the piano and plays it really well. I can only imagine what sort of life that person can live if s/he actually studies for what s/he is so good at!

This leads me to believe that children were also born with specific sets of skills that we, as parents, might not be aware of… yet! The most common techniques employed by parents are to send their children to all sorts of extracurricular activities. They hope that by doing this, they can find out what the children are great at. This can be a good form of giving your children a chance. However, it can be quite cost prohibitive for quite a lot of people.

This is where our bonds with our children are truly tested. Some of you might not have the luxury of time to spend with your children. However, I strongly suggest you to make some time for your children albeit only for a few hours per week to do any kinds of activities that they love. I actually quite enjoy quality time with my family as I always learn something new about the little kid! This way, you can also discover what your children are passionate about!

Studied or Earned Talents

On the other end of the spectrum you have parents who relentlessly push their children to do their best in specific sets of talents that their children must accomplish. They desperately want their children to be good in specific fields of study as prescribed by the parents. Obviously, the children would become knowledgeable about those fields they study, but they might never be as good as the talented people who studied for their talents.

Without any scientific evidences, the most common beliefs to justify this behaviour would be:

– The things that you like to do might not earn money to sustain your life.

Let’s imagine in a what-ifs world that your child is supposedly a football-god-in-the-making. However, since the average footballers don’t get paid as much as successful surgeons, you set your eyes on the ‘big prize’ of getting into Medical School. So instead of brushing his shooting and dribbling skills, your child sits in his/her room reading jumbled anagrams called maths or looking at scary-looking bones that s/he must know the latin words for each of them.

– You are having too much fun and not actually working!

People usually associates working life as stressful and boring. Having too much fun at work can be classified as ‘not working’. The notion of enjoying your work seems to be lost in piles of motivational books and is not present in daily life.

– I know what you want!

It’s quite scary to touch on this issue 🙂

Gifted and Talented Children

NSW Association for Gifted and Talented Children adopted the definition used by Gagné to describe Gifted and Talented:

Gifted students are those whose potential is distinctly above average in one or more of the following domains of human ability: intellectual, creative, social and physical. Talented students are those whose skills are distinctly above average in one or more areas of human performance.

In Australia, there are quite a few schools and/or Education boards that have Gifted and Talented programs. With the right program, it can actually help your children excel in the fields that they are gifted/talented at!

Give Our Children A Chance – My Example

For the first few years of his life, I took my son to a swimming lesson, soccer practice, and religious study. I think that’s already up to the limit that he can handle at a young age. He then developed an interest in robots (quite a lot of boys do, I think) and started to perform martial arts moves. I tried to introduce him to the concept but he doesn’t seem to be interested in learning about martial arts…. and I didn’t push further.

He also develops quite an interest in songs and dance moves. He actually listens to songs that he likes very intently and subconsciously starts tapping to the beat -> his mum ‘blames’ me for listening to music too much when she was pregnant. Every once in a while he actually jumped out of his chair and started moving frantically to the music as if he was trying to dance. It gets us thinking that maybe we should get him to enroll in a dance class in the near future.

As stated at the beginning of this post, I am just merely reminding myself that I need to give my child (or children in the future) a chance to explore and discover their unique talents. It is quite interesting to explore a whole new world of possibilities if you truly love what you do!