How to Find Your Strengths As a Parent

Comparing Yourself to Others

• One way to succeed in feeling bad about your strengths and weaknesses is to compare yourself to others, and to worry that you're not doing things the way others do them. It's a natural inclination, but that type of thinking will only lead to feelings of inadequacy, suggests infant and parent development expert Dana Rosenbloom of the Seleni Institute, a New York-based non-profit that supports the well-being of mothers and children. Remember that no one is good at everything, and that you, too, have strengths that others don't.

Finding Your Strengths

• To start identifying your own strengths, the book "Group Parent Education" suggests a few approaches. For starters, list a few things your children would say you're good at, and recall a compliment you received about your parenting style. You might also think about a strength you've identified in others that you'd like to emulate, or that you also share. Write those ideas down so you can recall them the next time you're having a hard time.

Make a Strengths/Weaknesses List

• Now that you've identified some of your strengths -- or at least started to -- make another list of your weaknesses, suggests Hibbert. This is an equally-important part of the growth process. You might find it's just as difficult to determine your weaknesses as it is to determine your strengths -- but once again, make this about the facts of your life and not about what others do or don't do well. With both lists started, set a goal to improve one weakness and to further strengthen one strength, suggests Hibbert. Dr. Steven Dowshen of the KidsHealth website has as similar suggestion: Focus on the parts of parenting that you need to improve most, instead of trying to fix everything, so as to make parenting more manageable.

Seek Outside Validation

• No matter how hard you try, it can be difficult to see where you are excelling -- that's why an outside opinion can be helpful. Attending a parenting education class is one way to get to know parenting professionals and for them to get to know you. Chances are, though, the educators won't feed you information about who you are, but will instead get you to identify your strengths through activities such as list-making, or by sharing his own strengths in a group setting. If working in a group seems too overwhelming, you might also consider working one-on-one with a psychologist, counselor or parent educator, or asking your spouse and children to give you ideas.