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Leadership Starts At Home—4 Ways Parents Can Set Kids Up For Success


The pandemic ushered in a new era of home life – one in which kids and parents are working alongside each other, sharing the home as a combination office and classroom. With this drastic and dynamic shift, there’s an opportunity for children to learn skills that they wouldn’t normally acquire until later on in life, often not until they begin working.

Many of those skills are learned via observation, and now the people they’re observing most are their parents. They’re seeing adults working, problem solving, and persevering in challenging times. Parents can turn this otherwise inopportune situation into a lasting learning opportunity that will ultimately help their children achieve success. Think of it as Parenting 2.0.

To successfully get kids on board with learning these skills, it’s crucial to explain why the skills are important as well as how they’re helpful. For younger kids, the explanation can be quite simple – explain that these skills will help them have an easier time in school. For middle schoolers, the explanation should include a conversation about how these skills will help them both in school and at work. For high schoolers, the benefits for work should be the main focus.

Give children autonomy.

Teaching children how to be self-sufficient is a skill that will serve them well all throughout life. It can easily be taught at home by allowing children to work independently and solve challenges on their own rather than having someone swoop in immediately with a solution. Learning self-sufficiency will make their transition from school into the workplace easier, as they’ll be prepared to take initiative and do things themselves with minimal direction.

Too often we see young employees struggle in the early days at their jobs because there’s no set way of doing things, unlike what they were used to at school. School, from elementary to university, follows a basic formula – learn new material, study, then take a test. Work is of course far more ambiguous and requires more self-direction. If children haven’t been taught how to work independently or with little outside direction, they are forced to learn this skill on the job. Teaching autonomy from a young age mitigates this problem.

Involve children in decision making.

Involve children in making decisions, especially those that have a direct impact on them. For example, doing homework. It needs to be done nightly, but the time it gets done can be chosen by the child. Set a deadline, such as before bedtime, and help them identify what time they’re best able to focus and complete the homework. Monitor and check in with them to help them understand why the time they chose is or isn’t working, and help them adjust as needed. The process of making adjustments helps them learn problem solving skills, and as a bonus, it helps them become more self-sufficient too.

Show kids that adults struggle with things too.

It’s good to show kids that adults struggle, feel frustrated, and don’t always have all the answers, perhaps more so now than ever before. The world we live in is filled with uncertainty – when will kids resume in-person learning? If schools reopen, what happens if there’s an increase in positive Covid cases? What happens when offices reopen? No one has those answers right now, and you should share that with your kids.

Show them that even when you don’t have an answer, you can always try to think things through and make an educated guess. This is another way to help kids build critical thinking and problem solving skills. It also helps to reduce anxiety stemming from uncertainty (for adults too!) because it forces you to acknowledge the fact that it’s just that, uncertain, and all you can do is prepare for the future with the information you have right now.

Establish boundaries between home and work.

Working from home has unfortunately led to an increase in working hours. This means that work now bleeds further into family time, and the sounds of email and Slack notifications are heard well into the evening hours. Do yourself a favor and set a time that’s a hard stop for work – turn off your computer, mute or ignore your phone notifications, and spend time with your family.

Not only does this help you keep some of your sanity, but hopefully it will send a message to kids that work shouldn’t be an always-on, all-consuming thing. Perhaps if we teach that to them young, by the time they start working they’ll insist on keeping to the hours scheduled, and change things for the rest of us.

With these foundational skills in place, kids will be able to succeed and thrive from the first day they step into the workplace, putting them on a fast track to leadership positions, promotions, and overall greater success.



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