See Jane Win
by Dr. Sylvia Rimm
Excerpted by Celeste M. Scholz
After a tranquil
visit to the temple, a Burmese fortuneteller stopped us on the shaded side
of the open-arched hallway. “Would you like to hear your daughters’
fortunes? It’s not expensive and, well, my family could use the money.”
Minutes passed as he consulted ancient birth charts and worn journals.
“Both daughters,” the fortuneteller predicted, “will achieve success in
their chosen work and have money for a good life. Sadly enough though,
they won’t be very happy in their family and personal lives.”
Like most people
these days, I don’t really listen to fortunetellers. But his words made
me stop and reflect. Exactly what are the experiences that lead daughters
to success in both areas: career and personal happiness? Dr. Sylvia Rimm,
the renowned child psychologist, in her book See Jane Win (Penguin,
1999) surveyed successful women, who participated in the study only if
their personal and family lives were reasonably happy. In addition, answers
from women who considered themselves neutral or unhappy in their work were
eliminated, leaving the results from 1,236 women to be analyzed.
Her research findings are expressed in twenty guidelines for parents and
mentors. For the purposes of this short article, I have organized the guidelines
into four general recommendations with specific suggestions excerpted from
the book.
Motivate your daughters.
Set high educational
expectations for your daughters to complete college and beyond, even if
you didn’t. Teach them that educational attainment is of the highest priority.
Don’t be too quick to back off if they experience pressure. Rather, help
them to make decisions about eliminating activities or managing their time
better. Research findings show most successful women invested a lot
of time in studying and homework. Assure your daughters that most important
is their interest, motivation and willingness to persevere and they are
not limited by test scores of their abilities. View your daughters as intelligent,
good thinkers and problem solvers. Value their work and create family projects
to build a sense of accomplishment. Being shy or emotional, or having other
typically feminine characteristics doesn’t seem to hinder success. However,
if your daughter is experiencing learning problems, get her professional
help so she can view herself as smart, hardworking and independent.
Give your daughters a stimulating environment.
Search for schools
with teachers that are dedicated and inspiring. There may be some advantage
to private schools, although your daughters can be successful at public
schools too. Reading is a very high priority. Encourage your
daughters to read and let them see you enjoy reading. Help them develop
an interest in history and social studies. Girls who are truly interested
in learning have a better chance at success. Advise your daughters
to take science and math, especially advanced courses, even if you didn’t.
Find a school that offers all-girl science and math classes. Extracurricular
activities are important – band, drama, sports and religious groups. But
your daughters also need quiet time to read, entertain themselves and be
creative. Many successful women listed “winning in competitions” as motivating.
Encourage your daughters to join debates, science fairs, art shows and
math competitions. Plan to travel with your family and when they’re old
enough, arrange for your daughters to travel alone. Research shows successful
women viewed family travel as enriching and adventurous, while independent
travel built their self-confidence. Television should be minimized.
Support your daughters through the trials of life.
Let your daughters
know that popularity is not important. Avoid pressuring them to have lots
of friends. Rather, help them value their independence. Negative friends
may cause trouble. Research shows successful women tended to have
friends who were achievement-oriented, and forty per cent considered themselves
to have been less social than typical. Tell them about your friends
who lost because of drugs or drinking. Make it clear that you expect them
not to smoke, drink or use drugs. If they do experiment, don’t give up
on them, but be careful not to condone it. Be your daughters’ coach, not
a judge. Give adolescent girls enough room to explore, but don’t accept
rebellion. Set firm limits for teens and be as positive as possible.
Don’t take their positive activities away for misbehavior and don’t reward
them for good behavior with harmful activities or possessions, even if
they want them.
Teach your daughters to value challenge, contribution and creativity.
While birth
order is shown as important for career choice, it is not a major factor
for success. Make sure all daughters get leadership opportunities regardless
of birth order. Don’t give children labels such as “the creative one” or
“the athletic one.” These successful women’s most frequent role models
were parents, with mothers being identified in fifty per cent of the surveys.
As mothers, if you achieve, daughters see you as competent and are more
likely to believe that they can be competent, too. As fathers, be supportive
of your wife’s achievement goals, because your daughters are watching.
Sixty-two per cent of successful women described times when they experienced
difficulty with their education. Expect ups and downs from your daughters,
and let them know that they can persevere. If facing new challenges is
difficult for them, problem-solve how they can act and use role-play to
practice.
Teach daughters
the value of making a contribution to society. They should learn to insist
on the same treatment as men. Listen to your daughters so that you can
encourage their creative thinking abilities. The successful women
in this study struggled to balance child rearing and careers. If your daughters
plan to marry, encourage them to find partners that will respect their
career choices and share parenting responsibilities. Today women have many
choices available in slowing down careers to devote more time to family
or working with childcare providers. Let your daughters follow their own
choices in balancing careers and families without burdening them with your
own preferences.
Even though we
visited that peaceful temple over four years ago, I still occasionally
mull over the Burmese fortuneteller’s prediction of our daughters’ success
in careers, and unhappiness in their personal lives. I realize that the
road may not always be smooth, but Dr Rimms’s research findings show that
by keeping certain guidelines in mind, our daughters have a good chance
of achieving happiness in their chosen work and in their personal lives.
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