Shaping Your Child's Future: A Parent's Guide to Success

Shaping Your Child’s Future: A Parent’s Guide to Success

As parents, striking a balance between neglect and overbearing control can be challenging. Often, mothers strive to ensure their children surpass their own achievements, demanding maximum effort based on their own standards rather than their child’s capabilities. So, where does the golden mean in parenting lie?

The Consequences of Extremes

On one hand, children left to their own devices may struggle to recognize their potential and could be swayed by negative influences. On the other, children under constant scrutiny may become unmotivated or rebel, fleeing the nest at the earliest opportunity to escape the oppressive home environment. But is this always the case? Let’s explore what parents of relatively successful children consider crucial in raising teenagers.

Defining Success

First, let’s define what we mean by success. We’ll consider both external and internal criteria:

External Criteria:

Age between 18 and 30
Enrollment in higher education, or
Establishment of a personal business, or
Success in a personal project

Internal Criteria:

Inner harmony, satisfaction with one’s life path, and belief in a bright future
Independence, decision-making skills, and goal-oriented actions
Broad interests, well-rounded knowledge, and above-average erudition

This is not a portrait of an ideal person, but rather a desirable minimum that most parents strive for.

Steps to Success

Most mothers we surveyed emphasize the importance of dialogue with children. It’s essential to both ask questions and share experiences. “Share your feelings, discuss daily challenges and joys. Reminisce about your childhood—the good, the bad, the challenges, and the simple pleasures. This shared experience grounds us.”

When choosing a university, it’s ideal to provide your child with an opportunity to observe a profession firsthand. Here are some tips:

Explain that any job requires effort: Every profession has its routine and creative aspects. If the profession is a good fit, even the routine can be inspiring.
Avoid a narrow perspective: Statements like “He’s not good at math, he’s not a humanities person, we’re unlucky with the school” can be limiting. Remember Mikhail Lomonosov, who achieved greatness without formal schooling or tutors. A teacher’s methodology and charisma significantly impact a child’s knowledge.
Hobbies don’t have to become professions: While it’s not necessary to turn a hobby into a career, it’s important to develop interests. Hobbies boost self-esteem, strengthen social stability, occupy restless teenage minds, and teach time management. For instance, a busy athlete can be an excellent student, while a stay-at-home child might struggle academically.
Don’t choose a faculty based on friends’ salaries: While managers may earn more on average, consider how many management graduates struggle to find jobs or become leaders. Not all programmers earn high salaries or have stable incomes.
Evaluate the teaching staff: When choosing a place of study, consider the faculty’s practical experience and professional development opportunities. Find out how many graduates work in their field, their salaries, and job placements. Balance practicality with your child’s desires, possibly prioritizing the latter. Many successful adults pursued their first education for personal interest and their second for career advancement. Let your child experience the taste of making their own choices and decisions as early as possible.

This doesn’t mean you should remain silent and refrain from offering advice. Children always need your input. However, avoid negative judgments about their thoughts, actions, and choices.

There’s a common belief that only children from elite families achieve success. Despite the Soviet Union’s history challenging this stereotype, many parents still envision either a similar path or a complete opposite for their children.

To ease your mind, set boundaries on how far you’re willing to support them. Distinguish between love and indulgence, support and enabling laziness. If you want to maintain a relationship, let go.

A Real-Life Example

Miroslava, a modest mother of two sons from Brest, now living in England, shares her experience. Her younger son is an IT company manager and owner of an international project, while her older son is an Oxford student with a full scholarship for a PhD and owner of several notable projects in Belarus. Miroslava’s experience is valuable for understanding how to raise creative, determined children, especially during the challenging post-perestroika period. She agreed to an interview but requested anonymity, believing her sons’ achievements are not solely her doing.

Interviewer: Miroslava, what do you consider important in raising children?

Miroslava: Respecting the child’s personality and helping them uncover and develop their abilities to realize their potential in life.

Interviewer: How do you think your parenting contributed to your sons’ objective success in their fields?

Miroslava: Success comes from hard work, creativity, and a passionate approach to tasks. If children are taught to do just enough to get by, they’ll always seek the easiest way out. It’s crucial to find motivation for children to want to do more and better. Use games, competitions, and quizzes to make learning engaging. Always summarize, praise, and encourage. My sons learned to make decisions, often copying our behavior rather than listening to my words. I did many things against the grain and despite common fears, and they seem to have adopted the same approach.

It’s not necessary to turn a hobby into a profession, but it’s important to develop interests.

Interviewer: What principles did you have at home?

Miroslava: One of the main principles was spending as much time together as possible. We played, attended events, city festivals, visited libraries, parks, cinemas, and theaters. We watched children’s films and plays, played various board and sports games, visited friends, and traveled. Our first family trip was unforgettable—all four of us on one bicycle: dad steering, mom on the luggage rack, and the kids on the frame. We went out of town, had a picnic, and played ball. We didn’t have a car, but we were happy. We always read interesting books to the children at night—both fairy tales and adventurous novels.

For further reading, consider this resource on parenting from the American Psychological Association.