Tag Archives: gifted children

Do You Have a Gifted Child?

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by Pat Lamb Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and patlambchristianauthor.com

Train up a child…

Do You Have a Gifted Child?

         Do you sometimes weary of hearing parents and grandparents talk about how smart a child is?  Then, they continue to tell of some of the many marvelous things that child can do such as read or count at a younger age than other children, say extremely intelligent things, or memorize quickly. As we listen, we know very well that the child may or may not be gifted academically, but it seems to be a common dream of most adults to have a “really smart child”.

         It is true that there are children who are gifted intellectually and can think quickly and reason easily.  It would seem that most of us think of a gifted child as being gifted in the intellectual field only.

         In truth, every child is gifted in one area or another.  It is too bad that we often don’t seem to recognize gifts other than the ones that make a child look really smart.  Every child is born with certain hereditary tendencies or preferences.  These special interests are the hereditary gifts of the child given by God. After the child makes its appearance into the world, it may or may not be gifted with loving and caring parents to nurture and appreciate the hereditary abilities.

         Some children are born with gifted ability in math.  Some are born with gifted ability with words, pictures, body usage (such as sports), social skills, introspective skills, and music skills.  The world needs all of these abilities.  To say that the intellectual ability is the most important is to not understand the importance of the other gifts. The math and word skills are the skills identified with the intellect, but in God’s eyes, each person is of equal value and He loves each person equally. Should we adults not do the same?

         While children are born with three or four of the gifts named, unfortunately they are not always born with the gift of a parent’s love.  Every parent can give the gift of love that includes patience and understanding of a child. One reason parents do not give that gift of love is that the parent may value one of the hereditary gifts more than another. To value one gift over another in children can be very damaging.  It can lead to preferring one child over another.  We tend to favor those who have the same gifts that we have. This should not be so. Adults need to recognize the value of all of the gifts. Instead of encouraging a child, some parents harangue a child for not living up to that parent’s expectations.  We need to recognize that there is a plan for each person’s life and it may not necessarily be the plan we have for that life.

         A truly gifted child is the child who recognizes his/her abilities, whatever they may be, and has parents who also recognize and appreciate the way the child was created. The Bible tells us that children are a gift from God.  God gifts the parents with the child and He gifts the child with certain abilities.  His plan is to gift the child also with parents who are thankful for the child that was given to them. Every parent has a gifted child from God.  Parents need to further gift that child with their love.

Parents Need to Understand the Interests of their Children

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by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book. Available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or my website www.patlambchristianauthor.com)

Train up a child…

Parents Need to Understand the Interests of their Children

         Any parent of two or more children knows that each child is unique.  Just when you think you have caught on to what the first child is like and how to take care of that child, another comes along seemingly entirely different.  It keeps us on our toes to try to understand and meet the needs of each child.

         There is a great deal of research being done concerning how the brain works, how birth order affects a child’s personality, and how children are born with tendencies to like some things and dislike other things.  There was a time when educators were told that all children were like a blank page when they were born, and it was environment that affected their behavior.  Now we know that we are born with certain tendencies that, along with environment, affect our behavior.

         Those who study such things are telling us that there are seven intelligences and that each of us has three or four where we are stronger. We tend to develop in these areas more and disregard the areas where we are not strong. It is important to know the areas of strength in our children in order to better understand and teach them.

         These seven intelligences are classified as: verbal linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, body/kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.  A simpler way of saying them is: language smart, numbers smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, people smart, and self smart.  In future columns, I hope to talk about each one individually.

         We have all heard comments about how talented someone seems to be musically.  People are also talented in each of the other areas.  When we look around and observe those we know, we will see that each person has talents.  The verbal linguistic person has a talent in learning language and writing.  The mathematical person has a talent in working with numbers.  The visual/spatial person is the person who can draw or paint pictures.  Dancers and sports lovers are the body/kinesthetic people.  An interpersonal person is the social person who is perceptive in working with others.  The intrapersonal person is the philosopher type who thinks deeply and is often very spiritual.  Most people do not concentrate in one area only, but they also have at least two or three other areas of interest.

         When parents can understand what the intelligences of their children are, they can better work with them in developing those interests.  It is futile to try to force a child to be something he/she is not “born” to do.  For instance, some people will never be good in sports or dancing.  Others may never be really great in music.  We can, however, learn to appreciate those areas and develop to a point in each of them, but we will excel in the areas of our interests.

         There is a great deal of information on the Internet about the seven intelligences.  One can simply Google “seven intelligences” and read about the studies done by several people.  Even if we don’t completely understand all about it, it helps just to know that each child has particular things in which they are interested and we need to ascertain what those interests are to better work with that child.