Onwards to the next one. More "simplistic charm," although the clarity leaves a lot to be desired... Do people actually pay to take parenting lessons from this organization? I guess they must at least require you to buy the book. I imagine there is a great deal of pressure on Hyde parents to buy the book as well. I seem to recall a previous poster noting that it was "required reading." That must be painful. Otherwise, I just don't know how...
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Priority #4
Set High Expectations And Let Go Of The Outcomes
Discipline alone will not raise our children to go after their dreams. We need to set the expectations high. Many parents control their children through their own high expectations, only to lower the bar to relieve the tension. We can reach a point when we reward our children for basic decent behavior. Setting high expectations is critical, but letting go of our vision for the outcome allows our children to take responsibility for their actions.
Let's expect Malcolm and Laura to win the Nobel Prize for literature and graciously accept their inevitable failure.
I happen to know a Nobel Prize winner. Here's what he told an interviewer about his parents' influence:
Q: "Maybe it's a good point to ask you, in retrospect, who are the
people who have most influenced your life?"
A: "First of all my family: parents, brother, wife, children, grandchildren. My great-grandchild has not yet had a specific important influence on me; he is all of one and a half. But that will come also. My students have influenced me greatly. All my teachers. Beyond that, to pick out one person in the family, just one: my mother, who was an extraordinary person. She got a bachelor's degree in England in 1914, at a time when that was very unusual for women. She was a medal-winning long-distance swimmer, sang Shubert lieder while accompanying herself on the piano, introduced us children to nature, music, reading. We would walk the streets and she would teach us the names of the trees. At night we looked at the sky and she taught us the names of the constellations. When I was about twelve, we started reading Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities together, until the book gripped me and I raced ahead alone. From then on, I read voraciously. She always encouraged, always pushed us along, gently, unobtrusively, always allowed us to make our own decisions. Of course parents always have an influence, but she was unusual."
His parents were struggling immigrants in America, but they worked very hard in order to provide him with an excellent high school and university education. They nurtured him, but there was no overt pressure from them.
