Dr. Ginsburg on Education(1) - How to define success

宾大教授 Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg 在PCE Club 2015年年会的主题讲座记录

英文记录整理:黄敏

中文翻译:Taili Zhuang,张景山

This is my notes about Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg’s keynote speech at PCE 2015 Annual Parents Conference

Conference Topic:Authentic Success: Raising Children and Adolescents Who are Prepared to Thrive

PCE Club had one of the most successful annual conference that was held on 10/3/2015. We had overwhelming strong positive feedback on Dr. Ginsburg's speech, his professional insight, his deep compassion toward children, his direct messages addressing many parents' common concerns and practice, and his sense of humor made him one of the best speakers of PCE annual conferences!

We are so glad to know that the message Dr. Ginsburg conveyed is exactly what PCE has been promoted in the past 12 years, it is also very encouraging that his talk also brought PCE's parenting philosophies to a more research-based, proven and convincing way.

Dr. Ginsburg's speech is 2 hours, below is only some excerpt about his speech. There is no way my notes would bring Dr. Ginsburg's sensational speech to alive, how I wish you all were there!


The topic today is Raising Kids to be Prepared to Thrive.

Let's begin by thinking how we are going to define success.

The biggest mistake we make as parents in defining the success is by looking at the child before us and we say how is my child being successful? When we do that, we tend to be over focused on one of the two things: either happiness or grades.

If we only look at kids' grades, we are only looking at what kids are producing, not for who they are.

What we have to do when we raising our children, is to stop looking at kids before us and to imagine 35 years old they are growing. If we begin to think what ingredients a 35-year-old need to be successful, parenting become easier, and we understand how to do things differently.

We must prepare our children to thrive and succeed far into the future. We should never forget that our goal in raising children is to prepare them to be successful at 35, 40, or 50 years old. When we stay focused on the future, our understanding of a successful childhood and adolescence broadens.

What does it mean to be successful and happy at 35-, 40-, or 50-years-old? It is not about what you have, it is about who you are.

Successful adults:

  1. Have sense of meaning and purpose in the world
  2. Be ready to repair the world, to be compassionate, loving and kind
  3. Are hardworking and have tenacity
  4. Have connection to other human being, cherish their relationships with family, friends and communities
  5. Have grit - the word of the decade, see life as marathon rather than sprint
    If you see life as a sprint, you would take whatever to take to get to that end point without planning for the future. When you fall down, you think you fail in life.
    If you looks life as marathon, you look far into the distance, when you fall down, you get back up and plan a better route.
  6. Are creative and innovative
  7. Have the social and emotional intelligences that contribute to leadership and collaborative skills
  8. Can take the constructive criticism and love learning
  9. Above all, be resilient

Of course, success also includes being able to earn a living and attain a good education. But I believe all of the discussed significantly enhance one's ability to do so while finding meaning and satisfaction in what they do.

We have to get out of mindset of defining kids' success by what kids produce by the time they are 18 years old, which is in the real world is which college your kid get into, as this mindset is destroying kids, it is destroying their abilities to be successful at 20-, 30-, 40!

(to be continued)


About Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg: Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MS Ed, FAAP, is an award winning author and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Additionally, He serves as the external National Resilience Expert for The Boys and Girls Club of America and works with National Congress of American Indians in its efforts to build resilience in indigenous youths.

His most recent books include, “Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings”, and “Raising Kids to Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust”, both published by The American Academy of Pediatrics. The theme that ties together his clinical practice, teaching, research and advocacy efforts is that of building on the strengths of teenagers by fostering their internal resilience. He strives to translate the best of what is known from research and practice into practical approaches that parents, professionals and communities can use to build resilience.

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