Hello Friends,
“Train up a child in the way he should go, [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 6:22 TAB). I love this promise from the Word of God, but like all of the Lord’s promises it comes with conditions…
I’m sure you know of people, perhaps even in your own family, who experienced a loss of personal identity. For much of their life, they were given a substitute educational experience that addressed their personal traits only on the side, as though they were “extra-curricular” or just for fun. They had to learn in the way they were told to learn even if it didn’t suit how they were made to learn. They actually “departed from” their God-given bents for many years, often not knowing what they were, and sometimes only partially returned to explore what God placed within them. Jim and I witnessed this happening in our son, Noel. The longer he was in school doing irrelevant assignments, the less inclined he was toward his own peculiar inborn gifts and bents.
In talking with moms, I’ve found that knowing a child’s delight-directed interests is the easy part, but knowing their bents a bit more difficult to discern. The bent is the “how” of pursuing an interest or how the child learns. It could be a repetitive activity that a child enjoys doing, not necessarily knowing why they do it. For instance, my son, John, used to take mechanical things apart and examine the inner parts of things. He never actually did much with the parts for the first few years when he was small, and I couldn’t see where that activity would lead. It could have led to a desire to fix things, which he eventually knew how to do (and did a lot of just for the sake of needed maintenance around the house), or it could have led to being a builder of parts in a factory, but it didn’t lead to either of these occupations.
While John grew to become very resourceful and could do anything he set his mind to do, his drive to examine the inner workings of machinery and equipment stemmed from an underlying inventive bent that wasn’t defined as such until he was about ten-years-old. His seemingly never-ending drive to take things apart was providing instruction and understanding of how things work so he could actually do the activity of bringing his inventions into reality. Today, he’s working on improving his model of an intervalometer, not using any formula, but just making it as he goes. You may have seen his first model posted on my Facebook page a few weeks ago. He successfully made one that works and is now upgrading his model with a new version of gears. He loves to invent and make things from scratch, even making many of his parts. Invention is a hobby that he pursues whenever he has a chance. He’s actually learned so much and become so skilled in this one activity that his inventive bent has been put to great use in other areas of his life as well, including his vocations.
This may seem an odd reality, but it’s true: My son actually learned how to learn through his inventive bent. It’s “how” he went about his entire learning process. He learned Spanish, and the structure of English as a result (began age 18), harmonica (began age 14), piano (began age 19), and music composition (same as piano) all by teaching himself, experimenting with his own methodology for learning, examining how the subject was “built” by first taking it apart. He loves learning this way, and moreover he learns well! He went about creating (inventing) his own systems for storing data in his well-developed interests of genealogy research (began age 17), bug collecting (began age 17), and coin collecting (began age 14). His inventive streak shows up in everything he does, including the video work he does for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries. I’m so grateful for my son’s inventive bent, and so grateful to the Lord for showing me how to validate it when it didn’t yet look like anything to my “schooled” senses. He probably wouldn’t have been allowed to learn in a school setting according to how he learned best, but the worst part is he would have been led to believe he couldn’t learn.
I hope you are certain that you have sufficiently come to know your own precious children and are allowing for the unfolding of their unique bents. You can pretty much expect not to recognize them for what they actually are, and you will more than likely not validate them, so be on the lookout to notice what types of activities your children do a lot of and ask the Lord to show you something.
I wrote a 12-page eArticle for new members of LOLACHE. “Your Child’s Individuality and Unique Creative Profile” will help you take a closer look at how God made your children. By tapping into their rich reservoir of God-given raw materials, your children are pre-disposed toward their vocation if they are guided to release creativity more fully. They will never depart from the way God intended them to go.
May you be richly blessed in the making of family memories during this holy season.
So grateful to be found in the Lord’s service!
Marilyn Howshall for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries
[Lifestyle of Learning™LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ December 14, 2011, Issue 4]