‘Parents need to stop coddling their kids’: Renowned educator who raised TWO CEOs and a doctor reveals the ‘unpopular’ parenting rule that helped her daughters achieve success
- Esther Wojcicki, 81, is known as the ‘Godmother of Silicon Valley’ because of how many of her students became entrepreneurs – including her own children
- The educator is mom to Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube; Janet Wojcicki, a doctor; and Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe
- Wojcicki said her number one rule as a young mom was: ‘Don’t do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves’
- The best-selling author of ‘How to Raise Successful People’ believes children should set their own alarms, pick out their school clothes, and help with meals
- Wojcicki explained that ‘the more you trust your children to do things on their own, the more empowered they’ll be’
A renowned educator has revealed the ‘unpopular’ parenting rule she followed as a young mother that helped her raise two CEOs and a doctor.
Esther Wojcicki, 81, is known as the ‘Godmother of Silicon Valley’ because of how many of her students went on to become entrepreneurs — including her own incredibly successful children.
The journalist and best-selling author of the parenting book ‘How to Raise Successful People’ is mom to Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube; Janet Wojcicki, a doctor and professor of pediatrics; and Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.
‘Don’t do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves,’ Wojcicki advised in an op-ed she penned for CNBC in which she argued against helicopter parenting.
Famed educator Esther Wojcicki, 81, has shared her number one parenting rule with CNBC: ‘Don’t do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves’
The journalist is mom to Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe; Janet Wojcicki, a doctor; and Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube (left to right)
She explained that removing any and all obstacles that arise in children’s lives can be detrimental to their future success, insisting that ‘parents need to stop coddling their kids.’
Instead, she believes children should be held responsible for any daily tasks that they can handle on their own, including setting their own alarms, picking out their school clothes, helping with meals, and checking their own homework.
‘Chores are especially important,’ she said. ‘Washing dishes was a big one in our house. All my daughters stood on a little stool at the sink and washed the dishes after dinner.’
She also used to have her daughters make their beds every morning even though they didn’t always do the best job.
‘A bed made by a kid can look like she’s still asleep in it,’ she admitted. ‘But I didn’t fight them. As long as they did it, I was happy.’
Wojcicki noted she had ‘many unpopular parenting rules,’ but this is the one that she believes is the most important.
‘The more you trust your children to do things on their own, the more empowered they’ll be,’ she said. ‘The key is to begin with guided practice: It’s the “I do, we do, you do” method.’
Wojcicki taught journalism at Palo Alto High School for more than three decades and founded the school’s Media Arts Program. She also served as a mentor to a number of students, including Steve Jobs’ daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
As a teacher, she rewarded her students for ‘learning and the hard work’ they put in and ‘not getting it right the first time.’
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Parents should also be focusing on mastery and not perfection, according to the longtime teacher.
‘The more you trust your children to do things on their own, the more empowered they’ll be,’ she explained
‘Mastery means doing something as many times as it takes to get it right,’ she said. ‘Being a writing teacher taught me this. In the 80s and 90s, one of the supposed characteristics of a good teacher was that your class was so hard that many students failed.
‘But the kids who got a D on their first paper found it impossible to recover and lost the motivation to improve, since they were starting out so far behind.’
Wojcicki explained that she gave her students ‘the opportunity to revise their work as many times as they wanted,’ and ‘their grade was based on the final product.’
Parents should also be focusing on mastery and not perfection, according to the longtime teacher.
‘The idea is to teach them how to cope with what life throws at them,’ she said. ‘One of the most important lessons I taught my daughters is that the only thing you can control is how you react to things.’
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