As a parent, you must identify and analyze your child’s strengths and weaknesses.
While it’s natural for you to focus on their weaknesses to help them improve, the entire focus needs to be on the strengths rather than the shortcomings.
Focusing on your kid’s weaknesses will demotivate them, ultimately creating a negative environment for the child.
Constantly reminding your child of their shortcomings won’t make them try to do better. By identifying and embracing their strengths, you will create a positive atmosphere for the children.
Reminding them of their strengths increases their self-esteem, self-confidence and build a positive self-image. This will also lead them to improve their skills by boosting their inner confidence. This will also enhance problem-solving abilities as they will learn to use their minds creatively and help them grow emotionally and academically.
Some traits are natural, but some come with practice. Strengths are skills that your child is good at and enjoys doing on their own. Strength not only includes being good at a specific task, but it also includes positive personality traits.
As kids, they are still learning about themselves, their likes, dislikes and what they are good at. Parents can be their support system and can guide them through this process of learning.
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What are your child’s strengths? Types of Strengths in Children
Every child is different and possesses different qualities. Sometimes knowing your child’s strengths can be difficult as you can see the obvious parts, but some strengths are hard to notice.
Here’s a list of the types of strengths that will guide you:
Academic
If your child performs poorly in a subject, they might get discouraged. They will focus on the negative, which will lead to a lack of confidence, and they will ignore their strengths. Help your child to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Encourage them to focus on their strong positive skills. This will build their confidence and be strong and stick to this approach when they come back to their weak points. Academic strengths include:
- Creative thinking
- Critical thinking
- Imagination
- Delayed gratification
- Impulse control
- Enthusiasm
- Attention to details
- Organization
- Attention to details
- Problem-solving skills
- Time management
- Flexibility
and more such traits. Some kids can naturally be good at some of these traits, while others need a little practice.
Personal
Personal strengths include personality traits. These positive traits come from within and natural, but you can enhance them by being role models for them. Children tend to follow what they see, so set an example for them.
Traits of personal strength include:
- Compassion
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Trustworthiness
- Compatibility
- Sympathy
- Honesty
- Sense of responsibility
- Respectfulness
- Forgiveness
- Independence
- Self-aware
- Curiosity to learn new things
- Optimism
How the child handles different situations also shows a lot about their personality. Having a sense of self-confidence, self-esteem and self-discipline are also important.
Social
Social strengths include your kid’s interaction with others. How your kid reacts to different situations involving other kids is a part of social strengths. This includes:
- Being a good friend
- Team-oriented
- Getting along well with peers
- Sharing their belongings
- Thoughtful
- Following the rules
- Being a good listener
- Giving others the personal space they need
- Ability to face peer pressure
- Straightforwardness
- Take responsibility for their actions
- Apologize wherever necessary
- Leadership
Communication and language
Children with strong communication strengths are usually expressive. They can communicate well according to their needs and wants. Some examples of this child’s strengths include:
- Explain concepts well to others
- Share their ideas and views
- Compliments others
- Pen down their thoughts
- Learns a new language
- Have excellent verbal skills
- Being a great listener
- Narrate a story well with a clarity of the beginning and end
- Handle situations calmly
- Understands jokes
Emotional
Emotional strength is essential to connect with people around your child. It helps them stay connected, relate with others and build strong relationships. Some examples include:
- Ability to express their feelings clearly
- Sensitive and able understand to the emotions of others
- Shows self-control
- Keeps friendships
- Asking for help when required
- Recognizing the sadness of others
- Ability to related with others
- Have a positive approach to things
- Deal with emotional situations well
Logical and Mathematical
These skills help children think logically in order to think reasonably. Logical and math strengths involve:
- Solve word problems and puzzles
- Good at playing logical games
- Have a strong sense of reasoning
- Enjoys conducting scientific experiments
- Can solve problems and math
- Good with understanding patterns and apply the concepts in real life
- Enjoy games like sudoku, chess, cube and other games that require math and logic
- Having an analytical mind and can estimate things easily
Ways to Identify Your Child’s Strengths
Pay attention and observe
Observing is one of the basic steps towards identifying your child’s strengths. Try to participate in every activity that your kid does. This will allow you to closely observe the areas where their strength lies. Pay attention to how your kid interacts with others or how well they respond to various situations. Watch how they behave with friends and family. Look for positive personality traits as they can be a clue to their strengths. Also, kids tend to show their strengths naturally, so you have to observe them. You will notice that your kid would want to do that activity all day and stay focused, losing track of time.
Look out for these three elements
Researchers say that there are three elements required to form a strength:
- Performance: observe your child’s performance, wait till they learn and succeed. Their performance will be stronger than their other skills.
- Energy: You will notice that your child never gets tired of doing that activity. They will always be energetic and will feel good by practicing it.
- High Use: You will find that your kid would want to practice that activity all day without getting tired. You will notice that your child enjoys doing that activity in their free time, will engage and talk a lot about it.
Indulge your child in creative activities
When your child is playing imaginative and creative games, they are most likely to showcase their strengths. The kids are free to express themselves during those games, and that is the best time for the parents to take note of their strengths. Every child is unique and shows different strengths.
Listen to them closely
Ask them age-appropriate questions and carefully listen to the answers. This is an integral part of the process of identifying your child’s strengths. You will get to learn a lot about your child when you ask.
Parents tend to assume that they know everything about their child, but that isn’t true as sometimes they enforce their feelings, believing that their kid would also feel the same.
You will get to know a lot more when you ask. This will also boost their confidence as this shows that you are interested in your child’s perspective. Ask and try to get answers in detail rather than yes or no.
Stop the comparing game
As every kid is unique and possesses different strengths and weaknesses. Comparing your kid with others will only lead to lower self-esteem. Reinforce the fact that they should embrace their strengths rather than comparing themselves with others. Ensure that they possess different skills and strengths, which are important for different situations.
Journal it down
Jotting down your kid’s daily activities will help you keep track of their strengths. You will be able to record your day-to-day experiences and memories.
Provide them with a warm atmosphere
Create a positive and appreciative environment for kids to flex their strengths. High interest in something develops into a hobby. Look for activities that your child enjoys doing and try to mature those activities. Present them with various options and let your kid choose between the various options.
How to Celebrate and Encourage Your Child’s Strengths
As kids, it is difficult for them to identify their own strengths. Due to a lot of reasons, children feel that they have no strengths at all. Lack of belief prevents children from reaching their full potential. As parents, you need to encourage your kids and be their support system to find their real strengths.
As well as focusing on talents, you need to focus on your child’s personality traits too, which parents often neglect. By doing this, you are teaching your children to recognize their skills and abilities. Once they recognize their personality traits, this will then lead them to discover their hidden talents. Teaching them personality traits will help them to face challenges and difficulties in their future.
As children grow up, they develop a sense of reasoning and understanding. Let them choose the activities they want to pursue rather than imposing your choice of activities on them. This will even encourage your kids as you are making them a part of the decision-making process. This will also show that you are sticking by your child in every choice they make.
Also, teach them to be strong even if it becomes difficult. Try not to indulge your kids in activities that they don’t enjoy doing.
You can even encourage your kids by appreciating your own strengths, showing self-acceptance, and setting a positive example for kids. If you criticize your own self in front of them and don’t use the skills and abilities you have, this will teach them to do the same, and they will not like themselves for who they are.
Bottom line
It is important for you as parents to identify your child’s strengths and teach them the same. Teach them how different and unique every kid can be, and every strength has a different role to play. Through this, they will get to know themselves a little better. It will also help them decide their passions in life. They should embrace their strengths and weaknesses, are worthy of exploring, and are excellent the way they are.
