Embedded Files
Meeting Date:
Meeting Date:
March 4 | 8:30 - 9:30 in the school cafe
Reading for Meeting 2:
Reading for Meeting 2:
Chapters 1-2. Note> We also read chapters 3-5 which will be covered in the next meeting.
Exercises:
Exercises:
Pages 29-34 and 57-58
Guiding Questions: These questions are provided to help you organize your thinking as you read each chapter.
Guiding Questions: These questions are provided to help you organize your thinking as you read each chapter.
Where do you place yourself on the "parenting dimensions" model? (p. 14) Punitive (control-cold) and Permissive (freedom-warmth) at opposite ends with Authoritative (control-warmth) in the middle.
Which of the SBP styles best describes you? Communicator - Activator - Creator? Might you engage in more than one style? (page 37)
What does being a strength-based parent mean to you? What might it look like in your household?
The Four Negative Defaults (pp. 40-50). What is your understanding of each default? Look to write your ideas down and be ready to ask your table partners for their understanding of each default.
Write down some intentions in how you want to overcome the Four Negative Defaults.
What is your understanding of the term "Strength Switch"? (pp. 51-54). Be ready to ask your table partners for their understanding.
Review the tips for learning to use your Strength Switch on page 55. Which two tips do you feel will be the most helpful for you? Be ready to share your thinking.
Extra Tasks:
Extra Tasks:
You and your partner can take the VIA Character Strength Survey.
You and your partner can use the Activity 6: VIA Survey Reflection worksheet handed out at our first meeting to build more understanding of your character strengths.
Reflect and discuss the results with each other.
Learn more about Strength Spotting. Come up with ways to practice this activity with your family. An easy starting approach is to take time at family dinners to have everyone share a strength that they spotted during the day. Family members could also use Post-Its to write strengths that they spot in family members during the week to be shared on the fridge or "Strengths Wall". In addition, everyone could add examples of strengths that they exercised during the week applying the strategy of self strength spotting.
Meeting 2 Agenda:
Meeting 2 Agenda:
Whole Group Share: Let's start by having each person share their first impression from reading the first two chapters.
Next Meeting Date and Number of Chapters to Read: Let's decide together.
Table Share: If you took the VIA strength survey, what made sense about the results and what surprised you?
Table Share: Go through the following questions>
Where do you place yourself on the "parenting dimensions" model? (p. 14) Punitive (control-cold) and Permissive (freedom-warmth) at opposite ends with Authoritative (control-warmth) in the middle.
Which of the SBP styles best describes you? Communicator - Activator - Creator? Might you engage in more than one style? (page 38)
The Four Negative Defaults (pp. 40-50). What is your understanding of each default? Look to write your ideas down and be ready to ask your table partners for their understanding of each default.
Write down some intentions in how you want to overcome the Four Negative Defaults.
What is your understanding of the term "Strength Switch"? (pp. 51-54). Be ready to ask your table partners for their understanding.
Review the tips for learning to use your Strength Switch on page 55. Which two tips do you feel will be the most helpful for you? Be ready to share your thinking.
Table Share: Ideas to Action
What were some of your main lessons learned from reading the first two chapters?
What action steps do you plan to take with your new learning?
David's Notes: I will post my notes from the reading here. If your partner is not able to read with you, you can refer him/her to these notes. Please note that I am only listing a few of the main points that jumped out at me. One really needs to read the book which is so rich in approaches to SBP!
David's Notes: I will post my notes from the reading here. If your partner is not able to read with you, you can refer him/her to these notes. Please note that I am only listing a few of the main points that jumped out at me. One really needs to read the book which is so rich in approaches to SBP!
The following are some takeaways from the reading along with some of my ideas. They are written in note form so the grammar might not be so terrific!
We work with our children to grow their ability for self-understanding which leads to personal growth. This approach is supported by Positive Psychology tools of:
Optimism: The mindset of opportunity and positive outcomes.
Resilience: Growing your child’s capacity to overcome life’s obstacles. Pos Psych- specifically PERMAH and the character strengths provide a pathway to expand capacity and to take on one’s struggles.
I choose the analogy of the parent as coach more than her CEO framework. This connects to her term of “being a strength helper”. This coaching model connects to the approach of learning that we call active as opposed to passive. Active learners are in charge of their learning, constructing meaning through activities and reflection. Passive learning is when our children are simply receivers of information with little buy in and active processing (reflection). Page 37 - She gets at this by providing three SBP styles. Strengths Communicator style - through questions and conversations. Strengths Activator - through coaching and activities. Strengths Creator - through the creation of learning activities. I think this is similar to the Activator style.
She brings up the concern that always pointing out a child’s strength might make them self-centered and not aware of his/her weaknesses. My approach to use strengths is to acknowledge and label strengths in action or ones through questioning that the child can decide to apply in set situations. It is not a process of praise. It is constructive and at times can be a way to celebrate a child’s engagement with his/her strengths. The coaching empowers the child through questions to have agency in reviewing his/her strengths used or not used in situations. The questioning/coaching approach communicates to the child that he/she is a problem-solver capable of reaching into his/her strength toolkit to choose the right strengths for a variety of situations. The same goes after an event in which the child struggled or felt as if she could have handled the situation better. The process guided self-reflection leads to further personal responsibility and self-understanding.
Both support agency in our children while giving them the tools to thrive.
Negativity bias is ingrained in our DNA for survival/awareness reasons.
We want our children to grow their strengths while also working on their weaknesses.
It isn’t about showering our children with praise. It is about using the language of the character strengths in describing how they live their lives. This very much connects to the language of growth mindset.
Strength-Based Parenting (SBP)
First, see your child’s strengths.
Train your parent brain to see strengths and give up the negativity bias. See positive events in your child’s life as an opportunity to coach them to reflect about the strengths they applied. See struggle as opportunities to again reflect upon, learn from and to discuss how to engage specific strengths in similar situations in the future. This empowers and tells children that they are capable.
Four Negative Defaults:
-Selective Attention - When we actively place attention on something to the exclusion of other information. It is a way to avoid being overwhelmed with information. We simply need to be aware that this is going on to then reframe our attention to see strengths and opportunities to talk about engaging strengths.
-Negativity Bias - Our programming as mentioned has us overlooking strengths in search of negatives. It is universal in all of us even the most positive people.
-Projection - We often are not good at seeing our weaknesses. It is natural to see our positives to make us feel better about ourselves. Our ego works to minimize the negative and amplify the positive in our sense of self. When our ego is confronted with challenges to our positive self view, it employs defense mechanisms such as projection or blame shifting to protect our positive self view. We thus project our weaknesses upon others. When we see our children displaying an attribute that we see in ourselves, we jump on them with criticism. We say we are trying to help them but it really is out of fear of acknowledging that we in fact have that negative attribute that motivates us.
-Binary Thinking - Seeing things in either/or terms instead of nuanced for how individuals are more complex than we understand them to be. This can lead to labeling as in he is the naughty one, serious one, etc. Binary thinking can lead parents to see their children as having certain strengths or not at all. They don’t see the continuum of where they might be in the middle and growing their engagement with the strengths. She says we need to remember that strengths should be seen as “grow-able”. We have “degrees” of strengths.
The four negative defaults can lead us to have a negative mental model “record playing in our head” of our children. The model can of course be positive but in many cases the negativity bias can lead us to not see all aspects of who are children are and who they are becoming.
Growth mindset really needs to be adopted by parents regarding strengths. Work to use language that focuses on the process of practicing/engaging/growing the strengths. Don’t fixate on the end results and accomplishment that the strength helped the child get to. Unpack how the child uses strengths, analyze with questions and active listening feedback to help your child grow her awareness of how she uses the strengths in general and in specific instances.
Dr. Waters uses the term “strength switch” metaphorically to the switch we use to turn on the lights. She guides us to think in terms of a “mental switch” that we flick to change our focus from the weaknesses of our children to that of their strengths. Parents might want to print a few pictures of a light switch to place in strategic spots in the home. :)
So the first step is to flip the switch to thinking about looking for the positives. The second is to metaphorically put on strength glasses to really look around at the actions of your child not just in the moment but all around your visual field to look for strengths to bring into the discussion when you yes, also have to talk about weaknesses and which strengths your child could have dialed up.
It will take time to overcome these biases and to train our brains to flick the switch to seeing strengths.
P. 55- Spend time on these strategies to come up with even more to grow your Strength Switch ability.
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