I raised 2 successful CEOs and a doctor. Here’s the ‘unpopular’ parenting rule I always used on my kids
Here’s a wake-up call for American parents: We’re doing too much for our children. This is the origin of “helicopter parenting,” in which we continuously remove obstacles so that our kids don’t face challenges.
There are a lot of unpopular parenting rules that I followed as a young single mother. But my #1 is: Don’t do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves.
That worked for my daughters. All three grew up very successful: Susan is the CEO of YouTubeJanet is a doctor and Anne is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe. They rise to the top of competitive, male-dominated professions.
Parents need to stop teaching their children
The more you trust your kids to do things on their own, the more empowered they will be. The key is to start with guided practice: It’s the “I do, we do, you do” approach.
You can try this with all sorts of simple everyday actions:
- Wake up: Ask them to set their own alarms.
- Wear clothes: Let them choose their own outfits.
- Eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner: Give them simple tasks like stirring pancake batter, clearing lunch boxes, and setting the table.
- Have their backpacks ready: Ask them to go through the list of things they need to bring that day.
- Plan: Let them come up with weekend or after-school activities.
- Check homework: It’s okay if they don’t get 100% correct answers. Let them learn from their mistakes.
Housework is especially important. Washing dishes is a big job in our house. My daughters all stand on a small stool at the sink and wash the dishes after dinner.
And when we go grocery shopping, I’ll ask them for two pounds of apples. They had to pick out the good stuff, which I taught them how to do, and measure the weight on the scale.
If we go over our grocery budget, they help me decide what to leave behind.
Don’t worry about perfection
I expect my daughters to make their own beds every morning. Ha! A bed made by a child can look like she’s still sleeping in it. But I didn’t fight them. As long as they can do that, I’m happy.
Mastery means doing something over and over to get it right. Being a writing teacher taught me this. In the 80’s and 90’s, one of the supposed characteristics of a good teacher was that your class was so difficult that many students failed to meet the requirements.
But the kids who got a D on their first paper couldn’t recover and lost motivation to improve, because they got off to a bad start.
So I gave them the opportunity to modify their work as many times as they wanted. Their score is based on the final product. And when it came time to test, my students performed 90th percentile on state exams.
It was learning and hard work that I wanted to pay off, not the first time I achieved it.
Children are smarter than you think
Just to be clear, I’m not saying you should make your kids do things they don’t understand or aren’t capable of, nor am I saying you should let them play on the street if it’s not safe or walk to the store if the area isn’t safe. dangerous neighborhoods.
The idea is to teach them how to deal with what life throws at them. One of the most important lessons I taught my daughters is that the only thing you can control is how you react to things.
When you trust children to make their own decisions, they begin to feel more engaged, confident, and empowered. And once that happens, there is no limit to what they can achieve.
Esther Wojcicki is an educator, journalist, and bestselling author “How to raise successful people.” She is also a co-founder Tract.app and head of parenting office at Sesh. Follow her on Twitter @EstherWojcicki.
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