Esther Wojcicki revealed the unpopular parenting rule she used to raise three daughters who became successful CEOs and doctors.
Wojcicki, 81, is an internationally-known educator, journalist, and the bestselling author of “How to Raise Successful People”. In her book, she talked about the secret which is TRICK – Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. These simple lessons aim to help children become self-driven, respectful, and resilient.
Her three daughters are all making names for themselves in their chosen fields. The oldest, Susan, is the CEO of YouTube and was also Google’s first marketing manager in 1999. Next is Dr. Janet Wojcicki, who is an anthropologist and epidemiologist. The youngest, Anne, is the CEO and co-founder of the genomics company 23ndMe.
Esther Wojcicki’s number one rule is that as a parent, you should not do the things for your kids that they can do themselves. This unpopular parenting rule evidently worked out for her three successful daughters.
Being a “helicopter parent” is when you focus too much on your children that you take all the responsibilities that they should be learning by themselves. This usually happens to parents who have tendencies of being perfectionists and overprotective guardians. When this happens, the children are not getting enough chances and opportunities to grow as individuals and shape their own personalities.
Wojcicki explicitly emphasized that parents should not do too much for their kids.
Moreover, below are three points she mentioned that should guide parents to help their kids become successful in life:
For children to feel empowered and confident in themselves, parents need to be able to trust their kids to do things on their own. Wojcicki suggested the “I do, we do, you do” method.
With this trick, you first teach your child a skill appropriate to their age. For example, if you have a toddler who likes making a mess of his toys, you can show him the proper way of cleaning up. You can do this by having storage bins for his toys and picking them up one-by-one that will then go to a shelf or the corner of a room.
In the next few days, you can ask him to help you pick up the toys to put in the bins. Letting your child be involved in the activity can help them feel engaged and even create a new connection with you. After a week or so, try making an assessment if you can finally ask him to do this on his own. A simple lesson like this will help him have a sense of responsibility and even feel empowered when he can do things by himself.
Other everyday actions that you can teach them are: setting their own alarms, picking their outfit, setting the table at mealtimes, making plans, and doing household chores.
As parents, we sometimes forget that children are still learning, thus we do not need to set high expectations for the things they do.
In Wojcicki’s example, she taught her daughters to make their beds every morning. Although the made beds were not perfect as per her standards, she did not make a big deal out of it. She focused more on her kids being able to do it by themselves and letting them learn how to do it better the next time.
She mentioned that mastery is doing something over and over again until you get it right. Wojcicki applied this lesson as a writing teacher and gave her students the opportunity to revise their work until they were satisfied with it. This, in turn, helped her students perform in the 90th percentile of state exams.
Parents should take this opportunity to focus more on their children’s progress instead of getting it right the first time. Kids should be expected to make a mess, color out of the shape they’re supposed to fill in, and even draw scribbly lines even though they needed to trace a straight line. Provide them with plenty of unstructured play so they can learn by themselves and help balance their formal lessons at school.
Of course, this does not mean asking your 5-year-old to answer some complicated algebra problems. The point is that we may forget that children are still capable of learning on their own, sometimes even without help from anyone.
Wijcocki stated that one of the most important things she taught her daughters is that they may not be able to control the situation they’re in, but they can definitely control how they react to it.
This helped her successful daughters feel empowered especially when making their own decisions. The confidence that it brings out is one significant factor in how they were able to rise to the top of competitive, male-dominated professions.
As an example for parents, you will probably notice that kids always ask ‘why’ questions. Most of the time, the question will only be regarded as the child’s curiosity. You probably won’t even think that they fully understood your answer.
Like when a kid asks why you shouldn’t touch a hot stove, and you tell them it’s because your hand will get burnt. They don’t know what it’s like to have their hand burnt but you’ll eventually see them putting on oven mitts and trying to check if the cookies are done. There are some things you may not actually teach them, but children learn a lot by example and what they see around them.
Being a parent is no easy feat, so much more to raising successful children. Keep in mind this unpopular parenting rule mentioned above and it should help you empower your kids to be whatever they want to be.
Do you have your own rule for parenting? What do you think parents should start doing to help their children succeed in life? Share with us your thoughts as you share this post with your friends.
(Featured Image by Joi Ito | Flickr)