CHAPTER II DEVELOPING THE TALENT OF THE CHILDREN: THE REASONS AND THE WAYS

A. Overview A child, based on The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language means a human between the stages of birth and puberty. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified by 192 of 194 member countries defines a child as a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child. Biologically, a child is anyone in the developmental stage of childhood, between infancy and adulthood. Child may also describe a relationship with parents. The stage of ages also influences the process of developing our childrens talent. In developing childrens talent, parents must relate to their age because there are different developments. Reni Akbar (2001), as quoted by Papalia and Old (1987), mentions that child development periods are separated in 5 stages. They are prenatal stage, baby stage, preschool stage, school stage, adolescences stage. First, prenatal stage is the time between conception and birth. Second, baby period is the age from 18 month until 3 years. In this stage, the child relies on seeing, touching, feeling, and using their senses to learn things about themselves and the environment. Third, preschool stage is from about three to six years of age. In this stage the child can walk, run, jump and think very temper. Fourth, school stage is from about six to

twelve years of age. In this stage the children can accept formal education and absorb everything from environment. And the last adolescences stage is from about twelve to eighteen years of age. In this stage the children observe their identity and spend a lot of time with their friends. In this case, developing childrens talent can be started in the preschool stage but the writer wants to explain the ways to develop children talent at school stage. Every child has his or her own talent. Children with outstanding talent based on the definition used in the federal Javits Gifted and Talented Education Act, states that children and youth with outstanding talent perform or show their potential in performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with the other children of their age, experience, or environment. Children are born not with their particular skill but they can try hard to achieve it by practicing. They should try to develop their talent to avoid such talent going to waste. It is deeply regretted if the person has extraordinary talent but he or she does not try to develop it. Talent is a unique thing which God gives to each of us because only a few people who have the same talent. Talent, based on The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, means a marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment, natural endowment or ability of a superior quality. Although we can see that every child has the same conspicuous talent in the interface but basically they have other different intelligences. .

B. The Reason of Developing Talent of The Children 1. Develop Childrens Confidence Talent can not be separated from creativity because developing childrens talent is identical with creativity. Amabile et.al. (1997) state that gifted children are children who have appropriate domain skills, creativity skills, and task motivation. Based on the explanation, domain skill is background knowledge, creative skill related with creative thinking and creative working, like willingness to take risks, experiment, and etc. Task motivation is divided by two. They are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something from themselves, the pure pleasure and enjoyment of the task itself. Extrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something for some external goal. Reynold Bean (1993) states in his book, creativity is a process which is used by someone to express their characteristic with a media that can make him or her satisfied and produce something new. Based on the explanation, we can infer that creativity is a process of using skill and mind to create something new. Creativity can build self-confidence of the children. When parents give the chance to their children to develop their talent, it is the same with parents who trust their children to explore their childrens ability and creativity by themselves. Reynold Bean (1993), states in his book that children learn how to
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respect themselves because they learn to express themselves. It is similar to the children build their self-expression, like self confidence. Based on explanation above, when children learn to listen to themselves through creativity, like start making a painting or creating a song, they learn to trust themselves. When they succeed creating something, automatically their self-confidence will be increased. So, the children can have more courage to express every great thing in their brain. It is the positive thing that makes our children more confident than before. Parents can give support to their children such as giving direct contact with their childrens creation. 2. Let The Children Choose Their Own Future Sep 13th, 2009, President Obama visited one of the school children to take responsibility for their own educations. He said, I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something youre good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. Thats the opportunity an education can provide. Where you are right now doesnt have to determine where youll end up. No ones written your destiny for you. (source: http//:www.scribd.com./Developing Talent is Key in Transforming Education) Based on the quotation above, we can know that once children have their own strengths and talents. They know what they want to do and what they dont want to. The parents will help the children to know their own strengths and talent because the parents know and understand how to put them to use. By the leading from parents, children can be created their futures. If children know
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about their talent, it will be easier for them to choose their own future. Developing childrens talent can help children to choose their job or occupation in the future. Childrens strengths are not for us to choose but it must be founded and developed. Each person must understand his or her own talent and take responsibility for them We must also realize that our child will not always have an interest in what we want them to. Let our child choose the activity that they want to participate in. Do not ignore their opinions and desires, just because we think as a parent we know the best. Chances are that they will be much better at something that they choose themselves. By succeeding at the activity, their self expression will increase. And who knows they may end up using the activity in a future career. 3. Help The Children Face Their Future When President Obama comes to school to motivate student in the school, he also said, We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you dont do that if you quit on school youre not just quitting on yourself, youre quitting on your country. (source: http//:www.scribd.com./Developing Talent is Key in Transforming Education) President Obama motivated the children to develop their talent because he believed that every child has ability to face their future. Every child is unique. All children have strengths and talents inside them, and yet there is the

possibility that their uniqueness will send them to be successful people in their future. Children of today need to discover and develop their strengths in order to avoid weakness in their lives. As we all know that, our children need to be prepared to enter a workforce that is entirely different from the one we are in today. Discovering and developing strengths in children will create a society that will allow everyone to take a benefit.

C. The Ways to Develop The Talent of The Children Every child who is born in the world has the innate ability or talent. Actually, their innate ability is one of genetic factors that they have from their parents. Environment will give more motivation and stimulant on innate ability or talent so that it will be developed optimally. There are five ways to develop talent of the children, such as: 1. Observe Our Childrens Intelligence Based on the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) developed by Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University, human beings are smart in many ways. He also adds nine types of intelligences in children and adults. They are Linguistics intelligence, Logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical-rhythmic

intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalist

intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. He uses the word intelligence as replacement of the word talent. Based on the explanation above, basically every child has all of the multiple intelligences but there are some or just one intelligence which is conspicuous among intelligences. The dominant intelligence is what we call aptitude or talent. Julie states (2009) in her book that talents are divided by two. They are academic talent and special talent. Academic talent is related with academic skill, like mastering the lesson in the school. Special talent is related with the talent out of the academic talent, like master in art, music, sport etc. In fact, the interpersonal and intrapersonal are rarely developed in particular ways because this intelligence can develop in the run of the time. Knowing what our childrens talent can be done by observing our childrens behavior to determine our childrens interests and strengths. Look for the things that they seem love to do and the things they are good at. Perhaps our child seems to have a talent for sport, like football, try to ask them to go to football competition. If our child loves to look at the picture, try encouraging them to draw. Besides that, we can know it by joining them to the psychology test or ask to the counselor about our children talent. It is the simple way to know our children talent without we find out by ourselves. On the other hand, we must keep an open mind with the other talent of our children and also allow them to try other activities that they have interested in. By using the talent that they have, they can develop other abilities also.
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2. Find Creative Way Creative based on the oxford dictionary is involving the use of skill and the imagination to produces something new. We can use some creative ways to start exploring the childrens talent. The creative ways in developing our children talent will make children have strong motivation to develop their talent. Because it does not only serve a fresh condition but also increase their creative thinking. These activities can make our children feel happy and avoid of boredom. Finding creative ways for our children to develop their talent can increase their motivation and their desire to know more about it. We can find creative ways by asking to the counselor or some friends, reading many books, browsing in internet, etc. These actions will increase our knowledge to know how to develop our childrens talent, especially finding creative ways. The example of creative ways is for a child who is interested in the stars, we can ask him or her to visit a planetarium or make his or her room become their own planetarium. These are creative ways to develop their interest and creative thinking. Children learn by doing, so let them get out there and let them experience the things that interest them. They may turn into passions. 3. Develop Children Hobby Different children have different hobby. Finding our children hobby can be done by keep attention for their activities. Perhaps our children like doing sports, dancing, or singing. Parents should develop childrens hobby so that it
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can indirectly develop their talent. This will not only increase children's creativity but also it will bring the family closer. Hobby is not only something that our children like to do but it can also mean more than that. Hobby is the activity that our child is interested in. So, we must encourage them to learn. Interest has a big part in developing our childrens talent. Julie (2009) states in her book that besides talent, children also need interest to achieve maximum result. Based on Julie explanation, we can say that interest is needed more in the process of developing our childrens talent in order to get the great result and the process will run well. The children who have interest in certain activities will make serious efforts to do it until they can get the expected result. The first way that parents can do is that they have to build their childrens interest. Developing our childrens hobby can be done by asking them to take a course, giving them some properties that support their hobby, buying them some books to enrich their knowledge about their hobby, asking them to join competition about their hobby. For instance a child who has talent in music but she does not want to take a music course. We may not force her but ask her to go to musical concert first. Let them feel that exhibiting their talent in front of the people, like playing music in the stages and watched by many people, will give positive things for them. Besides entertaining and making the other people happy, it can also make her look cool.

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4. Give Visual and Audiovisual Media to The Children When we hit on something that interests our children, find some visual and audiovisual media to our children like videos, television, radio, and etc. We can look into the documentary section of our local video rental store or library and find some videos on the subject or subjects that our child enjoys. We may want to view the material before we allow our children to watch it. It is just to make sure that you do not expose them to subject matter that we feel may be inappropriate. Ask our children to pay attention to the way people speak and the information especially about their talent on the television or radio, so that they can take a lot of benefits. It can help our child to enrich their knowledge and to know many things which they do not know before. Showing some videos or listening some music can help the children to stimulate and refresh their mind. 5. Find a Mentor in Our Family or Community Nobody is perfect. Lack of something is a normal thing for us. No one can master everything. We know more about many things but not all the things that we can master. In developing our childrens talents, it is so important to have a counselor or a mentor who understands about our childrens talent. Actually, a mentor must master in nurturing and developing our childrens talent. Sometimes, we will face some problems in developing our childrens talent. It may come up a deep sensitivity that can be easily misleading to others

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who are not familiar with a certain talent. So, it will become easier to find out a mentor. Mentor can be a person like private teacher. We can find a mentor for our children by asking from our friends, searching for some advertisement in television, radio, or internet, and etc. We can also ask a mentor to go to our house like private teacher or let our children take a course. Joining a course will help them easy to develop their talent. The mentor in course knows the right ways to develop our childrens talent. Besides that, the children will learn more about the techniques to increase their ability. This is the same advantages as finding out a private teacher. There are some differences between letting the children to take a course and asking a mentor to go to our house. In course the children can interact with the other people and also give them competitor. By having a competition, children can measure how far they develop and increase when compared with others. They can also compete with their friends and do the best for it. Private teachers can help the children to develop their talent intensively. They can be a friend for our children not just a teacher. The private teacher can be a counselor for our children when they have a problem in developing their talent. They can help preserve that endless source of passion in which children can explore anything about their world and their dreams without fear.

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