4 Reasons to Let Your Child Pursue His Gifts NOW
One of the most common questions I get about lifeschooling is, “When should I encourage my child to start using his gifts?” and it’s often accompanied by, “What if he doesn’t have any gifts?”
The simple answer to “when” is, NOW. But I’m assuming you’re a good homeschool mom or dad and you prefer an explanation as to why, rather than simply being told what to do. You had enough of the blind obedience when you were in the system. 😉
So let’s talk about why it’s important for your child to start using his or her gifts early:
1. Let your child pursue his gifts now…because they are there.
Okay, that might sound sarcastic, but think about it: If God already has a plan for them and has already put gifts inside of them, then why should we wait? We are challenged in Scripture to be wise stewards of our money, time, and even gifts. So if we have them, no matter what our age, we should be using them!
Jesus had a special regard for children, and we see him lifting them up in Scripture, telling us to let the little children come to Him and even teaching us to have the faith of a child. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ and they have the same Holy Spirit and the same gifts and abilities…just not yet developed.
Your child is never too young to pursue and develop his gifts!
In our home, that meant allowing our daughter Elleina to use her time to write a novel (No Return), which she started at age 8 and finally completed and published at age 12. Her grammar studies were minimal, but this lifeschooling experience (and a lot of reading) was how she learned!
2. Skills learned and practiced in childhood seem to remain some of the strongest.
I will honestly admit that this is conjectural based on my own observations (and the book Einstein Never Used Flashcards touches on some similar ideas, if I recall), but think about it. Think about the skills you learned as a young person and even as a baby that are now so much a part of you that you could do some of them in your sleep.
Think about walking, learning an entire language, learning to ride a bike, learning to pump your legs on a swing (sidenote: I thought my oldest son would never learn how to do this, but he finally caught on at age 8!😂), learning to swim, etc.
It seems to me that many of these skills are better acquired if learned as a child. And once they learn, they seem to be as effortless as breathing. The child’s brain is just wired for learning! (See the above book I mentioned).
My mother-in-law learned to cook at a young age and at age 9, was preparing meals along with her sister for the entire family. Her mother and father were in full-time ministry and this was just something that had to be done. To this day, I have never met a better cook than her! She learned the skill young and it almost became a part of who she was.
3. A child has a lot more time than an adult to perfect his skills.
Not only do the skills seem to be learned more easily and become ingrained more easily, but a child can also spend many hours perfecting his gifts. The book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell popularized the theory that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in any field. (It’s an excellent read, by the way). Well, what adult has time for that? And for that matter, what typical child does?
We keep our children busy with school, which is often just a list of what other people think they should learn, and then we wonder why they don’t know what they were put on this earth to do by the time they graduate. Our homeschooled children have time to actually learn who they are and figure out what they want to spend those 10,000 hours on, if we will only let them!
My oldest son, Konur (yes, the one who could not seem to learn to pump his legs…too much overthinking!), was given much freedom in his homeschooling. We lifeschooled to the max! 😉 He showed several areas of gifting, but knowing his personality and brain, I did require him to at least learn basic computer programming (against his will, by the way…sometimes we have to set some requirements).
He ended up loving it (a mom knows 😉 ) and spent hours and hours of his high school days simply becoming an expert in the field. At age 21, as he was going through the Praxis program (which I highly recommend as a college alternative), he got his first job in I.T. A few months later, he was hired for a job that paid double because his new boss could see that he had expert-level skills. Konur was able to prove to him his ability to write a complex computer software by solving a problem that others with certifications and years of experience could not.
Let them become experts! If you give them the freedom, they will do just that.
4. A child can discover what he really loves and also what he does not enjoy doing.
This answers the question of, “What if he doesn’t have any gifts?” Well, first of all, he does have gifts! God has given every child gifts to use for Him, and NOW is the time for you to help him discover what those are and become an expert in them!
And part of discovering his gifts is discovering what he is not gifted in or simply does not enjoy doing. How many graduates flounder, wondering what major to pick for college, and how many others start focusing on their major, only to discover half-way through and thousands of dollars in, that it’s not at all something they had imagined, nor something they want to do for the rest of their lives.
We can save them this time, frustration, and money (which is probably ours) by simply giving them the incredible gift of freedom during their homeschooling journey!
Conclusion
Time is a special gift and “now” is fleeting. We have the opportunity to bless our children with the gift of their childhoods, a gift many other children can’t enjoy because of their schooling, homework, and other activities.
Of course, all of the preceding 4 reasons rest on some basic training and discipleship that should be ongoing in your home. Even children with remarkable gifts that they enjoy using can be tempted to simply play video games all day if they have not learned to be diligent, hard workers and the freedom we give is without bounds! In the words of Peter Parker’s uncle, “With great freedom comes great responsibility.” This is certainly true, and we need to be teaching our children responsibility through chores and other expectations that come with consequences and rewards.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you allowed your children to start pursuing some of their gifts and how has this been working out? Leave your comments below! I’d love to hear your experiences and “mom brags.” 😉
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