As a parent, we always want the best for our children.
Not only in their current situations but in their lives as they grow. Unfortunately, as we all know, children do not come with an instruction manual. How great would it be if they did?
In the absence of an instruction manual, modern psychologists have put together a few things that the parents of the most successful people have all have in common when it comes to how they raised their children.
1.Have High Expectations
Professor Neal Halfon from the University of California recently did a study that involved a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001. His team’s finding found that the higher a parent’s expectations were of their children, the more those children achieved. According to Halfon, “Parents who saw college in their child’s future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets.”
2. Teach Social Skills
A recent 20-year long study done by researchers at Duke University and Pennsylvania State University found that children who had good social skills as kindergartner were more successful 20 years later. Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says, “This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future. From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted.”
3. Working Moms
The Harvard Business School did extensive research on the benefits of children who grew up in a family where the mother worked outside of the home. What they found was that both male and female children showed significant benefits from having a working mom. Daughters of working moms went to school longer, and sons of working mothers showed an increase in housework. According to professor Kathleen L. McGinn, “Role modeling is a way of signaling what’s appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe.” She also went on to say, “There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother.”
4. Teach Math Early
In 2007, researcher Greg Duncan found that early development of math skills was an incredible precursor for a successful child. His analysis showed: “The paramount importance of early math skills — of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts — is one of the puzzles coming out of the study. Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement.”
5. Higher Education
Several studies have shown that parents who have completed higher education tend to raise children that also graduate from college. One study in 2014, found that out of 14,000 children born between 1998 and 2007, those who were born to teen mothers were less likely to finish high school or attend college. In another study, Dr. Eric Dubow’s research showed that: “parents’ educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later.”
6. Develop Relationships
In 2014, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota found that children who had strong relationships with their parents were more successful as adults. The keys to this success came from responding to children “promptly and appropriately” which provided a strong foundation for children to grow and explore. According to the co-author of the report, Lee Raby, “This suggests that investments in early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that accumulate across individuals’ lives.”
