Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children
1950665100
Ronald F. Ferguson and Tatshia Robertson
Formula
Purpose + Agency + Smarts = Fully Realized
Eight Roles
- The Early-Learning Partner – spends a lot of time with the child in brain-building play and literacy activities, stimulating imagination while cultivating a voracious learning mindset.
- The Flight Engineer – ensures all of the people and systems working on behalf of the child are functioning properly and in the child’s best interest.
- The Fixer – like an emergency responder, rushing in often by themselves, to solve problems that otherwise could slam shut the door to opportunity.
- The Revealer – exposes the child to new ideas – things they can learn about, places they can go, and people they can be.
- The Philosopher – starts early in the child’s life and remains active throughout it, helping the child find meaning and purpose. They share their worldview tih the child, who uses that worldview s a guide.
- The Model – behavior, which reflects the parent’s worldview, allows the child to observe firsthand the type of person their parent is preparing them to be.
- The Negotiator – prepares the child to fend for themselves – as opposed the The Fixer who solves problems the child cannot conquer alone.
- The GPS – provides direction consistent with their philosophy even in the parent’s absence or long after the child has left home.
Notes
…master parents have their own interests and goals separate from childrearing.
Holographic Ideal – holographic because the parent projects an image of their fully grown child in their mind’s eye. Ideal because the image includes all the best qualities the parent hopes the child will have.
The Early-Learning Partner is the most important of the eight roles because of the early start the parent in this role provides their child…While the critical period provides an incredible opportunity for learning, it carries a dangerous caveat: if you miss that critical period, you can’t make up for it later.
…for most master parents, differences in parenting, as much as possible, are strategic; they adapt their parenting to fit the needs of each child.
The mast parent as Fixer is the superhero who comes to the rescue when circumstances threaten to derail their child’s progress. Especially when time is of the essence, this clever and resourceful guardian acts with laser-focused resolve to keep their child’s journey on track. Like the Flight Engineer, the Fixer is vigilant, monitoring what is happening in their child’s life. But while the Flight Engineer always works within the ecologies or systems the child belongs to – collaborating with teachers and school officials when malfunctions are in the system – the Fixer goes it alone., like Superman flying in at a moment’s notice.
“…I took it, and I thought it was really easy. I got this certificate, which allowed me to go to community college at the age of sixteen.”
Nearly all of the achievers interviewed for the book had their own study space in the home. Sometimes it was just a corner of their bedroom, but there were always books, a table or a little desk, and a chair.
Revelears help children develop two qualities:
Mastery Orientation – an internal drive to learn about a particular topic and produce high-quality work, while feeling encouraged, not discourage, when a task turns out to be difficult;
Sense of Agency – an awareness of one’s ability, right, and responsibility to take purposeful action in the world.
“My mom would say things like, ‘For every time you do it wrong, you have to un-train the muscle memory and then retrain it correctly.’ I remember putting pennies on the music stand. Ten pennies on this side, and if you do it correctly, then a penny goes over there. If you miss or do it incorrectly, a penny goes back; then you have to do it correctly and nothing moves; then you do it correctly again, and you move the penny over.”…Their children were not permitted to just stop once they started something. Once the child began a hobby or interest, they had to stick with it, at least for a while. Maggie had picked her rival, a habit of high achievers in this book. While they judged their progress based first and foremost on their own past performance, many of our high achievers also liked to measure themselves against one or two worthy competitors (who sometimes had no idea they were the achiever’s rival) because it encouraged them to work harder and do better.