Contact: Anne Leedom (916) 939-8244

Or anne@moralintelligence.com

1. What inspired you want to write a book about how to help kids succeed? I was in a bookstore one day trying to find a book on how to help kids be more successful. Every book about success was written for adults! I thought: Why wait until adulthood to learn how to be a successful? Kids need to learn the skills of success now so they will become lifelong habits. I committed myself to writing a book on how to raise successful, decent kids filled with practical and proven activities. It became Parents Do Make a Difference.

2. Aren’t our children’s chances for success pretty much determined at birth by their genes? Can parents really make a difference? No child is born successful: they’ve learned how to be successful. And we can make an enormous difference because we can teach them the skills research says matter most in helping kids become their best.

3. You say success is learned and we can enhance kids’ chances for success by teaching skills. What are the most important skills of success? Research says there are eight indispensable skills our kids need for living confident, happy, and productive lives: positive self-esteem, awareness of your strengths, communication, problem solving, getting along, goal-setting, perseverance, and empathy. And we can teach them to our kids!

4. How did you determine which skills matter most to success? I read thousands of research articles, interviewed dozens of experts, observed hundreds of students in both the United States and abroad and surveyed over 10,000 teachers. Then I spent hundreds of hours tallying the findings and found there was a trend: eight skills were consistently named as critical to success by researchers, parents, experts, and educators. Those skills became the eight essential skills of success in Parents Do Make A Difference.

5. Say a parent is concerned about her child’s self-esteem. What’s your advice? Help him be aware of his strengths: it will help him compensate for his weaknesses. I tell parents to identify one or two strengths they want their child to recognize about himself. They must be already present and not ones they wish were true about him. Then start pointing them out a few times each day using specific praise so the child knows exactly what he did to deserve recognition. Usually it takes three weeks for a new images to develop, so keep praising the same strength for at least 21 days then add another one. It’s simple, yet powerful!

6. If you have time to teach only one skill, which one do you think would help kids the most? As a consultant to hundreds of schools, the greatest trend I’ve seen is the marked increase in anxiety and anger in our children. We shouldn’t kid ourselves; the steady onslaught of stress and violent images is taking a major toll on their emotional well being. All eight skills are essential, but the one skill I think all kids need immediately is the fourth success skill: knowing how to calmingly solve a problem. And parents need to learn it, too!

7. What’s the first step to teaching a child problem solving skills? The first step to solving any problem is to stop and calm down so you can think about how to begin fixing what concerns you. Too many kids don’t know how to stay calm to think a problem through. Parents Do Make A Difference teaches the formula: 1 + 3 + 10 = calm down. And it works like a charm. Print it on a piece of paper and then say to your child, "As soon as you feel your body starting to lose control, do three things. First, tell yourself, ‘Be calm.’ That’s 1. Second, take three deep, slow breaths like you’re filling up a balloon. That’s 3. Now count slowly to ten inside your head. That’s 10. Put them all together, it’s 1 + 3 + 10, and doing it helps you calm down."

8. How would a parent know if her child needs help in problem solving or any other skill? Parents Do Make A Difference provides ten simple checklists to gauge children’s proficiency in each skill. But a quick informal test is to ask yourself: How does my child typically react to a problem? Does he stay calm, or does his body tense up? Does she confront the problem, or does she walk away? Does he coolly try to solve the problem or become so anxious that he needs help calming down? If your child usually reacts to dilemmas in a calm manner, he’s well on his way to developing the skill. If not, it means you need to set a plan to deliberately start enhancing it and then consistently teaching it.

9. How do you know teaching these skills to kids will help them be more successful? The activities in Parents Do Make a Difference were used with over 1000 students at three schools in an intensive study analyzed by Wright State University. Ninety-eight percent of the teachers at the schools noticed positive student changes: they were more confident, courteous, respectful and there were far fewer incidents of physical aggression and verbal put downs. The best proof is from the calls and letters I continually get from parents to thank me for giving them such simple ways to help their children become more successful.

10. Let’s be realistic. Everybody knows parents these days are pressed for time. How do you expect them to find time to teach these skills to their kids? As a parent of three teenagers, I’m well aware of time constraints. Here’s what research says: learning new behaviors usually take at least three weeks. So choose any skill you think is important for your child and reinforce the same skill consistently for at least twenty-one days. A skill a month is more realistic and you’ll also have a greater likelihood your child will actually learn it. At the end of the month you can choose a new skill to reinforce or keep emphasizing the same one if your child needs more time.

11. How old should kids be to start teaching these skills? Is it ever too late? We can start teaching these skills around three or four when our kids begin to really communicate with us. And it’s never too late to learn them! These skills are important to learn at any age.

12. Our parents would tell say they didn’t teach kids how to succeed. What’s different about raising kids now that makes us have to teach these skills? The problems our kids face are much tougher than when I grew up: bullying, sexual harassment, drugs, gangs, and school violence. The breakdown of role models is another scary issue since children learn strong character from watching others do it right. And there’s troubling increases among youth in stealing, cheating, peer cruelty, bad language and disrespect. These are harder times to raise kids and we teach them the skills that build solid character, strong minds and caring hearts. We can’t assume our kids will learn them by chance.

13. There are a lot of parenting books out there. What makes yours stand out as a book that parents must read? First, everything is research-based: these are the eight skills research says matter most in nurturing success. Second, every activity has been tried with parents and in schools and only the most effective and practical ideas are included. And finally, the techniques have been field-tested in schools with over 1040 children and proven to enhance kids’ self-esteem, behavior, and success. And most important: the activities are simple to use and don’t take much time. Consistently using them does make a difference on kids’ lives.

14. Everybody wants to be the perfect parent. What really does matter most in being a good parent? Good parenting is about how to help our children live their lives to the best of their abilities. Ensuring our kids are brought up with love and hope, and have learned the eight essential skills of success may well be not only the greatest legacy we can leave our kids. It’s also how we can make the greatest difference on their lives both now and forever.

15. Where is your book available? It is now available in most major book stores but the easiest way to order Parents Do Make A Difference is by clicking the button right here! [click here!]
You can also go to www.MicheleBorba.com to learn more and order the book!