Tips and resources to support children birth to age five
What Are Your Child's Strengths?
Here is an amazing notion: children demonstrate their most natural abilities and inclinations at age three or four. What this means is that what comes most easily to your child and what she might very well find is her “right” career path later in life is the thing she likes to do right now.Howard Gardner, a neurobiologist and educational thinker, bases his Multiple Intelligences theory on the idea that we are all naturally best at something. Gardner believes it’s the job of parents and schools to help kids find that best natural thing and get better at it. In studying the lives of notable people from all different fields, Gardner found again and again that these people were dabbling in what would later become their specialty even as preschoolers.
I’ve seen this in my own children: both of my 30-something sons are successful in work that they were interested in as small children. The son who as a four-year-old created an abstract painting of amazing beauty became an artist and designer. The son who as a four-year-old built a perfectly plumb treehouse and cooked a mean macaroni-and-cheese from scratch now has a home improvement business and cooks as a hobby. These were not things mom and dad dreamed up for these kids and made them practice. These were things they just gravitated toward… and are still doing today.
So stop and think: what were you good at or interested in as a child? Are you doing that now? Or are you waiting for time to pick that up again?
And what is your child good at? What are her strengths and capabilities?
Answer the question for the chance to win a $25 Starbucks gift card AND a Life with Baby DVD brought to you by Talaris Institute! For more details, please click here.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Amanda McKeraghan on -
My four-year old son loves to run fast, count, and do art projects. He also likes to run around naked in the backyard, but let's hope that's not a harbinger of his future career!
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Permalink Reply by chris on
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My child loves to talk and sign. From the time she was 2 weeks old and said hello! True. Its helps to have teenagers in the house constantly talking on the phone. She has a large vocabulary and uses it well, is constantly asking what does this mean and signs many words as well.
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Permalink Reply by lisa moore gee on
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My daughter is a friend to everyone! She loves to care for others and be a good friend. we could all take a lesson from her! I also say that her life is a musical. You know how in musicals someone just busts out in song for NO REASON? That is my daughter to a T. she always is singing about what she's doing or anything that comes to mind!
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Permalink Reply by Foundation for Early Learning on -
Thank you so much for sharing your child's strengths! After a random drawing, Chris has won a $25 Starbucks gift card and a Life with Baby DVD. Congratulations!
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