Human beings are not designed to be excellent at everything.
-Sara Kuljis

Show notes at https://sunshine-parenting.com/2019/03/ep-77/

In Episode 77, I’m chatting with my friend, Sara Kuljis, as we continue our series Encouragements for Parents. You can listen to our previous episode, Ep. 75: Begin with the (Parenting) End in Mind here.

Big Ideas

• Human beings are not designed to be excellent at everything.
• By identifying our talents and strengths, we can find more engagement and satisfaction, our quality of life improves, and we become more productive and successful.
• We’re more effective and more content when we operate out of our sweet spots.
• We usually do even better when we collaborate with someone with complementary strengths.
• Parents need to first discover their own strengths and then help their kids to discover their strengths.
• When we’re validated for the way we naturally feel, behave, and think, it validates our whole personhood.

Quotes

Audrey: “It’s just this general feeling that our kids have, and we often have, that we’re just not enough. That whatever we’re doing is not good enough, that we’re looking at everybody else’s highlight reel and thinking that our reality just doesn’t compare.”

Sara: “We’re in a competitive society. School is competitive, getting into colleges feels competitive, club sports have been elevated to a remarkable level of importance, and that’s competitive.”

Sara: “We, as parents, are anxious this decade, or this generation, about our kids being prepared for the future.”

Sara: “Human beings are not designed to be excellent at everything.”

Sara: “We each have gifts, and talents, and interests that are different from the next person, and that’s supposed to be that way.”

Audrey: “It makes you feel good to realize that ‘wow, I have this combination of strengths that’s uniquely me’.”

Sara: ‘It’s been a couple of years now that I’ve been a Gallup certified Strengths Finder Coach.”

Sarah: “Each human being is designed with some special assets.”

Sarah: “When we’re using our sweet spots, when we’re in our sweet spots we’re in our zone- we are more effective.”

Sarah: “We’re designed to be interpersonal creatures.”

Audrey: “We, as parents, need to take that role of helping our kids find their strengths because culture at large is not going to help.”

Audrey: “Strengths testing sometimes measures those things that aren’t measured normally.”

Audrey: “The magic comes in the mix of people.”

Audrey: “Together you can actually do really amazing things.”

Sara: “Identifying talents and strengths, and understanding the need for partnering and for leaning on each other to complete the package, really helps with potential conflict.”

Sara: “Let’s not forget to be grateful and to celebrate, and to see who brought what to the mix.”

Audrey: “I would really encourage parents to actually pursue their own strengths, and figure that out first, maybe before working on this with their kids.”

Sarah: “A lot of how we’re teaching our kids is by modeling for them.”

Audrey: “If we could get our kids to see each other’s strengths more, I think that’s very helpful as well because then they are encouraging each other and not comparing to each other.”

Extract from Audrey’s blog post titled Four Ways to Focus on our Kids’ Strengths: “We are happier when we spend more time focusing and building upon our strengths than remediating our weaknesses.”

Links

Audrey’s book, Happy Campers- 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults, is coming out on May 7th. It’s available now for pre-order now. Go to www.happycampersbook.com to find links to all your favorite book retailers where you can pre-order your copy. Audrey will send you some fun freebies, and an invitation to join her private Facebook group once you’ve completed the pre-order form.