Passion is critical to a well-rounded, fulfilling life. When people are passionate about what they are doing, they are more naturally motivated to achieve their goals and strive for greatness. Recognising the important role that passion plays throughout a person’s lifetime, it’s necessary to provide children of all ages with passion-based learning experiences. Extracurricular activities are a wonderful way for children to try new things and discover what they are passionate about.
In addition, you can help your child find their passion by:
1. Encouraging them to create
A child’s imagination needs to be nurtured and developed over time, and an active imagination is needed for a child to discover their passion. By encouraging your child to create with the materials they enjoy using, you will spark that sense of desire to make something that is uniquely theirs. Children of all ages love working with building blocks, art materials, recycled items and other supplies.
2. Giving them free time
Allowing your child to be bored may sound counterintuitive but children need to have free time to come up with unique ideas and creative activities. By giving your child a chance to let their mind wander and experience boredom, they will soon start making choices about what they like to do and how they prefer to fill their time.
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3. Introducing them to various sports
Sports are a great way for young children to develop social connections, maintain a healthy lifestyle, and understand how to work as a team towards a common goal. By allowing your child to participate in different sports at various stages of their life, you will help them discover the sports activity they love the most.
Also read: How Sports play a vital role in schools
4. Giving them opportunities to explore independently
When children are in a safe environment, such as a local playground or a school setting, they should be given the opportunity to wander and wonder freely and make their own choices. This will help them learn unexpected and different skills and develop a natural sense of confidence, which is needed for them to understand their interests and passions.
5. Prioritising their interests
Remember that your child is an independent human being who will have their interests and ideas. You need to prioritise these as they begin to choose extracurricular activities. As tempting as it may be to steer your child toward something that you loved when you were young, it’s not the best way to help them discover their passion.
6. Understanding that their interests may change over time
It is very normal for children to cycle through various interests and activities. Be accepting of that and support them as they try new things. Transitioning from one skill set to another, not just exposes them to different areas of interest but also allows them to decide what they would love to pursue.
7. Revisiting past interests
If your child has moved on to new interests and activities, don’t be afraid to ask them to cycle back to ones that they enjoyed in the past. Sometimes, a child will rediscover their passion this way.
8. Allowing them to be inspired by real-world challenges
Young people today are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and they are going to be the ones coming up with creative solutions for the world’s complex problems. Now is the best time to help children understand some of the challenges that must be addressed — such as climate change — as a way to spark passion and innovation.
Children are often naturally motivated to help, and these real-world issues may inspire them to get involved in sustainable activities and green initiatives.
As your child grows and develops, one of the best things you can do is expose them to different extracurricular activities. By allowing them to explore as many activities and experiences as possible, you are giving them the best chance of discovering what they are truly passionate about.
At GIIS, we offer many extracurricular activities and co-curricular activities, including soccer, cricket, chess, badminton, design club, environment club and more. Moreover, our Gold Squad Accelerator programme provides specialised training to promising students in five different sports – cricket, football, basketball, badminton, tennis – under best-in-class instructors at no extra cost.
Extracurricular activities and co-curricular activities play an important role in our 9GEMS pedagogy, which provides for the holistic development of all students.
For more information on our extracurricular activities and the student experience at GIIS, contact us today.
