Hey Friends,

I have been getting frequent requests to write and share my learning about raising kids in order to have all those desirable leadership attributes. Well, keeping in mind the very nature and scope of the requests, I have decided to write about it in a continuous series of my newsletter. I would be sharing few things & ideas with every successive newsletter for easy consumption and for implementation in case you find them interesting too.

However, few things intrigued me quite a bit. If you look around the world you are bound to take a notice that the more successful a person is greater his chances to fall victim of unhappiness family syndrome. To name a few , Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos and many more famous personality including actors & actresses across the spectrum. Most of them have had the experiences of broken homes. So one thing became clear to me that excess money or fame or multiple successful businesses are certainly not the path on which you will find this elusive key.

I too pondered upon the obvious question:- “If people are able to build great businesses or bring noticeable changes in their respective environments then why their refined skills encounter failures in building happy families.” This would certainly be the subject for an another Sunday Retazo, but for now let’s focus on the methodology of raising great kids.

Before I begin, let me file a ‘caveat’ by saying that every child is a gift of god and has a potential to be great kid by way of timely acquiring and working on all those desirable leadership attributes.

Let us acknowledge that all of us are constantly searching an elusive key to raising great kids ( including adolescents) and invariably meet up with many challenges on the way. I did have my share of ups & downs and during the week I took a deep dive to find some answers to this elusiveness.

What if I say that we need to apply the concept of doing great work /building businesses in our homes as well nut in a different manner. I am quite sure that after reading this you will probably have an urge to make a quick judgement about the concept , but hear me first and till then delay your judgement.

The centre piece of any successful work /business model is to have a weekly review sessions, which are essentially build on the principle of “ inspect & adapt”. In business world there are these “Information Radiators”, these are those big charts & listings, where you check and tick your own task. Mainly there are 3 key aspect :-

If we empower the children to check out their respective information radiators , this will lead to develop their frontal cortex. A significant amount of recent brain research backs this up.

Scientists at the University of California and elsewhere found that kids who plan their own time, set weekly goals, and evaluate their own work build up their prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain that help them exert greater cognitive control over their lives. These so-called executive skills aid children with self-discipline, avoiding distractions, and weighing the pros and cons of their choices.

This will provide an opportunity to the children’s to make adjustments in real time and see what works well and what does not. Look around , there is nothing in the world which is top down driven , be it politics , religion or anything’s else. Forward movement is always collaborative in life. Allow your kids to take a greater role in raising themselves.

One takeaway I got is that whenever I see friends with checklists— chores, schedules, allowance— I ask whether the adults or the kids are doing the checking off. Invariably it’s the adults. The science suggests there’s a better way. To achieve maximum benefits, have the children do the scoring.

They’ll develop a much finer sense of self-awareness. Even if this approach doesn’t work on every occasion, it’s about teaching your kids an approach to problem solving which they can carry with them the rest of their lives.