Recipe for Powerful Parenting

I’ve gotten many requests from readers asking me to take the flip side and analyze what makes a good kid good. I firmly believe it is all about parenting. Schools can only offer the continued development, reinforcement, and enrichment of the education that the parents should begin with a child from the moment they’re born. Good kids are the outgrowth of positive and effective parenting.

Now, I know this is no easy trick. I believe parenting is the hardest job on earth. I know because I’ve done it with two kids. No other work comes with more emotional baggage or less training, and if the modeling that we had as children was ineffective too, we have an even greater challenge, but I also believe there is no other job in life more important or gratifying.

I tackled parenting my own children with at least the same commitment and energy as I have given to any other work I have ever done. I did my research and read everything I could about effective parenting. I picked the brains of friends who had children about the techniques that worked best for them, and I analyzed my family’s style of child rearing to delineate what I would or would not pass on to the next generation. Then I put all that material away and followed my heart and instincts.

I created the most positive, loving relationship I could while modeling and reinforcing the values I wanted my children to assimilate and the behavior I wanted them to emulate, and when I have students who are as well-behaved, motivated, hard-working and successful as my children became (I am definitely a proud mama), I find that their parents did the same.

What constitutes effective parenting? If caring parents incorporated the following, they would create children who would become a force—powerful, passionate, persuasive, and ultimately prominent in whatever they choose to do.

• Conviction—Parents must clarify their own beliefs and values before hoping to pass them on. Decide what values are most important to you. Complete honesty, faithfulness, hard work, commitment, and excellence in all things were the ones I wanted my children to embrace, and they are the values I encourage in my students as well.

• Courage—A parent must be tough—set clear boundaries, enforce rules consistently, and have high expectations for their children despite what is happening among their peers, your peers or society. Honest feedback is important. Children need to know that you will always tell them the truth, even if it is hard to hear.

• Compromise—Though it is critical to have clarity of conviction and rules, flexibility must also be the cornerstone of any successful relationship, and it is a relationship you are creating with your child that will continue to evolve throughout your lives. If you are too inflexible, you risk breaking your child’s spirit and ultimately breaking the relationship. Be reasonable in all things.

• Constancy—Be dependable. Make sure your children know they can come to you about anything. Be consistent. If they know what they can expect from you, you will ensure their feeling of safety. Create traditions your children will remember and cherish. Have morning and evening rituals. Make holidays unique to your family. Repetition in all things is important—for learning and for security.

• Compassion—Hear your child’s voice with your heart. Be available to listen to them when they speak, to hug them fiercely when they’re hurt, to believe in them, to be proud of them and to tell them so often.