A very powerful way to change the conversation with students and parents is to introduce a dialogue about Strengths into your school.
There are useful (and free) questionnaires on the Penn University website, overseen by the excellent psychologist Martin Seligman. They help students uncover their relative strengths (stop worrying about the weaknesses for a minute!) and the dialogue can start right there.
If you want a child to be happy, it’s clever to work out with them how – each day and each week – you give them more chances to display those strengths. It gives them the confidence and the resilience to tackle the rest of the world. School, parents and students should engage directly and regularly in the detail of this conversation!
