Parents know a lot about what can go wrong in an upbringing – but what can you do right?
The “right” upbringing is a tricky subject for parents, after all there is no such thing as one a right way. Neither for every parent nor for every child. This is probably why parents are showered with tips and advice from all sides. All with the goal that the child will eventually become a happy and self-confident adult with a fulfilling life.
But how is it actually the other way around: What things should one do without in education so that the child grows up well? Author Margot Machol Bisnow pursued this question in her research on the book “Raising an Entrepreneur” (in English: “How to raise a successful person”). She interviewed 70 parents and their children, always with the question in mind: How did these people manage to raise children who have fulfilled their own dreams and thus become happy people?
As the author noted, while there were sometimes huge ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious differences, what unified most were precisely four things that parents of bright, committed, and successful people never did in parenting.
1. View their children’s hobbies as a waste of time Parents of successful children know the importance of hobbies © About Life / Adobe Stock
Whatever hobby the child pursued—whether it was birdwatching, a sport, or video games—none of the parents Bisnow interviewed discouraged their child or tried to talk their children out of it. They knew how important hobbies are for mental activity.
Radha Agrawal is the founder of a global morning dance movement with half a million members around the world and the former CEO of Super Sprowtz, a children’s entertainment specializing in healthy eating. Together with her sister, she was an enthusiastic football player as a child and was able to take a lot from the sport.
As she says in an interview with Bisnow, she has been able to develop a lot of resilience and stamina through sport: “You have to be disciplined. You learn to be organized and focused. And you learn how important teamwork is and what it means to be captain.”
2. Make every decision for your children
Understandably, parents tend to make decisions for their children – after all, they are the adults, responsible for their children and know them better than anyone else. Above all, they don’t want their offspring to get hurt. But resisting temptation is a worthwhile endeavor, as Maura confirms. She is the mother of Ellen Gustafson, co-founder of the FEED Projects, an organization that provides food to children in schools.
“We encouraged them to be independent and to think for themselves,” says Maura in an interview. “I always told her, ‘Trust others, but check what they say. Do your own research. Be sure it’s true. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself.’ After all, you want to raise a child who is cautious but not fearful.”
Even if you as a parent can recognize the strengths of your own child, you have to let them find them out for themselves. It helps to ask the child questions like: “What do you think, which choice will be more helpful for you in the future?”
3. Putting a well-paying degree or money before the child’s happiness
Of course, there is nothing wrong with an academic or professional degree, the author emphasizes, but “a degree can be an expensive waste of time for a child if it is not related to his or her interests”. If a person loves something very much and works hard at it, Bisnow continues, “they will find a way to do it for a living without a degree in the field.”
4. Neglecting financial education in education Parents of successful children teach them the value of money from an early age © sally anscombe/Stocksy / Adobe Stock
Speaking of money and education: None of the parents interviewed pushed their own child to take a high-paying job. “But they all made an effort to teach their children about money in one form or another.”
In 2012, Joel Holland sold half of his Storyblocks company for $10 million. Even as a child, he and his sister developed a strong work ethic because the siblings had to sweep for their pocket money. “The floors had to be so clean that you could eat off them,” says the entrepreneur in an interview. That taught him what hard work meant.
When all the kids in his school had roller skates, his parents didn’t want to buy him one. “If you want them, you have to save your money,” they said to him at the time. “It made me angry at the time, but it also taught me the value of money.”
Source used: cnbc.com