Notes from How to Raise Successful People

Read this interesting book from Esther Wojcicki, an educator in Silicon Valley at Palo Alto High School. Lots of good practical advice with interesting examples. Most of it applies to not just raising kids, but to raising ourselves..

Here are the rough notes, including quotes from the book.

In one word, raise your kids by developing TRICK — Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness

Trust — Its okay to send them to store for an hour, like target store. Work with them on an action plan for list of items to buy. All you need is one person, just one person who trusts and believes in you, and then you feel you can do anything.

“I have seen so many students who are difficult, aggressive. They feel bad about themselves, have low self-esteem and they fight back”

Author ended up telling fellow students that this particular student was taking more time because he is smart. That was the first time an adult had said to this student that his abilities and intelligence were seen and respected.

Your child’s fundamental sense of security is based on you being a trusting caregiver.

Trust with shopping, once you have built a foundation of trust and you have taught your child to be responsible with the money, give them your credit card.

Test your trustworthiness by checking whether they make good on their word. Some kids just have a hard time being on time.

When we are fearful and hover over our children, they become afraid too. Yet children need to take risks. Kids really do copy what we model for them. Children need to take risks.

Take kids on trips, where you give them independence. Like NY city trip

When trust is broken, punishment is not to revoke trust rather it should be to enforce trust even more.

Don’t be authoritarian, rather be authoritative.

Authoritative parents

• Set boundaries, through engagement
• Not your best friend but also not a person who just wants to control you
• A person who is scaffolding the kid with expectations
• Leads to independent, purposeful behavior and social responsibility

Permissive parents

• Prone to overindulgence, and fails to enforce rules or expectations, taking a back seat in child’s life.
• They offer freedom without structure

Collaborative parent

• Someone who builds a relationship of mutual respect with their kids
• More collaborative ways of saying “get off that phone”, “get over here”, “get in the car”
• Don’t say “That was a stupid thing to do”. Always remember “would you want to be talked to, the way you talk to your child”
• Kids should help plan dinners
• Set the table
• Help cook
• Cleanup afterward
• Who vacuums, who does laundry, garbage out, wash the car, shoveling in snow,
• Vacation planning

Collaborative Discipline

• Kids don’t know how to control themselves. They are still learning to interact. Its tempting to get mad, but u have to reason with child calmly.
• Author’s kids was a biter, she sat him down and asked why he was doing it? Frustration is behind a lot of behaviors in kids.
• Older kids can take some “quite” time to write about what they are feeling and how they are behaving.Reflective writing is a wonderful teaching tool or have them draw pictures
• No grudges against your kids. Have him write more about where he is coming from.
• Kids who cheat are under a lot pressure. Try to find where that pressure is coming from. Pressure to get an A, living in fear of punishment, and fear of not knowing how to make the paper better.
• Work with them to give the confidence, they should not be terrified, tell them how it’s unethical to take another person’s words or thoughts and claim them as your own.
• Subjects like journalism teach life lessons like how to make something work even when it doesn’t work, how to work together with so many moving pieces, so many conflicting opinions.

Children hear what you do, not what you say

Some parents get so worried, that they pursue so called 504 plan for their kids, which provides testing accommodations for their kids with disabilities. Taking SAT without time limit.

If you project anxiety, kids will take it. Sometimes if the parent instills fear in their kids, the kid will believe it.

Take on monthly cleaning and organizing projects

How do you present yourself in terms of clothing and grooming.

Have healthy relationship with technology. Just like you have fixed hours of phone time for kids, set aside off hours with phone for adults as well. Like no phone at dinner time and after 9:00 pm. Or no phone in the evening on weekends.

How do you treat your relatives? Even in divided households, parents should model collaboration and cooperation for the benefit of kids

Playing board game, going to park, jumping on trampoline.

Discuss controversial topics with kids.

If your child sees you working on your anger, she will learn to work on he own issues. Having mindset that behavior can be changed and then showing your children that you are working on it with their help proves to them that it can be done.

BE AWARE AND WILLING

IDENTIFY and SHARE a GOAL — pick just one thing to change at a time. Start with something which most impacts your child. Maybe you need to be more patient, when your son is getting ready for school. My goal is to be more patient with you in morning, can you help me figure out what i should focus on first.

BE FLEXIBLE AS YOU PURSUE SOLUTION — just like draft of writing, rework on your plan until you perfect it.

Kindness — Model it, it’s contagious

Kindness is disappearing from our parenting goals. In pursuit of individual success and perfection, we are inadvertently raising narcissistic children who lack kindness and empathy. They don’t have time to think about other people. When you are kind,the thinking goes that people will walk all over you, and think you are a pushover. But kindness is critical. Even in the business world, when google conducted a survey (Project Oxygen), it was the soft skills that separated the high ranking managers from other google employees. 4 of top 7 managerial skills were directly related to kindness (empathy, consideration for employees as employees with different values and point of view, coaching and providing helpful feedback).

Kindness brings much more than acceptance letter or good job. Being kind makes the people around us happy and ourselves as well. There is a bit of self interest in being kind, they give us a sense of peace and meaning that cannot be bought. Support of the network and family is the single most important thing to address depression and anxiety.

Saying hello, good morning, looking people in the eye, being a good listener. Gratitude is part of kindness. It requires that you notice others, show your appreciation. Gratitude makes everyone happy both the giver and receiver. Teenagers who report higher levels of gratitude are more optimistic, experience higher satisfaction and decreased risk of depression.

Have children talk about their gratitude to you. Most kids are grateful for their parents or grand parents. Kids should write about their day and what they are grateful for every night before they go to bed. It’s a good way to practice writing and a good way to keep a diary.

The deepest form of kindness — Reading to your kids on regular basis, especially books about kindness and empathy is super helpful. Pets are a wonderful way to teach compassion and responsibility.

A big part of practicing kindness is to remember that kids are adults in training. They are going to make mistakes, that’s where forgiveness is important. Carrying a grudge, overreacting and doling out harsh punishment only perpetuates pain and anger.

Typical punishment protocol: a conversation, asking the child to write and reflect, spending more time after school and helping me.

Bullying, jealousy are innate human tendencies.

Bullying is a breakdown of kindness that exposes uncomfortable truths about human nature. Kids who are awkward in any way are vulnerable. They look funny, say the wrong things and struggle to interact with peers and the other kids pick up on it.
“Act of taking delight in someone else’s misery”. Its wrong, but its part of human behavior. It’s called schadenfreude.

Envy is another feeling (you become jealous of someone else’s success).

It’s important to talk to kids about bullying, how it can affect them. If your child is being bullied its important to step in. Be a pest, make enough noise so that it will be addressed.

What’s worse than being bullied is being “Excluded”. Exclusion is worst form of punishment in prisons. Its triggers feeling of abandonment in the kids.

Encourage your child to mentor other kids. Most kids graduate from high school without having a single person as their champion.