Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 1 › Lesson 1.3
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What you're good at already
Name five real strengths you bring to the job and two things you will work on, and check them with a parent.
1Watch
The interview
The interview
A kitchen table. A parent asks a thirteen-year-old what she is good at. She opens her mouth, and the film ends.
15 secondsEveryone freezes on this one. You will not, after this.
2The idea
The honest inventory
You already do things that are the job. A younger sibling. Cousins at the weekend. Keeping your head when something went wrong. Doing what a coach says without being asked twice. A strength is something you have actually done, not something you would like to be.
The parent is not looking for a perfect person. They are looking for a real one. Everybody says they are brilliant with kids, so it means nothing. Saying you have a brother who is five and you do his bath on Wednesdays means something, because a parent can picture it and could check it.
3The idea
How to find yours
Think of the last three times you were responsible for something or someone. What did you actually do? Sort it: Patient. Calm when things go wrong. Follows instructions. Notices things. Firm. Fun. Reliable, meaning on time. Trained, meaning first aid or this course. Pick the five you can back up with a real example.
Then the honest part. Which two on that list made you wince? Those are the two to work on. Two to work on is not a weakness list. It is the part that shows you are paying attention. You come back to both lists at the end of this track, and the point is that they will have changed.
4The idea
Priya's list
Priya has her cousins every Sunday. When one split his lip she got a cloth, pressed, and rang her aunt. So: calm when something goes wrong. She follows the routine. She is on time. She is not firm: the cousins run rings round her at bedtime. She has not done first aid.
To the hiring parent she says: I am calm when something goes wrong and I stick to the routine. I am working on being firmer at bedtime, and I am booked on a first aid course next month. The parent hears someone honest who is thinking. The two you are working on are the most convincing thing you will say.
5Build it
Your inventory
Your inventory
A grid of twelve strength cards. Pick the five you can back up with a real example and type the example in one line. Then pick two to work on. It saves to your profile, and the last lesson in this track brings it back.
You come back to this on the last lesson. Be honest now so the change is real later.
6Decide
A parent asks what you are good at. Which answer actually tells them something?
Pick one to carry on.
7Say it
One strength, one honest gap
Say this out loud, as if a parent has just asked
“I'm calm when things go wrong, and I'm still working on being firm at bedtime.”
Swap in your own two. The shape stays the same: one thing you have done, one thing you are honest about.
8Find them
Which of these count as a strength you can offer a parent?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Show your five and your two to a parent. Ask which two they would have picked for you to work on. If theirs are different from yours, that is the interesting bit, and it is worth a conversation.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Know what you are good at, and what you are not yet. Both are useful to the parent hiring you.
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