Thomas Edison was told as “too stupid to learn anything” by his school teachers. Isaac Newton used to score low grades in school, Albert Einstein could not speak until the age of four and he hardly learnt reading at the age of seven. Walt Disney had no creative skills and was fired because he had “no good ideas”. Caruso‘s music teacher told him: “You can’t sing, you have no voice at all.”

Whereas Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was born to a poor family, but he followed his father’s immense wisdom and a true spirit from his childhood. He recounts the importance of strong and loving parenting, roots of all morals, knowledge and philosophy of life in his autobiography “Strong Roots”.

Family is regarded as the primary source to shape or influence the personality of an individual. The special role of family structure, atmosphere and relationship among family members are the crucial aspects that shape the personality of the child. We all are too busy in our lives, or sometimes with our devices that we don’t consider the need to observe our child, but when we look around and find some friends or colleagues have talented children we immediately feel this strong urge to dig deep into our child’s personality or behaviour to find a treasure like a thing called talent.

Yes, talent is the natural ability to do something well or extraordinary according to the Oxford dictionary. The misconception about talent is that children are born with it… No, every child is special and have one or the other ability we just need to have patience, time, love and diligent behaviour to observe and follow the steps. The first and foremost step is to create a peaceful environment in the family to provide the space for your child’s talent to emerge.

• Evaluate Cognitive Abilities and Intelligence
• Explore Your Kid’s Talent and Interests
• Explore Different Types of Intelligence

• Evaluate Cognitive Abilities and Intelligence– To observe the cognitive functions such as perception, attention, memory, language, or planning, you should Encourage Good Study Habits in your Child.

• Have your child take an intelligence test (IQ)
• Sign your child up for a few basic aptitude test
• Audit your child’s grades
• Talk to your child’s educators or caregivers

1. Exploring Your Child’s Talent and Interests– To start exploring your kid’s talent, you can follow a step-by-step procedure. It is a long-term personal study of your child’s prodigies.

• Sign your child up for many different extracurricular activities: considering the global pandemic situation, you can do this by formal or informal means. Observe your child’s performance in different types of situations, help them with hints but try to see what your child is most interested in. Consider signing your child up for athletic activities, artistic activities, and intellectual activities. Pen down the activities that they refuse to do, you should reconsider the activity after a gap. Make sure your child plays with different peer groups and friends of different cultural backgrounds whenever possible. You never know when someone from a different socio-economic background will introduce an activity that your child will excel at.
• Observe your child at play: Take time to watch your child playing with local friends. To know the great insights, observe the interesting things that your child does at playtime. What role characterizes your child’s play? Is He/she thoughtful, kind, compassionate, supportive, and deliberate or is she dramatic or mischievous? This could give you an idea of his/her abilities.
• Talk to your child about what she likes to do and about what she thinks she is good at Oftentimes, talk to your child or go on a walk to discuss the interest with your child. The child may articulate the best insight into their abilities. We cannot ignore the fact that your child may know their capabilities or inner voice better than anyone else.

2. Thinking About Different Types of Intelligence- In the early 1980s Sir Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences describes the existence of areas in the human brain that correspond to certain spaces of knowledge, interestingly it is all distinct and relatively independent of each other. the eight types of intelligence explained in the research are as follows:

• Logical-mathematical intelligence. …
• Linguistic intelligence. …
• Spatial Intelligence. …
• Musical Intelligence. …
• Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence. …
• Intrapersonal Intelligence. …
• Interpersonal Intelligence. …
• Naturalistic intelligence.

• Logical-mathematical intelligence– The problem-solving ability that strikes quickly and is often related to a type of non-verbal intelligence. Children with this type of intelligence are good at solving mysteries or brain teasers, doing puzzles, logic exercises, counting or doing calculations, computer problems and playing strategy games.
• Linguistic intelligence– Children with this type of intelligence are skilled and have preferences for activities such as reading, talking, telling stories and jokes, writing poems, learning languages and playing word games.
• Spatial Intelligence– This is a different type of intelligence that shows patterns or capacity to think in three dimensions. People who develop spatial intelligence are good at solving spatial problems such as drawing and painting, reading maps, looking at pictures, solving mazes, or playing construction games. 
• Musical Intelligence– The children with an innate ability to recognize and learn different sounds, (even before formal learning) can translate the music and has a great ability to sing, listen to music, play instruments, compose songs, enjoy concerts and follow different rhythms. This type of intelligence may notice off-key notes that others do not and can easily memorize songs and tunes. 
• Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence– It is the ability to use the whole body in the expression of ideas and feelings, and the facility in the use of the hands to transform elements. Children who show kinesthetic intelligence are good at dancing, acting, imitating gestures or expressions, playing sports, running, moving and jumping.
• Intrapersonal Intelligence– It distinguishes those who know themselves best. These children like to work independently, set goals and focus on achieving them, understand their feelings and know their strengths and weaknesses.
• Interpersonal Intelligence– As opposed to intrapersonal intelligence, it is common among kids that are good at talking, working in teams, helping others, mediating conflicts and meeting new people.
• Naturalistic intelligence– The kids with this ability are close and most comfortable with Mother Nature. They have a special attraction towards environmental issues, right from Ecosystem dependencies, different biosphere, and climate change to simple plants and animals. They love Nature. People with this kind of intelligence enjoy doing activities such as camping, hiking, caring for animals, learning about nature, recycling and caring for the environment.

It is important to understand the nature of talent, is it an opportunity for the kid that is genetically determined, or is it an inborn “interest” that your child focuses on or loves to do? Discover the talent of your loved one, and share with “inkiddos”. Create your own Parent’s community to discuss, comment, or submit your story.