Tips to help your child build on their strengths at school

Identifying our own strengths is often a lot harder than it sounds. But with a little work, you can help your child figure out what they’re good at. Ask them to play a detective who’s investigating someone extra special: themselves! Encourage them to use this list of questions to build a profile:

• What five qualities best describe the person you’re investigating (e.g., creative, resourceful, patient, curious, energetic)?
• What compliments has the person received from teachers (e.g., good reasoning skills, active imagination)?
• If they were stranded on a desert island, which of their skills would help them survive (e.g., they remain calm under pressure, they’re good at anticipating problems)?
• According to this person’s friends and family, what are their best qualities?
• Etc.

Once they’ve identified their strengths, your child can think about how to successfully harness their power at school. Here are some examples of how their strengths can be used to their advantage:

• Their creativity will allow them to find solutions
• Their resourcefulness will teach them different ways to solve problems
• Their patience and perseverance will motivate them to keep trying until they succeed
• Their curiosity will push them to ask questions
• Their high energy will make school work easier
• Their ability to focus will allow them to remember important details
• Their reasoning skills will help them problem solve
• Etc.

Our strengths are only useful if we can find ways to tap into them at the right time. For example, if your highly creative child spends their time doodling in class while their teacher explains the material, they’re not using their strength appropriately or effectively. That’s why it’s so important to find ways to channel your child’s natural talents. Here are some things you can do to help your child harness their strengths:

• Name five situations in which your child can use their strengths to their advantage (e.g., in an oral presentation, when working in a team, when doing homework)
• Name two ways to use a strength to offset a weakness (e.g., patience will help them redo a math problem several times to check their answer and will help them set long-term goals)
• Help them reorganize their study and homework time according to their strengths (e.g., an independent child may prefer to set their own routine and gain self-confidence in the process)
• Etc.

Knowing how to use your talents is the key to success! By acknowledging your child’s efforts to draw on their strengths and offering encouragement, you’ll boost their self-esteem and self-confidence—two key ingredients for perseverance. For example, you could say the following:

• I see that you didn’t get the right answer, but I’m proud of how you reasoned things out.
• Your teacher tells me that you were a good leader in your last group project. Good work!
• Even though you forgot your textbook at school, I’m proud that you asked your friend to send you a picture of the exercises so you could do your homework. 
• Etc.