I had the great experience of appearing on a local television show called The View from the Bay last week with my son, Arthur. The topic was on raising independent self-sustainable kids. Arthur arrived on the set looking exhausted. He had been up almost the entire night moving boxes as part of the campus storage company he runs at Santa Clara University. It is his first year running this business called Bronco Student Services where he provides students with storage, laundry, and food service delivery services.  He and his partner had way more demand for the storage service the last week of school resulting in all night runs from campus to the storage facility. Yes, as a mother, my first thought was, “what about your final exams???” He assured me he made that a priority!

I never told Arthur he had to work while he was in school. He has spent a gap year, in between high school and college, working for a technology company in Madrid, Spain so I have never doubted his work ethic. He has also worked every summer during high school. Arthur’s focus on this business came out of his own desire to run a company. He and his partner bought the storage and laundry services company from a former student. They then negotiated with the University to get the contract to be able deliver food from the various food service outlets on campus to the dorms and professor’s offices. He calls it on campus Roomservice. Needless to say, I am proud of him. He tells me running this company really puts his studies in context. This is a concept I understand from my years being involved with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (http://www.nfte.com).

So here are my tips. They don’t include things like making your bed or helping out at home. To me that is just about being a good member of a household. Instead these tips are about bigger life lessons that, to me, are important for kids to learn early in life.

Top 5 tips to raising self-reliant children:

1. Life isn’t fair: You can do everything right and sometimes things just don’t work out. Bad things can happen to good people. This doesn’t mean that you transfer burdens onto a child but it is about giving them the muscle to cope with disappointment and unexpected curve balls in life.
2. Get out of the middle: As parents we want to protect and support our children but we can ‘hover’ too much and get in the middle of relationships that children should learn to manage themselves, especially relationships with authority figures, like teachers. When my daughter, Taylor, was in elementary school she had a semester-long project assigned in January and due at the end of the school year. When I went to my parent-teacher conference in March the teacher was so surprised I hadn’t contacted her about the project. She said EVERY other parent had called or met with her.  I told her that it was Taylor’s project and I had encouraged Taylor to meet with her with questions. I wanted Taylor to learn how to talk with her teachers and build her own relationships rather than having me jump in to manage this process for her. Taylor met with her teacher many times that semester and she said it made her feel good about herself.
3. Be vulnerable: Embrace your flaws; let your children see that no one is perfect. They will be more comfortable sharing their own mistakes and fears. This idea is especially important as kids enter the teenage years. So many parents tell me that their teenagers don’t talk to them. I usually ask my friends what they share with their teenager. I know this from teaching leadership that the leader needs to go first in terms of being vulnerable in order to build trust with the follower. I think the same idea applies between parent and child. Be vulnerable first. It creates trust and then your child will be more comfortable being vulnerable or sharing with you.
4. Permission to fail builds success: Whenever, our kids fall down we want to run and pick them up. I think it is so important to be there for your kids when they fall down but give them the encouragement to stand up on their own. I love the Martin Luther King quote, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and conveniences, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” While it is so difficult to see our kids faced with challenge we have to let them figure out how to get through that challenge. When children are encouraged to own their mistakes, they have the ability to learn from them, and move on without the baggage of the mistake holding them back.
5. Persistence beats resistance: Confident children persist and ultimately thrive. My kids have seen me stay with issues against the odds. I talked to them about my challenges and why I believed it was important to continue to move forward. They have seen me not give up.  My daughter Taylor rides horses and it is equivalent to falling off a horse and getting back to finish. Not staying off the horse and giving up because it is tough.

I am proud of my kids. Not because they are perfect. They make their share of mistakes and we all have had our share of disappointments. I am proud of how they fact challenge and their willingness to share their feelings. I am proud of their generosity and empathy with others. They know I am not perfect but they know I try and that I love them. I couldn’t ask for more.  Well… perhaps better grades and a neater room, but then again, you can’t have it all!

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” —Martin Luther King

Posted in Family, Parenting, Perspective |