SCIENCE SAYS PARENTS OF
SUCCESSFUL KIDS HAVE THESE 11 THINGS IN COMMON
Any good parent wants their kids to
stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as
adults.
And while there
isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has
pointed to a handful of factors that predict success. Unsurprisingly,
much of it comes down to the parents.
Here's
what parents of successful kids have in common:
1. They make their kids do
chores.
"If kids aren't doing the dishes,
it means someone else is doing that for them," Julie Lythcott-Haims,
former dean of freshmen at Stanford University and author of "How to Raise an Adult" said
during aTED Talks Live event.
"And so they're absolved of not
only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us
must contribute for the betterment of the whole," she said.
Lythcott-Haims believes kids raised
on chores go on to become employees who collaborate well with their coworkers,
are more empathetic because they know firsthand what struggling looks like, and
are able to take on tasks independently.
She bases this on the Harvard Grant
Study, the longest longitudinal study ever conducted.
"By making them do chores — taking
out the garbage, doing their own laundry — they realize I have to do the work of life in
order to be part of life," she tells Tech Insider.
2. They teach their kids social
skills.
Researchers from Pennsylvania State
University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the
US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social
skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.
The 20-year study showed that socially
competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be
helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their
own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by
age 25 than those with limited social skills.
Those with limited social skills also
had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for
public housing.
"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," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.
"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. They have high expectations.
Using data from a national survey of
6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles
professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for
their kids have a huge effect on attainment.
"Parents who saw college in their
child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of
their income and other assets," he said in a statement.
The finding came out in standardized
tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by
their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to
college.
This falls in line with another psych
finding: The Pygmalion effect, which states
"that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a
self-fulfilling prophecy."
In the case of kids, they live up to
their parents' expectations.
4. They have healthy
relationships with each other.
Children in high-conflict families,
whether intact or divorced, tend to fare worse than children of parents that
get along, according to a University of Illinois study review.
Robert Hughes Jr., professor and head of
the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois
and the study review author, also notes that some studies have
found children in non conflictual single-parent families fare better
than children in conflictual two-parent families.
The conflict between parents prior to
divorce also affects children negatively, while post-divorce conflict
has a strong influence on children's adjustment, Hughes says.
One study found that, after
divorce, when a father without custody has frequent contact with his kids
and there is minimal conflict, children fare better. But when there is
conflict, frequent visits from the father are related to poorer adjustment of
children.
Yet another study found that
20-somethings who experienced divorce of their parents as children still report
pain and distress over their parent's divorce ten years later. Young
people who reported high conflict between their parents were far more
likely to have feelings of loss and regret.
5. They've attained higher
educational levels.
A 2014 study lead by University of Michigan
psychologist Sandra Tang found that mothers who finished high school or college
were more likely to raise kids that did the same.
Pulling from a group of over 14,000
children who entered kindergarten from 1998 to 2007, the study found that
children born to teen moms (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish
high school or go to college than their counterparts.
Aspiration is at least partially
responsible. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856
people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric
Dubow found that "parents' educational level when the child was 8 years
old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child
40 years later."
6. They teach their kids
math early on.
A 2007 meta-analysisof 35,000
preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math
skills early can turn into a huge advantage.
"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," coauthor and
Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. "Mastery of early math skills
predicts not only future math achievement; it also predicts future reading
achievement."
7. They develop a relationship
with their kids.
A 2014 study of 243 people born into poverty found
that children who received "sensitive caregiving" in their first
three years not only did better in academic tests in childhood, but had
healthier relationships and greater academic attainment in their 30s.
As reported on PsyBlog,
parents who are sensitive caregivers "respond to their child's signals
promptly and appropriately" and "provide a secure base" for
children to explore the world.
"This suggests that investments in
early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that
accumulate across individuals' lives," coauthor and University of
Minnesota psychologist Lee Raby said in an interview.
8. They're less stressed.
According to recent research cited
by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post, the
number of hours that moms spend with kids between ages 3 and 11 does little to
predict the child's behavior, well-being, or achievement.
What's more, the "intensive
mothering" or "helicopter parenting" approach can
backfire.
"Mothers' stress, especially when
mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time
with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly," study
coauthor and Bowling Green State University sociologist Kei Nomaguchi told The
Post.
Emotional contagion —
or the psychological phenomenon where people "catch" feelings
from one another like they would a cold — helps explain why. Research shows
that if your friend is happy, that brightness will infect you; if she's sad,
that gloominess will transfer as well. So if a parent is exhausted or
frustrated, that emotional state could transfer to the kids.
9. They value effort over
avoiding failure.
Where kids think success comes from also
predicts their attainment.
Over decades, Stanford University
psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about
success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain
Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like
this:
A "fixed mindset"
assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static
givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation
of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up
against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at
all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.
A "growth mindset,"
on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of
un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching
our existing abilities.
At the core is a distinction in the way
you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on
kids. If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence
that creates a "fixed" mindset. If they succeeded because of
effort, that teaches a "growth" mindset.
10. The moms work.
According to research out of Harvard Business School,
there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work
outside the home.
The study found daughters of working
mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory
role, and earned more money — 23% more compared to their peers who were
raised by stay-at-home mothers.
The sons of working mothers also tended
to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they
spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on
housework.
"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," the study's lead author,
Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.
"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," she
told Working Knowledge.
11. They have a higher
socioeconomic status.
Tragically, one-fifth of American children
grow up in poverty, a situation that severely limits their
potential.
It's getting more extreme. According to Stanford University
researcher Sean Reardon, the achievement gap between high- and
low-income families "is roughly 30% to 40% larger among children born in
2001 than among those born 25 years earlier."
As "Drive" author
Dan Pink has noted, the higher
the income for the parents, the higher the SAT scores for the kids.
"Absent comprehensive and expensive
interventions, socioeconomic status is what drives much of educational
attainment and performance” he wrote.
