No matter how much the world has changed, one thing remains constant – every parent wants the best life for their kids. Be it a good school, a safe neighborhood, or an emotionally well-rounded personality, parents leave no stones unturned when it comes to rearing a child. In fact, parental involvement particularly remains crucial since children are like wet clay – impressionable, inspired, and bubbling with potential for greatness. And parents are the ones who can help kids the most in realizing and unleashing their inner strengths.
Now, this takes us to an important question – What is this inner strength? How can you identify the same in children? And most importantly, how can you help your kids unleash this inner strength? So today, we, at DPS Sushant Lok, regarded as one of the best schools in Gurgaon, have brought for you in this article the answers to these fundamental questions on strength-based parenting and its benefits. Read on.
Personality Strength – 3 Key Dynamics
First things first, what do you understand by personality strength? Simply put, these are the values and unique characteristics of your personality that define your many talents and interests. Often, it is the strength of a person’s character that the world remembers long after they are gone. Mother Teresa’s compassion and kindness, Einstein’s curiosity and perseverance, Mozart’s keen sense of creativity – these are all examples of personality strengths and how it defines a person.
At DPS Sushant Lok, we firmly believe that each person is unique, and every personality has a different strength. But at the core, they are made of the following three elements. When it comes to using strengths to nurture children, you must take all three into account.
- Performance – Is your child good at it?
- Energy – Does he/she enjoy doing it? And does the activity motivate or energize him/her?
- Use – Is your child naturally bent on using this strength?
Strength-based Parenting – How to do it right?
There are five steps involved in the process. These are –
- Identify the strengths
Children often don’t know if a particular behavior qualifies as a strength or not. So, if you see them doing something desirable like an act of kindness or humming a song, label these. When the next time they do something similar, they will immediately co-relate it to the strength.
- Foster the core interests
Just identifying or labeling is not enough. Every child is born to be humble and artistic, but they lose most of these characteristics as they grow up. So, it is imperative to provide them with an environment at home and school that fosters these personality strengths. Help your child get more exposure and experiences around his/her strengths and interests. For instance, if your child shows signs of loving nature, encourage the kid to grow saplings and indulge in gardening as a regular activity.
- Equip them right to hone their strengths
Some strengths are immeasurable, like honesty, kindness, cleanliness, etc. But, for those who need specialized training/learning, like music, art and craft, dancing, public elocution, etc., give them the right tools or learning opportunities to hone their skills. This will ensure that they get better at the ‘Use’ element of the three core strength elements.
- Encourage regular practice
It doesn’t matter how much your child enjoys playing chess or even how good he/she is at it; if they want to become successful, practice is the only key. For it is only after 12 failed attempts that J.K. Rowling could publish the first Harry Potter book, and the rest is history.
- Connect them to role models
Children must see other people doing what they love and be happy and successful. And to that end, role models (even the ones they see in books) help boost their confidence.
Summing up
At DPS Sushant Lok, recognized among the best schools in Gurgaon, we firmly believe that children surely find happiness in the smallest of things. But when we help them unleash their inner personality strengths, we basically enable them to open a world of opportunities to succeed and be happy. This is exactly the goal of the different extra-curricular clubs we have established at our school, which have been designed to provide the kids with ample opportunities to hone these strengths.