Where do I Start to Figure Out My Student's Path #2 - Strengths & Interests

Anne Johnson

Feb 21, 20244 min read

Updated: Feb 29, 2024

Feeling confused, overwhelmed, or lost when figuring out your student's educational path? Take a deep breath – you're not alone, and help is here! It's never too late to start, and I'm here to show you exactly where to begin. Today, we are continuing with our series on where to start when trying to figure out your student's path after high school. This is Step 2 - Assess your student's strengths and interests!

Strengths-Based Pathfinding

After you have finished the first step, which is getting clear on your values, what's essential to your family, and what's important to your student. Then, the next thing is to figure out what your student likes to do and what they are good at doing. Often, as parents, we can focus on what our children are not good at. In this post, we will focus on what our children are good at, guided by the work of Dr. Lea Waters and her book The Strength Switch.

This book is about how we can help our students and teenagers, adults, and young adults continue to improve in the areas that they're already good at while at the same time helping to shore up their weaknesses. She defines strengths as "positive personal characteristics, including personality traits, psychosocial abilities, moral qualities, and talents, that feel natural and enjoyable to use." So, why do we focus on weaknesses?

Negativity Bias

It's an innate part of our human brain, the negativity bias. A long time ago, when we lived in caves, the people who survived were those with brains that were constantly on the lookout for all the negative things that could be happening. Is that a tiger over there in the bush? Should I eat this meat that smells wrong? What if I walk too far off the trail here? What could happen? So the people that survived thousands and thousands of years ago, our long-ago ancestors, were the people who had stronger negativity biases in their brains. They were more alert. They were scanning. They were the ones who didn't get caught unaware. What that means for us now, not living in caves, is that we still have those same brains. We still have a brain scanning for negative situations and what could go wrong. We have all of these resources. We're happy. We're healthy. Or, we have the opportunity to be. We have food and a house, but our brains still scan for what could go wrong. So you are not alone. Is this something that you find yourself doing with your teenager? As a parent, reading this book made me realize some things about how I interact with my children.

My daughter Jennie and I volunteering

Growing Flowers

The author uses an example of a girl whose parents see her as a perfectionist. She likes things a certain way in a particular order, and I've had a similar experience with my daughter. She has some perfectionism tendencies, and I worry about them. The author reframes this in the book: her daughter values beauty, organization, and cleanliness. So I thought, I can reframe this; this is also my daughter. Instead of thinking about how I will need to manage this, let's think about the positive parts of it that I can use to help her be more successful and grow the natural strengths she was born with. As you think about what your child might want to do after high school or what would be a good path for them, I encourage you to think about it from a place of strength.

Assessments

A great website to start with is VIA Character (linked below). It's an organization that has done a lot of work on strengths. There is a free strength assessment that you can take there to identify your top strength. Then, you have to pay a little bit to see the full report, but at least it gives you a starting point to think about your student's top strength and how you can play to it. My top strength was humility, which I hadn't thought about as a strength before.

Another great website or resource is the Strength Switch website. There are free downloads, resources, and even board games you can play as a family to help identify strengths.

Below is a video about my favorite free career interest inventories. The actual website is linked below.

Your Second Step on the Path

After you have completed the assessments, think about how your student can use those strengths in their educational path. Does your student need individualized attention or thrive on one-on-one connection? That's a strength. They're very interpersonal. However, attending a huge state school might not fit them well. Or maybe they're solid at assembling things like using their hands. That's a strength. So then you might think about where they could be. What kinds of majors or schools are more hands-on? Often, we pick the schools or paths society has told us are the best. We can send our children off without thinking about what will be a good fit for them. What's going to play to their strengths? Because, again, when we're playing to strengths, there's a better chance of persistence. There's a better chance of them finishing, and if they like what they're doing, there's also a better chance of them finishing.

Come back next week. We'll do step 3 on where to start to find your student's path, and we will continue building resources, communities, and skills together. I look forward to your conversations with your students, teens, and young adults. Let's make this journey joyful and transformative for them!