Hi @Marzia Pietrelli ,

I found myself parenting is one of the most critical and complicated passion jobs a human being can think!

I considered interesting the acronym TRICK as written in "How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results" book by Esther Wojcicki.

"Trust

As Wojcicki describes the value of "trust" within her paradigm, it's largely about setting routines, and then empowering kids to make decisions within those routines.

As a basic example, maybe your kids are very young -- like, too young to dress themselves.

Wojcicki suggests breaking the routine of "getting dressed" into two smaller routines:

• choosing the clothes (where you can choose to trust your kids' judgment regarding what they want to wear), and

• actually getting dressed, where they might need more help.

You might not be able to trust a very young child with handling the whole task, but you can trust him or her with part of it. So, strive to find those parts.

Respect

If I were designing the hierarchy of needs, I think I'd put "respect" very near the top. And kids do, too.

"Respect is basically understanding the ideas of another person, and listening," Wojcicki told me. "So the number one thing [parents] can do is listen, and then they can solicit their [kids'] opinions. ... It doesn't take a lot. It's just the idea that, 'Hey, I have some ideas and my parents listen to those ideas.' That is the respect."

Especially now: close quarters make physical distance more difficult within families, and that makes respect even more important.

Independence

Independence is related to trust when we talk about parenting. Wojcicki describes it as parents setting structural guidelines and then empowering kids to make their own independent choices.

As an example, maybe you put a limit on screen time, but you empower your kids to make independent choices on how to use that time.

"You, the parent, prescribe the structure," she said. "But within that structure, there's tons of opportunities for making decisions, and you give them that opportunity.

Collaboration

In fairness, if it were not for alphabetical order, I might actually put "collaboration" before trust and respect.

Because as Wojcicki describes it, this is about getting your kids' ideas and buy-in before setting the structures and routines--so that you can then trust them to do things independnently within them.

"Then you write down their ideas. Maybe they can't even read, but they can see you're writing it down," she suggested. "Then we talk about these things, and you try to include some of their ideas, with some of your ideas. The idea that you're really pushing is: 'We come up with this, collaboratively.'"

Kindness

The last value might be the most relevant right now. Everyone is a little bit afraid, as our worlds have been upended. Kindness can be the antidote to fear.

"The number one thing that a kid needs, to be able to learn effectively, it's kindness," Wojcicki said. "And so, what you want is providing an atmosphere where, if you make a mistake, you're treated with kindness. It's not like the mistake doesn't go unnoticed, it's just that you're not traumatized."

https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/esther-wojcicki-raise-successful-people-trick-weecare-youtube-23andme.html

Hi @Marzia Pietrelli, I love the idea of giving a talk in powerful parenting and being father of 4, my wife and I might share some insights....

The one and foremost thing we do is GIVE TRUST, this is for us allowing them creating their own personality with confidence their parents are there. The second my wife is perfect at is to look for and let them GROW THEIR OWN TALENTS, this is allowing them to know themselves and hopefully where they want to go. The third is ROLE MODELING on not being apprehensive (which I also try to learn from my wife) and noone's always right (especially Dad and Mum). The fourth is ASK FOR HELP and COLLABORATE and the fifth is LOTS OF LOVE.

Happy to talk to you on the topic!

Paolo