A child’s interests deserve attention before they become skills worth displaying.

Interest usually arrives long before competence, in a scrappy and unimpressive form. If attention only starts once the thing is good enough to show other people, a child learns that being watched is a reward for performing rather than a normal part of being loved. Curiosity nobody notices tends to fade quietly. What gets attention early is what gets pursued.

Ask about the thing that is currently bad. Sit through the beginner version, the tuneless practice, the half-formed collection nobody else would care about. Your attention at that stage is worth more than applause later, and it costs only a willingness to be slightly bored.