Teacher's voice: Nurture your child's talents

NAIROBI: Our children are living in an era of infinite possibilities, career paths that our parents beat out of us are now considered professional. Music, design, acting, sports; all these are viable options for our children.

However, our education system is still slow on the uptake when it comes to this. Schools do have sports and arts programs, but few, explore them in the depth they deserve. It therefore behooves us as parents to expose our children to these areas.

I am surprised by how much talent this generation has, and how little they, and we, know about it. I manage a band of such talented young men; one of them had no idea of his vocal prowess, beyond singing in the shower. He is now out of the shower, and taking an active role in exploiting his God-given ability.

I have often wished that my babies came with a manual. A complete and concise guideline to the makings of my brand new baby, listing their preferences, temperament and talents. Life would be so much easier that way as a parent, and by extension as a teacher. Unfortunately God in his infinite wisdom decided that we should learn about these young constantly evolving beings the hard way.

This means that when it comes to our children’s talents only keen observation and trial and error will eventually show us where their talents lie. We need to expose our children. Your child may be a latent artist, all you need to do is buy him crayons and breathe when your walls become the canvas for your budding Picasso. Oprah Winfrey turned her proclivity for talking into a multimillion dollar industry! Think about that next time your child is telling you that long convoluted story.

Our role as adults is to find opportunity to help them develop their talents. Find a music teacher, many young people will charge you as little as Sh500 an hour.

Talk to people in your church to train your child, encourage them to join the choir if you think they can sing. Read what they write, listen to them when they talk, watch them when they dance for you. Cheer them on when they run or play. Creativity is not only limited to the arts, your child may have entrepreneurship talents, celebrate that too, and start guiding them.

Innovation and creativity have shed light on our so called dark continent, it is time to help the next generation step out of the shower and show them how to shine.