Finding your child’s strengths is a game-changer

Finding your child’s strengths is the key to getting through school and setting them up in a career they will enjoy.

This is a big week in our household. Harry turns 18!

Many of his extended family (Harry is adopted; therefore, he has a MASSIVE extended family, including six grandparents) will join us to celebrate the wonder that is this young man.

I’ve decided to use this milestone to reflect on what has made him such a wonderful person. I believe working with his strengths has been a game-changer. After all, why let things you aren’t good at stop you from doing what you excel in?

Finding your child’s strengths

On YouTube, there is an excellent TEDx talk by teacher Chris Wejr called Want to Bring Out the Best in People.

https://youtu.be/MtduVS9BSxw  

In it, he says,

“If you ask a kindergarten student to list the things they are good at, you get a lengthy list. If you ask the same student that question at High School, sometimes it’s hard for them to come up with even one thing.”

Strengths and school

Unfortunately, the early years of school are 70% about reading and writing (Okay, you got me. I made up that statistic, but honestly, so much of a young child’s day is spent on literacy). For a dyslexic child like Harry, this is excruciating. Consequently, Harry switched off to school when he was seven years old. Something Chris Wejr says in his talk gave me a clue as to why.

“You cannot teach a child without a connection or a relationship; the best way to create a connection is through strengths.”

What do strengths look like?

Kids who are good at mathematics, reading, writing and spelling get certificates and prizes. In the school environment, it is easy to believe these are the only strengths that matter. Have you ever sat through an end-of-year assembly with your heart breaking because your child will never hear their name called to collect an award? I have.

In Ben Foss’s book ‘The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan’, he talks about ‘mapping your child’s strength star.’ I did this with Harry one summer holiday when he was 13, and it certainly made me appreciate Harry did have strengths. Here are a few of the strengths Ben mentions in his book:

• Verbal skills Does your child love taking part in plays or singing? Are they happy talking to people? Do they have an extensive vocabulary? Can they quote movie lines?

• Social skills Do they read people’s emotions? Can they talk to anyone with ease? Do they enjoy meeting new people?

• Narrative skills Does your child make up complex stories? Do they enjoy history or learning about why things happen?

• Spatial skills Does your child want to take apart and put back together mechanical toys or electronics? Are they excellent at constructing elaborate Lego creations or skilled in tying knots? Can they assemble things without the instructions?

• Kinesthetic Skills Is your child a natural athlete? Do they move about when they tell you something? Do they practice dance moves or sports around the house to perfect them?

• Visual Skills Is your child skilled in drawing and painting? Do they enjoy photography, graphic novels or animation? Can they quickly solve visual puzzles? Are they expressive in how they dress?

• Mathematical/scientific skills Do your child love logic puzzles and computer games based on maths? Do they enjoy visiting museums and running experiments at school or home? Are they focused on hobbies that involve the natural world, such as bug collecting?

• Musical Skills Is your child always singing and playing music? Do they worship DJs or specific musicians? Do they notice sounds others miss?

If you want to go through the complete questionnaire to find your child’s strengths, here is an affiliate link to Ben’s book, The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan.

https://amzn.to/3Ycahfo

Harry completed the strengths assessment, and his top ones were:

1 Kinesthetic (He’s a natural athlete and prefers being outdoors)

2 Visual (He is a snappy dresser and loves decorating his room)

3 Social (He picks up on emotions and cares deeply about friends)

4 Musical (His bat-like hearing will pick up on a song I can barely hear in a busy shopping mall)

Chris Wejr also mentions strengths of character, such as:

• courage

• care

• curiosity

• creativity

• wisdom

• leadership

Harry is caring and creative.

Encourage time spent developing strengths

Sadly, we have a generation of depressed young people disconnected from their strengths. I can’t help wondering if children spent a little time each day doing something they were very good at, would the need for anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds fall? I’ve illustrated this post with a picture of the strengths represented as flowers. That’s because we need to water and care for them to help them flourish. Finding their strengths is so helpful for their self-esteem.

Find employment that aligns with your strengths

Here’s my blog post about the best jobs for someone with dyslexia. https://dyslexiaoctopus.com/best-jobs-for-a-dyslexic/

Harry has been working as a landscaper for almost a year. It’s a job that fits surprisingly well with his strengths.

• Kinesthetic was his number 1 strength. He’s working with his hands, and the work is different every day. Yesterday he came home thrilled to tell me he’d learned to prune roses.
• Visual was his number 2 strength. Working with plants, he must assess where to place them and what colour schemes to employ.
• Social was his number 3 strength. The company has seventy employees, so he socialises with lots of people.
• Music is his number 4 strength. In the evenings, he strums his guitar to relax.

I’m thrilled to say Harry is thriving!

Focused on the child’s strengths instead of their weaknesses

I know getting through school is challenging for a dyslexic child. I was adamant Harry had to stay in school until he had a basic qualification and had learned to read and spell well enough to be employable. However, after the school day, he spent time on his strengths. He went to football, rode his mountain bike, and took saxophone and guitar lessons. Allowing your child to do something they enjoy, at least for a part of each day, is essential.

Thanks for reading. I better dash and sort out Harry’s party!

If you want to know about the All About Reading programme I used to help Harry become a fluent reader, check out this affiliate link.

Speechify is an online text-to-speech app. To find out how it could help your child use this affiliate link.

I hope this has helped you find your child’s strengths. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and, as ever, you can email me at hello@dyslexiaoctopus.com.