How do you help your children find that spark? You know, the magic moment when their eyes sparkle and curiosity takes over.
If you have children, even if you don’t homeschool, you have glimpsed that spark. We all have seen it. But how do we encourage it in our children?
Think back to a spark you experienced. You can probably remember a really huge moment in your youth when something sparked your curiosity BIG TIME. What was it?
For me it was a moment in college. I was sitting in a class for pre-med undergraduates and the instructor started her lecture. I was not in a premed track, nor was I an undergraduate. I was a first year graduate student starting a PhD program in biophysics. The toughest part of this was I needed all the coursework for an undergrad degree in biology, chemistry, physics, and math. I had a lot of it already, but biology and chemistry needed some filling in.
So there I sat in an embryology class, not really knowing what the subject was about. Dr. Erickson started her lecture, based on the textbook she wrote and we all had weighing down our backpacks.
She put up a slide from the text which showed the moment a chick embryo ‘lifted’ off the yolk and began forming a gut tube.
BAM!
This was like an alien shape-shifting, just like the scifi stories we all know. Wow! What was causing it? Why did a chick develop just like a human? So strange and yet I saw it with my own two eyes! Over and over! How amazing and cool life is! I wanted to know more and more.
Even though this was off-topic from my dissertation, I went on to help Dr. Erickson teach the laboratory sections for Embryology for the rest of my time there. I loved every moment. I loved sharing all the excitement and wonder. I especially loved watching those future doctors catch the spark. I know many would go on to become Obstetricians and Pediatricians, just because they caught the spark too.
So back to homeschooling.
That spark is the kind of moment you want to encourage in your child. Will it be the same spark that you found? No, probably not.
Your child will find a new spark, something you never expected. Maybe it will be programming or marine biology, or literature. Regardless, if you give them the freedom to explore, your child will find their spark.
How do you see it coming? If it is something that you are not really interested in, how do you help nurture that subject without really knowing what will spark for your child?
Don’t worry, just listen to your kid. He will let you know when he discovers his passion. The important part is just to listen.