Few things are more fun than watching your child take an interest in something. Whether kids want to take karate lessons, spend hours in a library, play football, or even spend time playing with strategy puzzles or video games, there’s nothing quite like the enthusiasm a child can show for a new activity or hobby.
While you as the parent can help foster your children’s love of certain things, you don’t want to direct their interests too much, at least not in an obvious way. Sure, reading to your child at a young age and loving books yourself is reason enough to take your children on library trips and encourage reading. But if your child would rather play baseball outside than spend two hours with a book, forcing the reading time isn’t going to turn your kid into a bookworm. It’ll only make him or her resist reading even more. If your child sees you reading and enjoying it, or if you’re willing to read that children’s book and discuss it with your child to make it more of a group activity rather than an alone activity, your child might be more prone to reading.
This same principle holds for almost any activity. If your child hasn’t expressed an interest in learning to play the piano, enrolling him or her in piano lessons might not be a good idea. Maybe you always wanted to take lessons as a kid or you simply have some desire for your child to learn to play. Lessons a child really doesn’t want or enjoy will become just one more unpleasant chore like cleaning his room or washing the dishes. It’s unlikely your child will suddenly become interested and love those weekly lessons and daily practice sessions.
If your child seems to spend too much time doing something, on the other hand, it’ll take some ingenuity to change that activity. A child who wants to spend too many hours playing video games, for instance, will need something that interests him or her just as much to give that video game console a break. Pay attention to the kinds of games your child plays. If they revolve around a certain theme—puzzles, for instance—you can find a puzzle book and you can both work on a puzzle together. If he or she plays racing games or sword & sorcery games, you can learn about race cars together, or read about dragon lore. It’ll take some imagination, and patience, but you can lure your child away from the games and the computer more often than you probably think.
For those times when the child really doesn’t want to do anything else, you can always find games that do double duty. Educational video and computer games these days come in so many different themes, you’re sure to find one that appeals to your child.
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