Ep 63: Recognizing Strengths to Help Your Teen Thrive

Jenifer Fox, author of Your Child’s Strengths and an education
expert, covers the three areas to watch for strengths: learning,
relationships, and activities. The key is to embrace your teens
strengths, even though on the surface they might seem
“different.”


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Full show notes


Riiiiiing! Out of nowhere, your phone disrupts another day at
work. The name of your teen son’s high school flashes across the
screen as you reach to answer. A few thoughts cross your mind. Is
your son hurt? Did something happen at school? Is he in trouble?
As you raise the phone to your ear, the voice of the assistant
principal comes through the line.


“Your son’s been having a problem focusing recently.
Unfortunately, he’s proven to be a repeated distraction to the
learning environment, so we’ve had to pull him from class for the
rest of the day. Can you come pick him
up?”


In an instant, your mind is filled with ideas as to why your son
has become a distraction. As a kid, he was an endless ball of
energy, jumping over couches and climbing trees in the yard. He
might’ve burned you out at times, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t
a capable learner.


He loves science, and he is an avid reader when he isn’t running
around outside. Hearing that he’s been pulled out of class
troubles you, because you know about his deep passion for
learning. When a school can’t see the potential in their kid,
parents need to know how to help a teenager find themselves.


To answer these thoughts, I invited Jenifer Fox
to discuss how to help a teenager find themselves. Jenifer has a
Master’s in School Administration from Harvard and heads the
Berkshire Country Day School in Massachusetts. After many years
tracking child development, she wrote the book Your Child’s
Strengths in which she explains the methods to discovering,
developing and activating the strengths of your teenager. This
week, we investigate how teenagers can recognize learning
strengths and how parents can help!


Different Strokes for Different Folks


Jenifer has plenty of advice for how to help a teenager find
themselves when faced with learning challenges at school. The
academic learning environment, where teens are
expected to sit still for an hour and listen to a lecture doesn’t
work for everybody. Jenifer says in many cases, it’s not that the
teen can’t learn in the academic environment, but that academic
learning might not be a strength of your teen. Humans have a
number of methods to learn information, and not everyone is
geared toward academic learning. Some other forms of learning
include:



Active learning


Visual learning


Audio learning



According to Jenifer, even if your teen isn’t a strong academic
learner, there is a chance your teen is a strong active or visual
learner. By understanding the different learning strengths of
teenagers, parents will learn how to help a teenager find
themselves.


How to use learning strategies to help your teen


Parents who are looking for how to help a teenager find
themselves should try to use different learning strategies as
supplementary methods to approach their studies. By approaching
one subject from a variety of learning methods, teens will be
able to understand their topic in a more thorough manner.
Unfortunately, our education system is built around one style of
academic learning, and there isn’t much parents can do to change
the way school is taught.


However, parents wondering how to help a teenager find themselves
can optimize their learning by identifying the best strategy for
their kid. Jenifer recommends parents watch out for certain traps
and opportunities to help teenagers practice good learning
strategies. Here are some tricks for how to do this.


Don’t talk down to Teens
Avoid Critiquing your teen

It might be easy for parents to identify where their teen is
struggling, but merely pointing out where someone faces obstacles
doesn’t help anybody improve. Critiquing someone is a negative
way to point out deficiencies, and neither teens nor adults are
receptive to this form of help.


For example, if a parent were to point out to their teenager
where they’re struggling in academic learning, the parent is
focusing on the negatives of the situation and that doesn’t teach
them how to improve.
Avoid telling your teen their strengths

Parents wondering how to help a teenager find themselves
shouldn’t tell kids what strengths they have. Parents will likely
be able to understand some learning strategies that might create
success or failure for teens. However, teenagers are less likely
to follow parental advice if a parent spells out everything for
their teenager.


If you’re a parent who doesn't know how to help a teenager find
themselves, it’s likely because you’re not aware of their exact
strengths. If a parent were to tell a teenager what learning
strategy is best, the parent might steer a teen down the wrong
path and into more learning troubles. Parents should be weary of
steering their teen in a certain direction, as it can have
negative consequences on your teen’s learning.


For example, if a teen normally completes homework after a sports
practice, pushing the teen into a higher level of competition
might exhaust them and cause their grades to decline.


Be a Teacher
Observation as a positive strategy

Parents should make good observations about teenagers to play the
role of teacher when it comes to learning strategies. By
observing how your teenager finds success, parents will be able
to guide teenagers towards constructive long-term solutions to
learning problems.


For example, if a teenager is regularly productive when they
complete homework right after returning from a sport, take note!
Keeping track of minor details like this can help parents
understand how to help a teenager find themselves and discover
the best learning strategies. When parents observe this
information, they can talk with their teens to see if they agree
about when they are most productive. Identifying this pattern
could empower your teen to make a positive change in their
habits.
Ask teens about their preferences

A more constructive way for how to help a teenager find
themselves is for parents to ask about how their teenager prefers
to study. Asking introspective questions to your teen will help
their understanding of good learning strategies,
which is a huge benefit as teens grow into adults.


Some templates for asking a teen about their study preferences
are:


Why do you study like that?

Is there a reason to how you organize work?

When does it feel good for you to study?



By listening to teen’s answers about learning preferences,
parents will be able to learn how to help a teenager find
themselves. Teens can take the insight gained via a discussion of
learning habits and use that knowledge to build a more productive
schedule. An optimized schedule will help teens maximize their
learning both i...