Strengths

Before I begin, I must preface this by saying it was definitely the most difficult topic I have ever decided to write about. I have struggled with this post for the better part of the week, and alternated between skipping it and giving it a shot more times than I can count. In the end, I decided to write it (obviously), but not without a significant effort.

Like any parent, I think my child is incredible. I'm realistic enough to know she's not perfect (but really, whose child is?) but she is pretty damn amazing, and today I am going to share some of her strengths with you.

My daughter can draw an identifiable happy face. Remember the one I posted on Valentine's Day? (Scroll down in that linked post to see it.) She actually did draw that all.by.herself. This week my wife had a friend over who reads both our blogs. Sometime during the visit, the munchkin sat down with her magna-doodle and sketched a face. The parent was surprised, and said that she thought I was kidding when I posted that scan and credited only the munchkin. I wasn't kidding. My kid, who is not even three, did that.

My daughter is incredibly verbal for her age. She has a vocabulary that I can no longer properly enumerate. She generally speaks politely and with correct grammar and syntax. She's a stickler for things like verb tense and conjugation, going so far as to correct herself when she makes a mistake. Sometimes when I speak to her, I forget how young she really is.

My daughter inherited my fashion sense (of which it has been said that I have enough to be a gay man), and can coordinate her outfits and dress herself (often with the pants on frontwards).

But all of these are secondary strengths.

My daughter can problem solve. She has done it from a very early age, and continues to improve upon her methods. When she was six months old, she had a favourite teether, a fish. She loved to chew on the tail, and only the tail. So one day I took it and turned it around to see if she'd like the head. She put the head in her mouth, took it out, and looked at it. She paused for a second and then placed the teether down, rotated her wrists, and picked it up so that the tail was pointing to her mouth again. She has great spatial awareness, and can solve any sort of "make it fit" problem (she's a born organizer). She can also assemble information in sequences, and make deductive conclusions from them, such as the time she asked if we could play a board game after dinner and when it was confirmed she clapped and said, "Yay! Tomorrow Daddy takes me to music class!" (Games night is Friday night. Music class is on Saturday.)

Whew. I think I broke a sweat writing that one. I don't know why I find it so difficult to admit pride in my daughter's abilities. Perhaps it has to do with me not wanting to boast, which could easily be argued to be rooted in society's need to equalize everyone. I don't know.

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This post has been prepared as part of the Parent Bloggers Network blog blast entitled Get Out the Brag Book on behalf of Jenifer Fox and her new book Your Child's Strengths, a book that will give parents the tools to help their children discover strengths in three main areas: Activity Strengths, the tasks that make you feel engaged and energized; Relationship Strengths, the things you do for and with others that make you feel valued and competent; and Learning Strengths, the unique ways we approach and understand new information.