Fanning the Flame of Your Child’s Interests

Have you heard the phrase “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life”? The idea behind this is that if you can find a way to make a living by doing something you enjoy, it will be much more enjoyable and feel less like work. Homeschooling is a wonderful way to set our children on the road to this kind of future because it allows them to explore a variety of interests and pursue what excites them. While this may be something academic, it also may not be. It may be something like carpentry, engineering, baking or cooking, sewing, photography, mechanics, or any other monetizable skill. 

Cast a Wide Net

When our kids are young, we may not know what their interests or skills are, but having them home every day provides ample opportunity to figure this out. Start by incorporating your children into your daily tasks. Let them help you bake, help change car tires or oil, help plant and care for the garden, watch/help fix things around the house, join in on sewing, and any other things being done around the house. 

They can begin learning by watching and joining in as appropriate. Oftentimes, letting our kids explore their interests means getting out of their way! As parents, we don’t want to see our children fail, but stepping aside and letting them try things on their own is how they will see what they love to do. 

Go With It

Once they start to show interest and skills, we as parents can fan that flame or extinguish it. Let’s be the parents that fan the flames! This helps create a love of learning. The sky is really the limit on what your child might find a passion for and desire to pursue.

Today with digital cameras, it is much easier to let our children explore photography. Back when we had to pay to develop every film, it seemed more wasteful, but now they can use our phone camera or other camera and try their hand at taking photos. This can be really fun especially for creatively minded children who like to capture the world as they see it. 

While we do recommend being wise with internet access for your children, some older kids may have an interest and skill for coding. Coding catches the interest of kids and is a skill that there are opportunities for today. If practiced safely, these are skills that can lead to careers in adulthood. It is always a good idea to monitor your child's internet usage and speak to them about internet safety. 

If your child is constantly asking to run a lemonade or baking stand or to sell homemade bracelets, etc., they may have an entrepreneurial mind. Encourage them to grow certain skills that are essential for any business owner and guide them to follow their passion and ideas. 

The kitchen is a wonderful place for homeschool children to develop their skills if this is an area of interest. (Even if it is not, it can still be a great place to learn life skills and responsibility.) You never know if your child might be the next Julia Childs! Allowing kids to follow their interest in the kitchen (within safe boundaries) lets them develop skills they may not have otherwise had time to explore and perfect. 

Some children really have an eye for beauty and creativity. This may come out in the form of art, poetry, music, flower bouquets, landscaping, photography, or many other creative forms. Let them experiment with their interests: putting flower bouquets together, decorating rooms or cakes, sharing their poetry, etc. Even building elaborate creations with lego is a form of creativity that could lead to some type of architecture career!

The Sky's the Limit

The above paragraphs hold many suggestions on things your children may be interested in that may lead them to career opportunities in the future, but it is not an exhaustive list. To write an exhaustive list would require pages and pages and even then there would be inevitably some things missed. Each child’s interests and skill set are unique to them. As the parent, you have the front row seat to see these things develop. Fan the flame and equip them to pursue their passions. Through observing your child and having conversations with them, these things will become more clear to you. 

You never know what your child might accomplish in life while pursuing their unique interests and skill sets. Check out our article, Canadians Using Life Skills to Invent, to see how some Canadians have used their skills and interests to better our world.

This article has been written by homeschooling staff writers of The Canadian Schoolhouse (TCS). Enjoy more of our content from TCS contributors and staff writers by visiting our Front Door page that has content on our monthly theme and links to all our content sections.