The Key to Raising Resilient Children

It’s often said that raising kids is the most important job in the world.  Today’s children and teens are the next generation who will lead the world far beyond our own lifetimes.  How do we interact with the young people in our lives?  Whether we are parents, grandparents, teachers, professionals, neighbors, or friends, we can have a positive impact on future generations.Positive psychologist, Lea Waters, author of The Strength Switch

 (2017), suggests a radical shift in perspective.  A researcher on the science of strengths-based parenting, Dr. Waters recommends focusing on what is right with youth, by emphasizing their strengths.  This doesn’t mean ignoring their weaknesses, but rather, focusing on their strengths and learning to use them in positive ways. 

Identifying our strengths involves recognizing our capabilities and having a common language to describe them. A strengths-based perspective offers a window of positivity to better understand ourselves and others, including the youth in our lives.  Strengths are the basic building blocks for thinking, feeling, and behaving.  Dr. Waters recommends naming a strength when you see it.  For example, your teenaged daughter drops her gym clothes and backpack in a pile by the door when she comes home from school.  Afterward, she starts cooking dinner for the family and begins researching a class project.  With a strengths-based approach, you might thank the teen for her strength of kindness in beginning dinner prep, comment on her good judgment at digging into homework right after school, and then later suggest: “how about if you help us organize by putting your things on the counter when you get home from school?”

How can you identify these strengths?  Researchers have developed several systems to classify them.  Perhaps the most influential and well researched is the VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), which identifies 24 character strengths common to humankind.  These strengths include curiosity, creativity, judgement, kindness, perspective, leadership, perseverance, bravery, zest, honesty, social intelligence, fairness, forgiveness, teamwork, love, gratitude, love of learning, self-regulation, spirituality, humility, appreciation of beauty, prudence, hope, and humor (Neimiec, 2018).  According to psychologist Martin Seligman, your top five strengths are your “signature strengths.” Research has shown that using them on a regular basis can make you healthier, happier, and more successful (Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson, 2005).  To learn more about your signature strengths you can take the brief, empirically valid VIA Classification of Strengths at    https://www.viacharacter.org/www/.  There is a VIA Survey for adults and also a VIA Youth Survey for kids between 10- and 17-years old (Park & Peterson, 2006).

All of us have many strengths and talents.  By focusing on those strengths, you can nurture and unlock potential in yourself, youth, and future generations. Signature strengths can be engaged across age groups, from childhood through older adulthood. Studies show connections between using signature strengths and improvement of well-being factors, such as positive emotions, relationship satisfaction, and goal setting (Niemiec, 2018; Quinlan, Swain & Vella-Broderick, 2011).  Here are a few ideas.

Strategies to Engage Strengths in Youth and Future Generations

-- Write a positive note to a child or teen you know. You might include the strengths you see in him or her and how he or she positively impacts you or others.  Be as specific as possible.  If feasible, plan a visit with the child, read the note in a personal conversation, and give the child the letter.  Pay attention to his or her reactions and discuss your feelings together afterward.

-- When children or teens in your life are struggling with a challenge, how can you support their strength development?  A few questions you might ask are:  “Which of your strengths can you use here?” You might offer a strength you have noticed in the youngster in another situation. Then ask, “When you used this strength before, how did you use it and how did it feel?  How can you use this strength in this new situation?”

Strategies to Engage Your Own Strengths

-- If you have taken the VIA Strengths survey mentioned above, challenge yourself to use one of your top five strengths in a new and different way every day for one week (Seligman et al, 2005). Then see the difference this practice makes in your life.

For example, if one of your signature strengths is love of learning, here are a few ways you might apply it -- do an Internet search on an interesting topic; try a new recipe; start a conversation with someone about their job or culture; look up the definition of a new word; view an informational program; read a section in a book or magazine; listen to a podcast; learn a new phrase in another language.

-- Another way to identify one or more of your top strengths is to think about a “defining moment” in your life (Neimiec, 2018).  This might be a moment of achievement, challenge, or suffering. Recall the details.  Consider what you did, how you felt, and the impact or outcome.  What strengths did you use in that situation? How did this moment contribute to the person you are today?  Then ask yourself how you can engage the strengths from that moment in a current situation or challenge.

SOURCE :  psychologytoday