The first 15 years of your life determine the next 50 years. Success comes down to the right preparation be it for school, university, career, or life. Parents know a child’s formative years have a significant influence on his or her development. But it goes further than that. It’s about establishing the strong foundations so that your child can build his or her life.

The World Has Changed

We are living in a rapidly-changing and increasingly-competitive world. It’s becoming harder to get children into schools of their families’ choices or to land that coveted job. We hear constantly that today a bachelor’s degree is usually the bare minimum education needed to secure a job.

In this new reality, education and skills are the most important global currencies. Families must adapt quickly to equip their children with the necessary skills that will help them succeed in life – in a future that we cannot readily predict. In fact, a number of the jobs that await your child don’t even exist today.

So then how do you prepare your child to face this world of geopolitical shifts, advanced technology, changing industries, emerging markets, and new methods of teaching and learning? Despite all this change – and over time – certain competencies or characteristics will continue to be valued at school, in the workplace, and in the community at large. I call these the Five Cs.
 

Key’s Five Cs^TM

Whatever your child ends up doing – teacher for special needs students, Wall Street investment banker, graphic artist in Toronto, or entrepreneur in Vancouver – he or she must develop the following key competencies or characteristics:

1. Creativity: The ways in which we live, study, work, and interact with others are transforming. Furthermore, the various challenges that we face – environmental, economic, cultural, societal – necessitate new thinking and the ability to recognize alternative ideas. Our imaginations, or more likely our children’s imaginations, are going to come up with the solutions to our problems.
2. Critical and strategic thinking: We are no longer living in a world where the answer is found in a textbook. With all the information available to our children at a few keystrokes, they must actively process that vast amount of information, filter, and sort it. Those who can take the information, analyze it, evaluate alternatives, and develop solutions will be the most successful students…and later on in life the most attractive to potential employers. Sure, you have heard of critical thinking. But I would add another skill that in my mind goes beyond the critical thinking piece. Strategic thinking is the thought process one applies in the context of achieving success. Is your child constantly developing strategies for success – in the classroom, on the field, or at home?
3. Collaboration: The success of any organization depends on the ability of its members to work together effectively. Think about your child’s football team, or your company’s IT department bringing on a new platform, or the doctors and nurses in the ER trying to revive a patient. Teamwork is crucial and your child will need to learn to work well with others, appreciate the value of diversity, and understand how to harness individual strengths for team success.
4. Confidence: Your child’s ability to feel secure in his or her capabilities, choices, decisions, and thinking is vital to his or her growth and happiness. In a world where mistakes and “failure” are shunned, you need your child to embrace mistakes and failures as valuable learning and growth opportunities. As Oprah Winfrey so eloquently put it in her commencement speech to Harvard’s graduating Class of 2013, “Failure is just life trying to move us in a different direction.”
5. Character: As the Harvard-educated John Phillips, a trustee of Dartmouth College and founder of Phillips Exeter Academy, famously stated, “Goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous.” Take for example the 2008 recession. No doubt that those on Wall Street and elsewhere who were responsible for the financial meltdown were some of the brightest and most educated people on earth. But what of their morals and ethical standards? One of the biggest responsibilities that you have as a parent is helping your child develop integrity, strengthen awareness of how his or her actions affect those around him or her, and make conscious decisions that improve the lives of others.
    

Proper Preparation

So you know that your child needs to develop his or her Five Cs. How do you do this? What type of preparation is there? Here are some of the many things that you, as a parent, can do:

• Be strategic: Just as I encourage your child to think strategically, so too do you need to think about how you will help guide your child in building his or her life. Take an active role as your child develops his or her blueprints, from pre-school all the way through to university or vocational training.
• Understand what your role as a parent is: Remember, this is your child’s life, not yours. You cannot live your life through your child, so your role as a parent is to be supportive as your child discovers his or her interests, strengths, and passions. Listen to your child but also inspire in him or her a love of learning and exploring.
• Read: When your child is at an early age, make sure that reading is a routine part of the day. My ability today to think critically and strategically can be traced back to the days and nights my mother, a primary school teacher, would read to me. Thanks, mom!
• Determine the right-fit school: So many times we hear that this school or that school is the best. Well, I can tell you right now that there is no such thing as the best school. Rather, there is the best school for your child. Place your child in the most suitable learning environment for him or her. What are the academic, athletic, and co-curricular programs available? What type of learning support is provided? What are the teaching styles and class size?
• Make your child interact with others: Group sports and activities or even just letting your child play with others will allow him or her to develop interpersonal skills and to learn to get along with others.
• Provide a host of activities: Let your child discover what interests him or her and then support those interests. If your child really doesn’t like piano, then don’t continue with the piano. If he or she loves swimming, then enroll him or her in swimming lessons. Maybe you notice your child has an artistic streak – great! Then painting or drawing class it is.
• Strike the right balance: It’s important to fill your child’s week with activities but also remember to let your kid be a kid. Down time and playtime are just as important as the academic, athletic, and other activities in which your child is involved.
• Let your child fail: Yes, your child will make mistakes. A fall from a bike may result in a scraped knee and some tears, but your child will learn more if he or she gets up and continues to bike. Help your child learn and grow from his or her mistakes.