Focusing on Strengths Benefits Children with LD and ADHD
By Susan Baum, Ph.D.
As parents we spend a lot of time thinking about how to bring out the best in our children. We are natural fixers of whatever is wrong as we kiss the hurts away and repair anything that is broken. So it is when our children have a specific learning disability. Our first instinct is to get it fixed. Indeed all resources are directed toward helping these children read, write, and achieve up to their potential.
In our effort to fix what’s wrong with our children, we often lose sight of what is right with them.
We tend to ignore or pay less attention to strengths, interests, and talents. Despite our best intentions, that tack does our children a disservice.
Research shows that paying attention to the positive reaps tremendous benefits. Dr. Ned Hallowell, renowned psychiatrist and expert on ADHD explains: “I have learned first and foremost to look for interests, talents, strengths, shades of strengths, or the mere suggestion of a talent. Knowing that a person builds a happy and successful life not on remediated weaknesses but on developed strengths, I have learned to place those strengths at the top of what matters.”
Focusing on strengths allows children to form a positive identity. They engage willingly in activities that show how smart they are and revel in accolades based on what they can do, rather than being defined by what they can’t do. This in turn, helps children develop a sense of self-efficacy as well as a favorable picture of what they can do.
Take Action
Think about opportunities that capitalize on your child’s strengths and interests.
- Find extracurricular activities, web sites and books that relate to your child’s interest area
- Try setting up lunch dates with adults who have similar interests
- Enroll your child in clubs and classes that align with his strengths and talents
In short, have fun and enjoy experiences together that both develop and expand interests, strengths, and talents—but be careful not to take over the interests that your child has developed on her own as she may stop sharing them with you.
February 10th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Each of us has our own talents and strengths. When we focus on people’s abilities and not their disabilities everyone in our community wins.
February 14th, 2012 at 10:50 am
You are so very right about finding other strengths and making the most of them. Often the struggling readers I teach have failure written all over their faces, and I know it will be a struggle to get them to open up to the possibility of being able to read.
But other children are doing fine despite the reading issues, and this is often because they do have other interests, other ways to keep the avenues open to other kids, socializing, and non-reading achievements.
Sadly, there are also kids that have had the nurturing of strengths and support for their learning issues, yet still they struggle terribly with gaining any positive sense of self. As always, every child is different, and so complex that finding the key to igniting their confidence is something to look for every time we interact. I never know when or how that magical moment will come when the child’s eyes light up and I see a way to help him grow and thrive.
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February 14th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
I was fortunate enough to obtain an audio CD of a presentation done by Mr. Hallowell and couldn’t agree more with what he had to say on this subject. I think focusing on a child’s strength’s and gifts for ALL children goes a long, long way. If only the school systems were able to devote time to such things, I think more kids would be able to find the direction in which they were meant to go instead of trying to cram them all into the same size box…..