As co-authors of two parenting books (Parenting for the Launch: Raising Teens to Succeed in the Real Worldand Wings Not Strings: Parenting Strategies to Let Go with Confidence), we greatly enjoy (and benefit from) the writings and perspectives of our peers. We especially appreciate books that discuss the state of children and young adults and those offering practical parenting tips to add to our quiver. Truth be told, writing parenting books is a convicting experience because neither we, nor anyone else, is a perfect parent. As such, the works of others provides new insights and reality checks on the guidance we give through our writings. 

In the past several years, we have read numerous books that we wish we had while our children were under our roofs. Each offers unique insights and thoughtful advice and wisdom. So, with a spirit of gratitude to these authors and our desire to encourage and equip those of you who are parents, we offer these book recommendations to add to your parenting quiver. 

Parent on Purpose, by Amy Carney. Amy offers compelling wisdom and strategies to help parents lead, love, and launch their children to fulfill their dreams and purpose. It’s an inspiring and practical guidebook to building and sustaining a strong family.

Get the Behavior You Want without Being the Parent You Hate! by Deborah Gilboa, MD. Dr. G guides readers to raise children who are responsible, respectful, and resilient—her 3 R’s. Geared toward parents of young children to pre-teenagers, she offers practical tips for growing these leadership skills in different stages of childhood. 

Boy Mom, by Monica Swanson. Don’t be fooled by the title because this book is just as compelling for moms of girls! Monica tackles challenging issues like focusing on the big picture, setting boundaries, building a strong relationship, fostering confidence and emotional health, cultivating strong character, and teaching the value of work, with uncommon wisdom and flair. 

How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough. Paul takes head on the fallacy that success is about smarts. Rather, it’s about non-cognitive (character-related) skills such as grit, optimism, resilience, motivation, integrity, social agility, gratitude, and resourcefulness. It’s a healthy reminder to parents of the importance of building a leadership foundation in our kids. 

Your Teenager is Not Crazy, by Dr. Jeramy Clark and Jerusha Clark. The teen years are filled with angst and wonder. This book shares the changes teens face, and with uncommon compassion and empathy, offers practical advice to help them navigate their biggest worries and challenges. It’s a book every teen would want his/her parent to read. 

How to Raise an Adult, by Julie Lythcott-Haims. With the uncommon perspective of a former dean of freshmen at Stanford University, Julie understands the young adult landscape like few others. With this firm foundation, she attributes many student challenges to the way they are parented. This is a no-nonsense challenge to helicopter parenting in order to build independent, competent, and confident young adults. 

Connect with Your Kid: Mastering the Top 10 Parent-Child Communication Skills, by Dennis E. Coates, PhD. An expert in brain research, Dr. Coates expands his territory into the softer aspects of parenting: building an enduring relationship and communicating effectively in the often-charged teen years. He offers essential skill-building tips in areas such as listening, coaching, encouraging, appreciating, giving feedback, engaging, and resolving conflict. 

We strongly endorse these books and are confident that they will help you become the best parent you can be. 

Happy Reading,

The LifeSmart Team

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Is this guy crazy? What could business principles have anything to do with the way I am raising my children?” And “Can parenting well really make me a better supervisor?”

But, hear me out. I actually think you may be surprised!

As most of you know, I enjoyed a successful, 30-year business career before founding LifeSmart Publishing. Through most of it, I worked for an incredible global company, Russell Investments, who was awarded “Best Place to Work” any number of times. And, I spent 27 years evaluating organizations and leaders—researching and observing the best and brightest. I learned their best practices and applied them to the best of my ability when managing my employees.

During this period, I also became a father of two kids who are as different as day and night—that would be Michael and Lauren. After some time, I realized that what I learned in the business arena could be applied to my parenting… and, what I learned in my parenting could be applied to my management! And I think my lessons can work for you, too.

So, here goes—six successful business strategies to help you become a better parent!

1. Adopt a goal orientation: We all achieve more when we set goals. Whether it’s a five-year strategic plan or a daily to do list, our goals give us focus, direction, and a target to hit. They help keep us motivated, too. And, so it goes with parenting. What if we were to set goals for our parenting? For our families? And, to encourage our children to be consistent goal setters? No doubt about it, we’ll accomplish more. You can find a sample Parenting Mission Statement here which helps us develop family goals.

So, be as strategic as you can and don’t let the day-to-day busyness keep you from achieving your longer-term goals.

2. Utilize effective motivational techniques: Whether we’re in the management or parenting realms, we notice that some people are self motivated while others need a little nudge. Researchers have discovered that among the top motivators of a workforce are being: 1) appreciated and recognized, 2) invited into and involved in decisions, and 3) understood by their “boss.” And, so it goes with parenting a teenager, doesn’t it? We regularly hear complaints from teens that their parents: 1) seem to stress their performance rather than the person they are, 2) make all the decisions or minimize their input, and 3) don’t listen to or try to understand them and their world. The parallels are striking, aren’t they? 

3. Empower rather than micromanage: Most of us loathe having controlling supervisors who hover, nag, interfere, and manipulate. We feel disrespected, devalued, disempowered, and distrusted, and rightfully so. And, so it goes with the helicopter parent who employs these same micromanagement tendencies with their teens. Isn’t it interesting that we detest it when it happens to us at work, yet we can fall into this same trap when we parent? But, when we adopt an empowering parenting style, our teens will develop greater self confidence and decision-making skills. 

4. Promote high standards and strong character: As managers, we certainly want our employees to perform. And yet, the most successful leaders stress the importance of upholding high standards of excellence, including strong character and ethical behavior. Qualities like integrity, dependability, initiative, team-mindedness, positivity, self control, work ethic, and resilience are telltale signs of excellent employees. So, when it comes to parenting, let’s remember to honor the great character traits and behaviors in our children, not just their outcomes. It will serve them well in all aspects of life.

5. Engage in effective collaboration: In today’s more relational workplace, teamwork is highly valued. Being able to work effectively with others with different skills, styles, and backgrounds in a harmonious way produces happier workers and better outcomes. The same is true of families who value one another, work together on family projects and chores, and invest in their relationships. While the teen years can bring extra relationship challenges when children express greater independence (and sometimes appear to devalue their parents’ input), it nonetheless is helpful to reinforce the “family as team” whenever possible. One team, one dream, does pay off. 

6. Commit to continuous improvement: As the world has become more competitive, companies are managing their personnel more intensively. Nowadays, we have to deliver excellent performance just to keep our jobs. So, it’s not surprising that employees who are committed to continuously improve their skills through training, etc. are best positioned to succeed. And, so it goes with our children. By building a growth mindset and a love of learning and self improvement in our children, parents can prepare them for the demands of the real world and help them fulfill their dreams. So, encourage your children to seize those opportunities to sharpen their body, mind, and spirit. It’s huge.

So, taking a page from the business management playbook can actually help in our parenting and pay dividends, too. Keep an open mind, give it a try, and let us know how it goes. 

We invite you to explore our two parenting books, Parenting for the Launch: Raising Teens to Succeed in the Real World, and Wings Not Strings: Parenting Strategies to Let Go with Confidence. Each reinforce these lessons and offer parents practical strategies and encouragement for navigating the teen years.

To better parenting…and managing! 

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

Life is filled with lessons learned the hard way. Sometimes we genuinely don’t understand the risks in advance, but often we do and take our chances anyway. “It won’t happen to me.” “I’ll get around to it soon, I promise.” “I’ll just deal with it if it happens.” And, then, the unexpected strikes. Our company goes belly up. I get laid off after 30 years of service (or because I was the most recent hire). Or, in the case of 2020, we have a brutal pandemic that causes societal chaos in our lives and livelihoods. Lessons learned again, the hard way.

When I wrote What I Wish I Knew at 18: Life Lessons for the Road Ahead, my goal was to provide students advance wisdom for their upcoming transitions into adulthood. 109 Life Success Pointers—well beyond an ounce—and including a chapter on financial matters. Oh, how many of them have been put to good use this year! 

Regardless of how well prepared you were for the economic risks in 2020, we thought it would be helpful to reiterate some key financial pointers to help you navigate today’s turbulence and prepare you for the next battle.

1. Build an emergency fund for unforeseen circumstances. One of our first financial priorities is to create an accessible fund of liquid, short-term investments amounting to four to six months’ worth of your expenses. When times are hard, as 2020 has proven to be, this fund can help soften the financial blow and provide a source of cash for critical needs. Generally speaking, the greater the uncertainty, the greater the number of months reflected in your emergency fund.
2. Keep your fixed expenses under control. Hard times are made harder when over 40% of our income is devoted to paying our fixed expenses (housing, utilities, debt payments, etc.). These expenses must be paid regardless of our circumstances, unlike discretionary expenses (travel, leisure, dining) that can be curtailed. Generally speaking, the lower the percentage of our fixed expenses, the greater is our ability to navigate difficult economic circumstances and maintain peace of mind. Those who apply this practice live within their means and can still generate positive cash flow. 
3. Use credit sparingly and wisely. It goes without saying (but we still will!) that those who are conservative with respect to credit card usage are better able to withstand financial turbulence. Large credit card balances increase the cost of our purchases and represent significant fixed costs that must be paid to maintain a good credit rating. During tough times, a cash-only approach to spending helps us exercise prudent financial discipline. 
4. Diversify and periodically rebalance your investments. The pandemic has caused significant gyrations in the stock market this year, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ranging from 18,592 to 29,551 in a short period of time! This volatility illustrates the importance of holding some fixed income securities to reduce risk, and of monitoring your allocations to stocks and bonds to ensure they’re within acceptable ranges. For example, at market highs, your allocations to stocks may have gone above your target range, in which case you could have trimmed your exposure, lowering your risk. At the same time, at market lows, your allocations to stocks may have fallen below your targets, indicating it’s time to increase your exposure and buy at lower prices. 
5. Don’t let your emotions interfere with your investing. There are two facts of life when it comes to investing that can get in the way of making sound decisions. First, the markets tend to decline more quickly than they rise, which is scary. Second, the market bottoms when the news is still bad. We want to wait until the news is better, but we will have lost our opportunity to buy at much lower prices. For these reasons, individual investors often display a “buy high, sell low” approach to investing when the reverse is the way to go. Over the long term, this tendency lowers our investment return. This is one reason why automatic investment programs are so helpful—they help take the emotions out of our investing.  
6. No matter the circumstances, remain a cheerful giver. Even during financial hardships, it pays to find ways to help support those in even greater need. Sure, we may not be able to write as large of a check to our favorite charities, but even a little is good for the soul and for others. We can also be searching for opportunities to donate our time to these causes—another great way of cheerfully giving to humanity. It helps keep things in perspective, too.

Whether you check all, a few, or none of the above six boxes, we hope this encourages you to explore how you can “up your financial game.” It will not only help your financial picture, but also increase your peace of mind. 

Best wishes to you and yours,

The LifeSmart Team