Parents of successful kids give support but don't micromanage

CNN

3 days ago

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Kara Alaimo is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her book 'Over the Influence: Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back' was published in 2024 by Alcove Press. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky.
When Jerry Groff's 14-year-old daughter Sarah told him she wanted to swim across a 9-mile lake one Sunday morning, he could have responded in several ways: This idea is crazy — and even dangerous. You should practice swimming more first. We already have other plans.
Instead, Jerry and his son boated next to Sarah as she swam. And Jerry's wife, brother and sister-in-law drove along the lake in case Sarah needed a ride home, Susan Dominus wrote in her just-released book, 'The Family Dynamic: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success.'
Sarah ended up swimming the whole lake and setting a town record that day.
Today, Sarah True is a two-time Olympian and professional athlete. Her brother, Adam Groff, is a successful entrepreneur. And her sister, Lauren Groff, is an acclaimed novelist.
Having parents who fostered their independence was a common theme among people who have grown up to make outsize achievements, according to Dominus, a New York Times Magazine staff writer who interviewed six families for the book.
These parents 'were not afraid to let their kids fail at something that seemed really hard,' she said. 'They let their kids make their choices, even if they knew those choices would be difficult.'
It's just one of the lessons parents and guardians can take from her research into raising successful kids.
While the parents Dominus profiled generally supported their kids' dreams, they didn't micromanage their children's progress.
'In not one of these families were the parents overly involved in their kids' educational lives,' she said. 'They were paying attention, they were supportive, they were there.' But when they showed up for their kids' games, they didn't try to tell the coaches how to do their jobs.
Instead, Dominus said, parents focused largely on providing warm, supportive homes and let people like teachers, coaches and other mentors handle the instruction and discipline of their children.
In part, adults didn't 'overparent' because they themselves were busy serving as powerful examples, working hard and contributing to their communities. Generally, whether they worked outside or inside the home, they 'were in roles that they felt were meaningful,' Dominus said.
While she was raising her children in Florida in the 1950s, another parent, Millicent Holifield, persuaded the state to create a nursing school for Black women. One of her children, Marilyn Holifield, chose to be one of the first students to desegregate her high school in the early '60s and went on to become a local civic leader and the first Black woman partner at a major law firm in Florida. As a Harvard Law School student, Millicent's son Bishop fought for changes to promote racial equity at the school and later convinced the state of Florida to reopen the Florida A&M University law school so more Black lawyers could be trained. Another son, Ed, became a cardiologist and public health advocate.
These driven parents imparted the belief that their kids could conquer the world, too. 'There was a tremendous optimism among so many of these families,' Dominus said. 'It's one thing just to say that. But your kids know if you feel it or if you don't, and their own lives had given them reason for optimism.'
That's because many of those parents had overcome difficult things 'or surprised themselves or surprised even societal expectations.'
Another common theme was valuing education and being curious and open to new experiences, like travel, art and music.
To have those experiences, the parents of ultra-successful siblings needed to find the right places and people. They tended to have supportive villages — literally and figuratively.
'They didn't just live in neighborhoods that offered a lot of enrichment,' Dominus said. 'They took great advantage of it.'
The Holifields lived near a university in Tallahassee and made the most of it by taking their kids to local cultural events and enrolling them in art lessons, a children's theater and a journalism workshop.
Other parents worked to connect their kids to successful people who could teach them skills. Ying Chen immigrated to the United States from China, worked seven days a week in her family's restaurant and wasn't fluent in English, but she cultivated relationships with accomplished local musicians she met so her children could learn to play instruments.
Her son Yi became the fifth employee at Toast, a restaurant management business that went public with the biggest IPO in Boston's history. Chen's son Gang joined another notable startup, Speak, which uses AI to help people learn languages. Her daughter, Elizabeth, became a physician. And her son Devon went on to work for Amazon.
Of course, we don't all need to raise CEOs or Olympic athletes. People who pour so much energy into one pursuit often have less time to invest in other aspects of their lives, Dominus found in her research for the book. 'To achieve really great things requires sacrifice — and that can be in love. It can be in quality of relationships. It can be in peace of mind, it can be in downtime, it can be in reflection,' she said.
If kids set hugely ambitious goals for themselves, it's a good idea to 'remind them that there are costs associated with it.'
Parents or guardians often worry about whether they're making the right decisions about things like whether to co-sleep or punish kids, but Dominus said 'these variations, it turns out, have less effect on things like personality and other kinds of outcomes than we really imagined that they do.'
Instead, focus on having strong relationships with your children and, most important, Dominus said, 'don't demotivate your kid by being overly involved.'
The parents Dominus profiled were the kind who didn't tell their kids they had to swim a lake but let them give it a shot when they wanted to — and were there to love and support them regardless of whether they failed or set a record.
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