Whether you're a teacher, counselor, nurse, student assistance coordinator, school administrator, volunteer from the community or simply a concerned adult, you matter to children. Your contribution to them is your listening, your understanding and your compassion. To the extent you connect with young people at a personal level and focus on their resilience, you help prepare young people for healthy adulthood. While all children need this kind of caring, it's kids from troubled homes that demand our attention. They're the young people that may lack the love and attention to carry them successfully into adulthood.
All children can bounce back from adversity.
You can help when you communicate your high expectations of kids and focus on their strengths. Your challenges is to focus on strengths, rather than dwell on deficits. Young people become stronger when you help them solve their own problems. These four questions let children know they share the responsibility for solving their own problems. And, by using these questions you imply kids aren't helpless victims, but can take control of many aspects of their lives.