Cultivating Passion in Your Child

Envision Success Tip: Put your child in charge of an event or project to cultivate their passion.

As the father of two girls, I can tell you that the last thing I ever want to do is extinguish my children’s excitement for discovery. Such drive, after all, is vital in the development of critical skills for future success.

But encouraging a child to develop passions and interests is not always as easy as it sounds. My girls, for example, see the world differently from me. What I see as mundane, they see as exciting and in need of exploration. I have to constantly keep that in mind. Otherwise, I end up stifling their passions and interests – without even knowing it!

In a competitive global economy, how do we – as parents and adults – help ensure that young people are passionate about their futures? Here are some ideas:

Let Your Child Plan the Next Weekend. Put your child in charge. Give them a budget. Have them do the research. Make only one rule: they have to design the weekend around something that excites them. You might be surprised by what they come up with. You could wind up in a swamp chasing frogs with your budding environmental scientist.

Turn Your Garage into a Laboratory. If your son or daughter sees a cool idea online or on television, try to replicate it in your garage. Your child’s engagement level will be amazing and it will be a lot of fun. (Hint: Try putting a corn starch and water mixture on a speaker and watch the music come to life!)

Explore Nature. Pull your child away from electronic devices. It’s amazing what your child can learn, and what you can learn about your child, through a day and night of camping, a walk in the woods or a bike trip along a river.

In the end, you will be able to start connecting your child’s natural passions to clubs at school, summer programs and, eventually, a career. Along the way, they might even think that you’re pretty cool.