 What if we flipped things on their heads and instead of thinking about a child's challenges we thought first about their strengths. Now what I'm meaning here is when someone asks me something like can you give me some ideas about how I can help a child in my class I'm worried about Janila and I'll say well tell me about Janila and I'll be told a story something like well Janila is a looked after child who's got real anger issues and she really struggles to focus in class. Okay imagine if instead of that what that person said to me was oh well Janila she's a funny one actually she is amazing at football runs rings around the boys on the football pitch and knows everything there is to know about Crystal Palace. Granted I need to know a bit more context about Janila I need to know perhaps that she's looked after and I need to know that she's struggling with anger and I need to know that she's struggling in class in order to be able to tailor the kind of ideas that I might share about what we do with Janila but if we start from the point of view of strength her football prowess and her knowledge about Crystal Palace then that gives us a bit of a way in. The thing is that when we think about children thinking about their strengths their skills their passions rather than always using the negative labels first it completely changes how we think about them and when we think about how we think about the child it also changes how the child thinks about themselves and suddenly maybe if the adults around her start thinking of Janila as a star football player and someone with a huge wealth of knowledge about Crystal Palace then she begins to see herself as that person too rather than seeing herself as the problem child that doesn't quite fit doesn't quite belong it's upsetting people in class and that kind of thing was seeing her strengths rather than her challenges and she begins to see her strengths rather than her challenges too. The other thing with this is that when we begin to understand more about a child's strengths their skills their passions their abilities it gives us a way in so we can then start thinking about their challenges through that lens we might be saying okay well she's struggling to get by in class can we maybe think about how we can you know use Crystal Palace or football as a means of engaging her with that learning perhaps that would really help her here or you know if she's a looked after child and perhaps she's moving between placements perhaps we're able to let new families know as she enters them. Janila is a fantastic footballer make sure you get her outside and play football with her she would love to go out and kick a ball about with you and that can work as a really good bonding activity it also enables Janila to feel heard and understood by the adults around her now sometimes we don't know those things about the children in our care that's not an excuse for not using this kind of strength and positive approach though because then our job becomes to find out what those things are and that as always is about stopping and taking time to listen and enable a child to feel heard it might be anything what you want to do is invite them to invite you into their world and understand a little bit about the things that they value about themselves the things that they feel that they're good at the things they enjoy spending their time doing their skills their passions their hobbies then it have to be big or productive things it could be anything you might have a child who tells you they know absolutely everything there is to know about fortnight and can show you every dance that's ever come out of that that's fine it's a way in it's very unlikely that you're going to come across a kid who has nothing that they can tell you about that is what they would choose to spend their time doing or that they value about themselves but if you do find yourself in that situation then our role here becomes a slightly different one of actually opening them up to the opportunity to try out new things and hopefully find the thing that sparks a little bit of joy for them so what we're trying to do here is just to flip the conversation around and be looking at those strengths those positives rather than always looking at those labels and the negatives next time you find yourself talking about a child because you're concerned about them just think twice about how you introduce that child into the conversation with the other adults around you do you think first of the challenges or do you think first of their strengths and try and see if you can change the tenet of that conversation a little bit if you're working with a child or a young person who's kind of internal narrative is quite negative and you want to do something that kind of promotes a slightly more positive outlook for them then I would really recommend the happy self journal so the happy self journal is a really simple and practical resource that you can use with children and young people you can encourage them to fill it out for themselves and it builds on this kind of positive psychology idea of looking for the good in each day of celebrating the good things that we do and that happen to us it doesn't have to be big things and encourages this kind of regular and journaling which a child could do on their own or with input from a supportive adult and I really love it and my nine-year-old daughters have given it the thumbs up too and so it might be worth checking out if you're looking for a practical way for positive ways in for kids that you are supporting I hope this is a helpful idea and in order to help others who are watching the video it'd be fantastic if you could leave a comment with your suggestions about how can you go about finding out what are the things that make a child tick what are your suggested approaches for that how do you find out what a child's passions skills or interests are and where a child doesn't appear to already have those things how have you gone about igniting that interest in the past remember that your comments are really helpful they are something that other people who watch the video will read so if you've got a good idea or a positive experience to share please do leave it in a comment down below thanks so much for watching take care stay safe be kind to yourselves and please subscribe for my new videos every Tuesday and Friday see you next time bye