Your Child’s Strengths-a book for everyone

Parent Bloggers Network sent me a copy of Your Child’s Strengths by Jenifer Fox, M-Ed, the president of the Purnell School, creator of the award-winning, groundbreaking strengths-based curriculum The Affinities Program, and the leader of the Strengths Movement in Schools. I knew I would enjoy reading the book, because my nine year old son Nathan has been diagnosed with a learning disability, has an Individualized Education Plan at school, and to be honest, is hard to get along with sometimes. I was really hoping that the book would shed some light on how I could help Nathan find what he is good at instead of always focusing on what he can’t do as well.

I sat down to read the book. I breezed through the first section, The Weakness Habit, which looks at how our school system focuses so much on rankings and test scores that it fails to encourage students to develop their actual educational strengths. I dog-eared so many pages that there were fewer pages that didn’t have a corner turned down. I paid close attention to passages like this:

The system cheats students by failing to provide them with learning experiences that will engage their sense of uniqueness, inspire their creativity, and bolster their ability to solve real-life problems.

I thought long and hard about my son, about how concerned everyone at his school is about his learning style, about how he just doesn’t “get” math, about how his Kindergarten teacher first recommended him for ADD testing because when she was explaining math problems, he was looking away from her and twiddling his pencil. I read the passage in the book that talks about how some people (the author included), have to look away from the person speaking to them in order to be able to block out the visual cues and focus on listening to what is being said. Which describes my son PERFECTLY. And how being that way has ended up with him being labeled as having “Attention Deficit Disorder with Inattentiveness”.

I moved on to the next section, A Strengths Awakening, dog-earing more pages as I went, and re-reading passages like this:

Children thrive when they understand the many ways in which they are strong and smart. In order for children to live productive, meaningful lives, they must be aware of their individual Learning Strengths and have the language to communicate them to others.

I started to feel really excited, that not only my son but our whole family would benefit from the techniques outlined in this book. I thought about sitting down with Nathan and telling him that I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on him, that it turns out that he and I just have different learning styles, and that once we come to an understanding, I’m sure we’ll have less battles at homework time. I read the four things parents can do with even young children to help them discover their strengths:

• Record observations of preferences, quirks, and choices.
• Stimulate imagination through creative play.
• create rich memories with tradition and ritual.
• Model positive attitudes and positive approaches to life (I really need to work on that one).

I thought about cross-stitching this on a pillow: “Remember, strengths are not talents or skills, or what your children are good at. Strengths are far more personal-they are the activities that make someone feel strong.”

But then I moved on to section three, the Create Your Future, Play To Your Strengths Workbook. I read how I would need three different color pens and two kinds of stickers, and that it would take an hour a week for six months. And my anxiety level shot through the roof! Instead of slamming the book shut and giving up though, I decided to stop reading and think about why the workbook section was bothering me. I thought about everything I had just read, and began to see a pattern emerge.

And then I had an epiphany! I DON’T LIKE WORKBOOKS. I don’t like feeling like I’m being “forced” to fill out charts. I never completed the “Good Mood Workbook” that was all the rage in the 90s, I never, EVER filled out more than a few days of a Weight Watchers Food Tracker, and there is nothing wrong with that! What I LIKE to do is this, blogging. I write completely off the “top of my head”, with almost no editing, and then hit ‘publish’. I don’t want to write it down and then over-analyze it.

So for me, in order to put the principles of “Your Child’s Strengths” into practice, I am going to have to think of something other than filling in a workbook. I’ve bookmarked The Strengths Movement website, and I plan to keep reading the book and going back over the dog-eared pages. I plan to talk to both my husband and my son about what I’ve read, and work out a way to implement the program that will make sense to all of us.

This is a book that should be read by parents and teachers alike. I wish I could know for certain that my school system was implementing a program like this. I wish I could tell my son that there’s nothing wrong with him just because he doesn’t learn math the way other people do, and not to worry about it. What I CAN do is let this be a wake-up call: I’ve been ignoring my son’s strengths. There, I said it. I’ve been struggling and fighting with him instead of celebrating what makes him unique. That is going to change, no doubt about it.

Please go to the The Parent Bloggers Network blog to read other reviews of Your Child’s Strengths, and to see the upcoming review schedule. You can also visit The Strengths Movement website, and if you want to place an order on Amazon.com for the book, click this:

Thank you to Jenifer Fox and The Parent Bloggers Network for making this review possible!

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Tagged as: book review, PBN