I have been asked to share my opinion about rearing successful children. “Successful” can be defined in many ways. Compassionate, kind, respectful, emotionally stable, and high character development are just a few examples of factors that contribute to being successful. For purposes here, I am discussing “achievement” as one quality of success. This clearly is not the only component of being successful but often is an important contributor.

I have been asked the question because I am the father of three high-achieving children who also has been in the public eye. Briefly, from the oldest to the youngest, Molly is the author of the book Molly’s Game which was made into an academy award nominated motion picture written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Since the book and the movie, Molly has carved a career speaking internationally and domestically and is currently the top-booked speaker in her speaker’s bureau. Jordan is an operating cardiovascular surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of Surgery at the Harvard Medical School. Jeremy is a two-time winter Olympian and three-time world champion in mogul skiing. Also, a veteran of the NFL, drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles and traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He founded Wish of A Lifetime granting wishes to seniors. Wish of Lifetime is now collaborating exclusively with AARP and together they are granting thousands of wishes per year. Jeremy is also the CEO of Integrate a digital marketing company that was just purchased by Audex. He continues to serve as the CEO of the new company.

Molly, Jordan, and Jeremy deserve all the credit for their achievements but what contributed to an increased likelihood that each of them would have reached high levels of achievement? Often there is a community of family and mentors who contribute to a child’s opportunities and the likelihood of achievement. In the remainder of this writing, I am going to focus on my role, philosophy, and behaviors that I considered important in helping them become high achievers. As I alluded to above, this was a symphony and not a single instrument. Others deserve a lot of credit.

1. Creating a strong bond

From an early age, it was important to forge a strong bond with my children. This bond was created by spending quality time with them and having loving interactions that were based on age-appropriate activities. It was important that they enjoyed spending time with me in a variety of activities. Playing games, reading age-appropriate books, telling stories in bed at night, singing songs, making up games in the car, being funny, etc. were all important in creating a deep connection. The children knew from the beginning that I loved them, and I was present. I hoped that they would look up to me and love me as well. I wanted them to desire my approval and feel good when Dad praised them. I wanted to become a potent positive force in their life which is extremely important between parent and child. Without this bond, many of the other factors mentioned here have less traction.

2. Exposure to successful high achieving role models

As the children got older and were able to understand the concept of achievement, I felt it was important to expose them to other individuals who were high achievers. This exposure was more frequently imparted through stories, books, discussions, and visual methods. Besides their parents setting good examples, there was an eclectic group of people such as athletes, scientists, artists, writers, singers, inventors, etc. that they were exposed to in a variety of ways. We watched the Olympics every year or listened to books about people who were positive contributors to society. Since our family went skiing every weekend it was easy to put on a book on tape and listen to the stories of others depicting achievements in life. Many times, we would talk about the individuals and learn about their lives and more about their accomplishments.

3. The importance of consequences

While it was important to forge a strong bond with the children and create a relationship in which they desired the praise of their father, it was equally important to teach them about limits and to invoke consequences when it was necessary. Children do not only learn from positive reinforcement, but they also learn from appropriate consequences for poor choices. Children are geared to want as much pleasure as possible and avoid as much discomfort as possible. Unfortunately, allowing this pattern to continue is a mistake. You are not preparing them for a world that will be very kind to a human who is always striving for as much pleasure as possible and avoiding any kind of discomfort. It was important to use time-outs, loss of privileges, and an occasional swat on their rears as well as a healthy dose of reinforcement to help shape behavior and prepare them for dealing with the world. I wanted to be loving but also very clear about boundaries regarding appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.

4. Accepting responsibility for achievement and mistakes

Preparing children for the world was paramount to me. Without it, I would not have felt successful as a parent. There were several principles which I followed. First, if they wanted to do something and it was important to them or important for their future, then they needed to try to do it well. Second, I preached about the concept of “no excuses”, except under unusual circumstances. If someone would do poorly in school and blamed the teacher, I did not accept that. I told them they would encounter many teachers that they thought were not good, but that was not an excuse for their performance. This principle involved personal responsibility for their behavior and achievement despite the obstacles. If they were training for an athletic competition, e.g. skiing, and said it was too cold to go out, I would tell them, “there is no such thing as too cold” they just needed to put on more layers of clothing. Generally, this worked, and they ended up with a positive outcome. Third, and very important, I conveyed “that there are no victims in this house”. This idea of blaming others or the environment for not participating in life was not accepted, and generally, the children grew to inculcate this into their thinking most of the time. I wanted them to see the value of taking responsibility and not being victims.

5. Creating opportunities

Creating opportunities for improvement in areas in which they were interested was critically important. Parents are all coaches and mentors when the children are very young but there comes a time when they need excellent opportunities from others to improve. If a child wants to play an instrument, then I felt it was important to find an excellent teacher who not only would make it fun but would require discipline to become a better musician. Since the children were very much into sports, excellent coaching and mentors were sought out and chosen to help the children succeed.

6. Being present

It was important to me to attempt to attend every performance, event, and activity in which the children were participating. I was working full time and at times this was difficult, but I can truly say that I did attend almost every performance or competition in which the children participated.

7. Teaching how to handle losing

Teaching the children how to handle not performing as well as they had hoped was critical. Nobody succeeds all the time. It was important to teach them successful strategies to deal with losing so loosing would not stop them from wanting to continue to participate. I was never punitive when they did not perform well. I was compassionate and helped them understand that their feelings would dissipate. I also helped them appreciate that losing or not doing well presents them with a great opportunity. I believed that they were able to learn so much from losing and the emotion it creates. How could they get better, improve, reduce mistakes, and propel themselves to higher achievement? That’s what we focused on and that is what I encouraged them to discuss with me after some of the emotion dissipated.

8. Fear

It was important to me to teach the children how to deal with fear. Fear is a part of life and often children and adults allow fear to stop them from so many things. Obviously, there are situations in which it is appropriate to attend to fear and not put oneself in danger. More often, fear exists because a person is afraid to fail. It was important to me to normalize episodic failures in one’s life. I conveyed to the children that they will fail at something many times. Further, that failing at something presented a great opportunity to learn to be better. It can provide them with great motivation. I explained that lots of people experience failures, but they don’t let them stop them. We recover and we can be better. “Get up and keep moving forward, learn from your mistakes, intent to improve, but no matter what, don’t give up on something that is important to you simply because you have had a failure experience”.

9. Preparing for a world of ups and downs

I would have given my life for my children, but I felt that I would have been a failure as a parent had I not tried to prepare them for a world of friction and challenges. I felt as if I would have been a failure had I not tried to help them develop the resilience to deal with the inevitable ups and downs that are a part of everyone’s life.

-Larry Bloom