How to Raise Successful People

Parenting experts seldom offer advice on how to raise successful, principled and happy adults.

Today’s parents try to prevent their offspring from experiencing any hardship, adversity or failure. As a result, they’re raising fearful, dependent children who lack determination and perseverance. Parents also emphasize personal achievement above all else, teaching kids to focus solely on performance, and discounting values such as kindness toward others and gratitude for what they have. Society’s obsession with children’s happiness and achievements is making kids more unhappy, depressed and anxious. It is failing to prepare them to face the normal adversities of life.

As the mother of three girls, Esther (“Woj”) Wojcicki developed a parenting philosophy that she based on her gut instincts and experiences as a journalist and teacher. Her daughters Susan and Anne are CEOs of YouTube and 23andMe respectively. Daughter Janet is a pediatrics professor at the University of California in San Francisco. Woj’s former students include actor James Franco, pro basketball player Jeremy Lin, Economist editor Gady Epstein and psychologist Craig Vaughan...