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In our role as caregivers, we often find ourselves fixated on our children’s weaknesses, driven by societal pressure, fear of falling behind, and a natural tendency to compare, but what if we shifted our focus to nurturing their strengths and interests, creating a positive environment that fosters their self-esteem, motivation, and overall growth?
Why We Tend to Focus on our Children’s Weaknesses
As caregivers, we talk a lot about the areas with which our children struggle, and we often focus on the skills that are “delayed”. Society has a way to bring on fear of falling behind or not being “typical”. Our brain has a nasty habit of comparing our kids to their peers and also our parenting to other parenting. And then we worry. We worry about the possibility of our children being bullied, not being able to “fit in” and we worry about their future.
This can be super overwhelming for us and also for our child when they see, hear and feel our concerns. If you are anything like me, we want to control our world as much as possible and try to protect the ones who we love so much. This can trigger a “fix it” mentality which can lead to even more stress and send a message to our children that they are not good enough or even worse, that they are broken. This could lead to low self-esteem and anxiety.
Focusing on Strengths
What if we flipped our focus? What if we spent as much time learning about our child’s strengths, what they are good at and what they enjoy doing vs. their deficits? All of us have strengths that can be highlighted and built on. Building on your child’s strengths can be as simple as using materials they enjoy, having them enroll in an afterschool activity or club or using their learning style (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic) for an activity. For example, if your child learns well through movement, throw a ball back and forth while catching up on their day, or try planning the next day’s schedule with your child while they swing in the backyard or make a drawing of what the plans are.
Why Focusing on a Child’s Interests is so Powerful
All of us have interests that can be highlighted and developed into so many amazing skills. Think about your own interests. It is likely that your interests and your skills coincide, because people have a tendency to pursue and develop skills around the things that they are interested in.
This is why, on top of building on a child’s strengths, it is also powerful to determine and focus on their interests. Some children have many different interests, while others have less obvious ones or ones that are difficult to identify. I used to (okay, I still do) LOVE notebooks, stationery, pens, etc. My parents used to let me pick out fun supplies for taking notes at school. This helped motivate me to pay attention and learn, because I was excited to use the cool school supplies (and yes, make fun doodles).
Children learn best when they are engaged in activities that are highly motivating to them. For example, if a child is working on challenging math skills and they love blocks, it is a powerful strategy to use blocks in the process of teaching math skills. An interest inventory is a way to figure out your child’s interests and to provide you with suggestions of new things to try.
Repurposing Areas of Needs as Strengths
Labeling is a double-edged sword. At times, it can be useful to help understand lagging skills or give your child access to services. At other times, it can be stigmatizing. We see strengths and weaknesses on a continuum, not an either/or. The very same weakness can also be a strength.
Now, think of a few areas of need you sometimes use when describing your child. Write them down. Now think of the flip side of those weaknesses and write them down too.
Here are a few examples:
Weakness
- Emotional
- Stubborn
- Disorganized
Re-purposed Strength
- Expressive of feelings
- Persistent
- Creative, thrives in complex environments
What You Can Do to Start Focusing on Your Child’s Strengths Today
Identifying and focusing on your child’s strengths every day will take conscious effort and time until it becomes second nature. Besides the benefit of it helping your child thrive, it is an opportunity to strengthen the bond and trust between your child and yourself.
To begin, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
- What is one thing you love about your child?
- What is something your child is good at?
- What interests does your child have?
- What makes your child special?
- What are three positive strengths or character traits your child has? (ex: patient, brave, loyal, honest, helpful)
More ideas to help you keep your child’s strengths at the forefront of your mind:
- Post your child’s strengths somewhere where you will see it and be cued to make noteof them.
- Do an art project together where you use the words to showcase your child’s strengths. For instance, you can do Word Art and draw the word “Creative” in the most creative way possible.
- Take the Via Strengths Survey yourself (parents need to know their strengths too!). If your child is old enough, have your child take the survey. Talk about the results.
- Make a point to do one activity per week that fosters your child’s strengths. If you can do the activity together, even better!
- At dinner, make a point to ask your child what went well during the day, or what was one thing they are proud of that they did that day.
- If your child makes a negative self-statement, see if you can reframe it as a positive. For younger kids, you could call this a “yuk” thought and turn it into a “yum” thought. Model this for your child with examples of how you turned something that seemed negative at the time into a positive or something you learned from the situation that made you stronger.
- Have a “strengths jar” in your kitchen with a pad of sticky notes and a pen nearby so you can write down appreciations about family members. Consider a family ritual of reading them together on a certain day of the week (e.g. Ice Cream Sunday with Ice Cream Sundaes, perhaps?!?).
- Visit the Frostig Research Institute website and download the Parent Guide on how to focus on 6 strengths that help students with learning differences for more ideas.
Celebrating Differences
We all have different strengths and weaknesses and that’s okay. Nobody can be good at everything and focusing on our strengths and interests could allow us to become masters in certain areas (versus mediocre in a bunch of areas). I truly believe that this shift from focusing on weaknesses to strengths will create a happier society with greater advancements. Let’s celebrate and put a spotlight on strengths and for our children to thrive. Because while my child does have weaknesses (and who among us does not?), the most important “trait” I want to see in my child is…a positive self-image and confidence.