Julie Gehrke and her husband, Larry, were talking when 8-year-old Shane appeared in the doorway. "Have you seen a little guy with a yellow hard hat and a red shirt?" he asked. A small figure dressed in red and yellow on Shane's plastic safari hat attracted Julie's attention.
Having caught on to his game, Larry pointed. "Maybe he went that way."
A few minutes later, Shane reappeared. "Are you sure you haven't seen him? He took my glue." There, taped alongside the guy on his hat, was a bottle of Elmer's glue. When parents are paying attention, children give them clues about their interests.
"I wish I could say that it was my idea to enroll Shane in theater camps and drama classes," Julie said, "but it was my brother who said, 'I wish Mom had gotten me involved in theater when I was a kid.' "
Julie didn't enroll her kids in extracurricular activities until they showed an interest or she saw a God-given talent. Her hunch about Shane proved right. Shane is now a teen and an active performer.
This article first appeared in the Discovery Years edition of the May/June 2007 issue of the Focus on Your Child newsletters and was originally titled "Develop Gifts". Copyright © 2007 by Focus on the Family.