Middle Years
Strengths-based Parenting Techniques
Last year, I heard a podcast by Lea Waters and was quite interested in her approach to parenting and last week I came across an article on Lea Water’s book. This information would have been beneficial to me: I often felt out of my depth when we were parenting and living with three teenagers. This article is timely given that we have just finished Wellness Week.
In her parenting book The Strength Switch, Lea Waters looks at parenting through the lens of strengths. Strengths-based parenting is a technique that encourages you to see what’s “right” about your children. Discovering and fostering their strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses and fixing their areas of detriment is a somewhat novel approach.
What defines a strength?
Strengths need three elements:
- Performance (being good at something)
- Energy (feeling good while doing it)
- High use (choosing to do it regularly)
Being good at something alone doesn’t mean it’s a strength.
Strengths Change as a Child Grows
- Different strengths present at different times child development.
- In the early years, Waters recommends parents let children develop passions by providing low-pressure opportunities of discovery- let them play!
- In the middle years, starting at pre- adolescence the role of the parent changes. During these years providing opportunities and resources to support the development of areas of identified strength is what helps children learn how to use their strength. This is the busiest time for most parents where children prepare for the demands of adulthood but don’t have adequately formed brains to make good decisions and make plans for their future. We also see some strengths pruned in this phase which can be hard on a parent who has enjoyed the relationships with other parents at a specific activity. As a parent your instinct might be to encourage your child to keep going at tennis or soccer but the important thing to do in these situations is to help your child decide and then support their decision.
- In late adolescence, the brain development allows teens to use their strengths more consistently and appropriately. This is the beginning of high performance becoming part of your child’s unique identity. These years are where kids reap the rewards of their areas of strength.
Helping Avoid Distractions
Helping your child stay focused without becoming a taskmaster means teaching them to:
- Recognize the difference between useful stress and dangerous levels of stress
- See emotions as a useful part of our physiology- encourage your kids to feel them and express them
- Make their own decisions and choices
- Resist impulses that are distracting or detrimental
What You Focus on Matters
Parenting through strengths becomes essential when you have a child who has an area of challenge. This positivity provides a foundation that protects them from the epidemic of anxiety and depression that is challenging our youth. Knowing their strengths fosters resilience, optimism and a sense of achievement. Parenting can be more difficult and more rewarding than you ever imagined.
I speak to lots of parents, and I always admire parents who focus on their child’s strengths. I often refer to these areas as their ‘islands of competence’.
Julia Winter Cooke