To wonder when your DCs interests/talents emerged?

[ArtisanPopcorn]

Just that really. I'm really looking forward to being able to encourage/support DDs 'things' when they become more clear so I'm just wondering if your child is into or good at something specific (drawing/team sports/history/writing/computing/music/whatever) when did it become clear?

My DS is a maths genius. It became clear when he was 2 and had better maths skills than I do.

DD is a history buff which became clear when she read The Diary of Anne Frank when she was 10.

i can sing and one of my daughters would him before she could talk then we she could talk she would sing sentences. she’s almost 12 now and does piano and singing lessons.

and she is a beauty....makes me wonder

Hasn’t happened yet (dcs 11, 8 and 6).

DS, now 10, is a talented runner. He always won things but it became apparent as an actual talent in Y3 and one of his games teachers told me in all his years of teaching he’d never seen such a young child with such a natural ability to pace.

DD is 8, and it has come clear over the last 18monrhs-2 years she has a real practical skills aptitude... She would ask you to show her how to do something, and learn it really quickly. She cooked us a 3 course meal last week, with very minimal input (mostly asking for help with the cooker).

Aged 4 my daughter went to a trampolining party - a club where they had 'proper' equipment as opposed to a trampoline park. It is the only party that she cried at when it was time to leave. She's been at the club ever since and has her level 5 less than a year later. Her maths abilities also became evident in the last 6 months of nursery

Dd is a talented gymnast and it was apparent from a young age when she could do splits and bridge age 3. She was selected to development squad after a few preschool lessons.
Ds is a talented musician and it was clear he had a very strong sense of rhythm age 18 months and self taught instruments from late primary onwards.
Other ds is a good all round sports person and he can just pick up most sports and excel at them.
They don’t get it from me!!!

By 3 music was all dd liked, and numbers too I suppose. She's a semi professional musician and maths whizz (she actually hates maths but that's another story )

DS is 9 and a very good all round sportsman. He went to 2 trial rugby sessions before he was asked to join the team. He played under 13s cricket when he had just turned 9. He was spotted at the local.pool by a swim coach when he was 9 and is now a competitive swimmer, he didnt learn to swim until he was 7. He has the attention span of a Goldfish when it comes to anything academic and this was evident from about 4.

DS1 (11) has always been a focused, slightly obsessive personality. His talents in music and maths emerged early and he was picked up by his music teacher when he was 6.

DS2 (9) is totally different. Creative, arty, scatterbrained, outdoorsy. He's doing very well at school but no particular "things" have emerged. He loves to try everything though

DD is 6 and similar to DS2. Unless her obsession with Elsa counts...

Lots of children who are gifted at maths at an early age don't go on to be maths geniuses (geneii??) as they get older, as the thinking skills required become very different and much more creative. Some do, but many don't.

DS1 (now 20) has taken up a new sport at Uni and is really excelling - on the first team after 2 terms, so for him I would maybe say his talent emerged at 18!

DS2 (now 18) again, has developed over time, the thing he is most passionate about now, is not something he did till he was in his mid teens.

I'm not sure it's great to pigeonhole children into 'the sporty one' 'the maths whizz' 'the bookish one' etc at too young an age, as that may limit their opportunities to try different things. It's fantastic, obviously, to nurture and encourage their interests and talents, but it's just as important that a range of activities are available

So anything from 2 to 10 to not yet!

Feeling a bit disheartened by all these pre-school whizz kids, my DD is nearly 6 and does quite a few extra-curriculars but nothing that I think she'd be devastated to stop yet or where the teacher has said how good she is!

We were taken to one side in Yr 3 and told DS was grammar school material, he is 15 now at a superselective and got a 9 last (year so just 15) at GCSE maths. Dd has always loved horses and riding first sat on a horse at 18m. Is very good at it and loves it aged 13.

That’s totally normal OP. Most kids aren’t brilliantly talented at anything in particular, any more than most adults are. Most people have perfectly nice lives despite this.

Still waiting 8 and 6!

I know @ChipotleBlessing I was mostly joking, I'd just like to find something she really enjoys and/or is good at eventually that I can enable/encourage. This is clearly partly because my parents could afford for me to do a lot of things when I was young.

DS15 is obsessed with football - watching, attending, playing etc and has been since I can remember. He is a pretty decent keeper too. I was the same but with horses/riding/watching/learning for as long as I can remember.

DD17 and DS7 don't have the level of obsession that my son does with anything but have interests in a much wider variety of things.

*couldn't

DS1 is 14 and last year took up a new martial art. He's always been very sporty and done judo since he was 4, so inevitably he was going to be ok at it. But he's mad about it and seems to have found a real talent. His coach adores how much effort and energy puts in, I love that he's channeling his teen angst and ire in a way that doesn't impact on me and he has good potential if he stays at it. However, he might turn around in a years time and declare that he hates it, and that will be that.

DS2 is one of those children who is a good all-rounder and excels at whatever he tries. He's 9 and gets invited to join clubs etc purely because he's good at most things. I leave it to him to decide what he wants to focus on; partly because I'm lazy but partly because he's too young to pre-determine what his best skills will be (unless you count Cato-style ninja jumps at DH when they're play fighting, which he is the world's greatest ever at).

One asked to play violin at four. She plays still.
One asked to dance at three. We initially discouraged but she insisted and went on to train with Royal Ballet and dances still.
Son was dragged to rugby at seven or so. He plays for armed forces now.

Some activities have waned (notably fencing), some are less frequent (sailing) some have become social such as tennis. They’ve developed new interests over time. The dancer also does cheerleading at university and our son also plays golf.

We may have been a bit unusual in that we didn’t allow dipping in and out at will. If they committed, they committed properly so if he played rugby it was no excuses, all weathers, all training and no missing matches for better offers. Etc.

Any ‘gift’ is usually the result of commitment, encouragement and practice. We set high academic expectations but hopefully didn’t pigeonhole into a single ability area.

DD6 is a chess champion, plays tennis at county level, is school prefect and class council representative. She has her artwork displayed in several galleries and clears the board at local and countrywide gymkhanas. She has also completed level 6 violin and 4 piano and tutors other children for pocket money. These talents emerged between ages 2-6 and she just keeps blossoming.

Most kids enjoy one thing over another but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a special aptitude for it, though they will generally enjoy something if they are good at it. Some are all rounders who are pretty good at alot of things. Some have yet to be introduced to what will spark them. Some will never turn on to any one thing. Let the child lead you. If they find something that they become interested in, encourage and support. Do not suddenly become a micromanager pushing this activity at all costs. How many kids started playing an instrument enthusiastically at first, only to become overwhelmed by exam pressure and nagging to practice so they eventually drop it? What started as a fun activity just became another source of anxiety. For every math/music/sports mad kid are 1000s which just get on with being a kid.

That's totally normal, OP. My dc are teens and interests/abilities change.

You've also got parent's view on "brilliantly talented" (seeing through their eyes and interpretation from others). So what one person sees as absolutely amazing from their pov, may not be absolutely amazing from anothers-and the other way round. And some extra-curriculum teachers tend to be over praising as they don't want the kid to stop-and stop paying.

For mine: Dd started interest in performing at 5yo when she first did panto, and is still interested, but more as techy. Dd2 has completely changed interests from 5 years ago. Ds started being interested in planes at 3yo, WWII at about 4yo, and is still interested, but not obsessed as he was back then. He still enjoys history and such like, but he's not more interested in future technology.

In some ways not having a major talent/interest at your dc's age is a good thing. I've known a number of children who have had, and they've been doing it 3-4 times a week, competitions, trials for big places, winning big time... and then interest drops, or they find the field is larger at 12yo than 6yo and they're no longer the next big thing, and they have nothing left. They've put everything into the one thing they now are lost.

Encourage her to take opportunities that are then, explore different things and choose what she wants to do because she loves it.

Middle DS has a talent for math. I suspected so when he enjoyed counting backwards from 100 in 3s (ie, 100, 97, 94...) to put himself to sleep at night. His other talent is he is a super reliable worker. No matter what the weather, broken arm, he still goes to his paper round & turned up for the most boring work experience possible in yr10.

We discovered DD was good at sport when she was 9yo (yr4). She started winning all the races & judo bouts, etc. Didn't turn out to be Olympic standard, tbf.

DH found out he was a great cyclist at age 21. Now in his 40s & slight legend on local Strava (we literally get stopped on street by people who recognise him).

My dad didn't excel at anything until he went to Law School (age 23).

Youngest DS is good at cooking and baking. That emerged when he was 11yo.

Ds, ASD, 15, discovered his love of Tech when he built his 1st computer out of bits found in a skip aged 8.

Dd, ASD, 11, has not found it yet. I was reading Greta Thunberg's Mother's account of Greta aged 11, before she'd found her passion and it was so like my dd it made me cry.