A worried mother sits on the couch in my office. Her spouse was recently laid off, they’re experiencing tension at home, and her 15-year-old son’s grades have started to drop. “The one thing he seems to care about is the wrestling team,” she tells me. He’ll wake up at 5 a.m. to train, but he isn’t doing his homework. “We’re thinking we should take him off the team until his grades turn around.”
I certainly understand this instinct, having had many versions of this conversation over the past 30 years, as both an educator and the parent of three kids. When a child encounters difficulty, it’s common for parents to feel like they don’t have many levers to pull. Yet my experience working with children, along with plenty of research on resilience, has taught me a valuable lesson: When a kid is falling short, penalizing them by taking away the thing they care most about is not the way to motivate them.
Raising humans is an imperfect, iterative process. The current parenting landscape—which for many families is defined by an ever-present worry over achievement—can lead moms and dads to focus on what children lack rather than on where they excel. Some parents’ eyes may go first to the lowest grade on the report card. Those same parents might reflexively prepare to mobilize tutors or insist on new study habits to remedy perceived weakness. They do this to be helpful, to eradicate or neutralize vulnerability that might impede a child’s success. Yet decades of research have shown that a key to raising capable young people isn’t to target their struggles. It’s to recognize, cultivate, and build on their strengths—to identify what experts in child development call “islands of competence.”
That term was introduced more than 40 years ago by the clinical psychologist Robert Brooks, who argued that every child, no matter their challenges, possesses distinct areas of ability, and that it is educators’ and parents’ job to nurture and celebrate those gifts—not merely as a feel-good exercise but as a crucial foundation for growth. Other research has shown that “strength-based parenting,” or the practice of helping a child lean into their skills, correlates with lower stress levels and higher engagement in school. In contrast, psychologists have suggested that parenting focused on fixing weaknesses can negatively affect a child’s confidence and self-esteem, and can lead to heightened stress and avoidance behaviors.
Confidence is contagious: When we’re good at things, our courage rises. When young people experience themselves as strong and capable—as an artist, an athlete, a leader, or a friend—they are better equipped to persevere through obstacles in other areas of their life.
Again and again, I have watched actors in a spring musical find ways to lock in academically while managing long rehearsal nights, athletes whose social struggles turn around during their MVP season, and debaters who produce an excellent English essay while traveling back from a tournament. When young people have a sense of purpose or competence, when they have an “island” on which they can stand, this capacity frequently carries over to other parts of their lives.
I’ve witnessed this phenomenon play out in my own home. Every weekend for the past three years, my youngest daughter, now a high-school senior, has worked in a food truck. She takes orders, updates DoorDash drivers, and handles the occasional irate patron. Her academic load is significant, and at various times, my wife and I have discussed with her the idea of scaling back her work to focus on school. Yet she insists on waking early every Saturday and Sunday for her job. “They need me,” she explains. That sense of being needed has carried her through any number of setbacks, whether struggles with a chemistry test or conflicts with friends.
Emphasizing the good in order to correct behavior—veering positive when observing something you might identify as negative—may not be many parents’ first instinct. But it’s a competence worth developing in ourselves. To help fortify children’s islands, parents can take a few simple steps:
1. Identify the island.
Sometimes, a child discovers their own island. Other times, parents might want to nudge—to notice what comes naturally or brings their child joy, and then invite them to reflect on the activities and topics that light them up. It helps to adopt a spirit of curiosity. You can ask: “Where do you feel most confident, energized, and motivated?” This could be an academic subject, but it could just as easily be an interpersonal skill, an artistic pursuit, or a hobby. If your child’s first response is to say “Playing video games” or “Watching YouTube,” look more closely. Are they learning something useful while going down YouTube rabbit holes? A friend’s son used to spend countless hours watching sports highlights. His dad worried that he was wasting time, but he held his tongue. The son is now a gainfully employed 25-year old who edits videos for an NBA team. Of course, teenage passions don’t always translate into future employment. But they can—a great argument for parents taking their kids’ lead.
2. Name it.
Many children don’t recognize their own strengths, wrongly assuming that something they’re good at or that comes easily to them doesn’t have value. A child who patiently helps a younger sibling with homework may not self-identify as a teacher or a contributor to the household. Naming this strength can help them see themselves in a new light. A high-school friend of mine was once encouraged by our English teacher to submit a play for a “young playwrights” competition. Decades later, she has had multiple works produced on Broadway. A different friend recounts the moment when his daughter’s ninth-grade biology teacher handed back a stellar lab report and said to her casually, “You should think about being a doctor.” Ten years later, she is in medical school. That gentle tap on the shoulder can change the trajectory of a life.
3. Build on it.
Research on motivation suggests that it is not just innate talent but also deliberate practice toward mastery that leads to long-term confidence and perseverance. Parents can offer children opportunities to develop their strengths through summer classes, clubs, and teams—or simply unstructured time at home. A child who shows mechanical aptitude might love building models; one who enjoys an audience might try out for debate or theater. A former student of mine launched a theater company in his living room while in high school. He’s now a professional actor. The important thing is to suggest an activity to kids and not force it on them, which could backfire and turn into resentment.
4. Use strengths to address weaknesses.
Sometimes, a kid will hit a dead end and think they’ve failed. That’s the time for parents to say: You don’t need to be good at everything. Let’s remember your strengths—they might help you figure out where you can contribute. Confidence in one domain can build resilience in another. A child who excels verbally but finds writing difficult may benefit from dictating their ideas aloud before putting pen to paper. An extrovert with high emotional intelligence who struggles with executive function might help peers coalesce around a group project, then count on others for organization and managing deadlines. Even if a child’s strengths can’t be applied to a specific task, the mere knowledge that they’re good at something can buoy them when they have to confront a seemingly insurmountable hurdle.
5. Tell an optimistic story.
Family narratives are powerful. When children consistently hear messages about what they lack (she’s not a reader; he’s terrible at time management), these identities can solidify and become self-fulfilling prophecies. A family culture that celebrates strengths (I’ve noticed how you make people feel included; I love the stories you tell—your imagination always surprises me!) can foster a positive sense of self. This is not a call for participation trophies. Celebrations must be genuine, or they’ll ring hollow. When my own children invite me to read their essays, I tell them what I like but also what doesn’t make sense to me. Authentic praise is meaningful because it’s credible.
At its core, the “islands of competence” framework is an invitation to reimagine how we see our children. It asks us to shift our focus from fear to possibility, from correction to cultivation. In an era when young people are bombarded with messages about what they must achieve, we can remind them of what they already possess. By identifying and nurturing their islands, we show them a way to deepen their own potential—and in doing so, we might quiet some of our own anxieties as well.
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