what is a successful child?

An interesting take on current trends of raising children.

The 21st-century report card contains six C's: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence. 

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, the book's co-author, compares the challenge to climate change. "What we do with little kids today will matter in 20 years," she says. "If you don't get it right, you will have an unlivable environment. That's the crisis I see."

Hirsh-Pasek: The first, basic, most core is collaboration. Collaboration is everything from getting along with others to controlling your impulses so you can get along and not kick someone else off the swing. It's building a community and experiencing diversity and culture. Everything we do, in the classroom or at home, has to be built on that foundation.

Communication comes next, because you can't communicate if you have no one to communicate with. This includes speaking, writing, reading and that all-but-lost art of listening.

Content is built on communication. You can't learn anything if you haven't learned how to understand language, or to read.

Critical thinking relies on content, because you can't navigate masses of information if you have nothing to navigate to.

Creative innovation requires knowing something. You can't just be a monkey throwing paint on a canvas. It's the 10,000-hour rule: You need to know something well enough to make something new.

And finally, confidence: You have to have the confidence to take safe risks.

Golinkoff: There isn't an entrepreneur or a scientific pioneer who hasn't had failures. And if we don't rear children who are comfortable taking risks, we won't have successes.

So this is really reinforcing the idea of learning as a social, relationship-oriented process. It's not just a grid for sorting and measuring our kids; it's about how we are relating to our kids. 

Golinkoff: The other thing I think is crucial to notice is that we're talking about doing things in the moment with your child. Notice we're talking about buying nothing, signing up for no classes, and no tablets. Not that we're Luddites, but we're talking about how the crucible of social interaction between child and parent really helps set up the child for the development of these skills.

via {npr}