Forgo Ownership

If you own the work, they can’t.

As an adult – parent, teacher, or leader: you pick – one of the hardest things to do is to forgo ownership.

By that, I mean relinquishing control of a project. Witness the massive number of school projects that are partially or completely overtaken by parents’ work. Witness the number of college professors now receiving regular contact from the parents of their students, or the students who get wakeup calls in college…or beyond! These are examples of parents relinquishing control.

As a parent, I’ve always believed that my responsibility is to provide a safety net for my kids, while giving them ownership of their work, whether schoolwork, employment, or side projects. That means that when I go to parent-teacher conferences, I frequently interrupt teachers to say, “I don’t want to hear about grades. I want to hear about what kind of person they are in class.”

Most recently, it’s meant intentionally leaning back as my son worked on his Eagle Project and final requirements. I helped when asked, and I offered advice when requested, but I worked hard to make sure that this achievement would be his, not mine. I hope that when he looks back, he’ll be proud of his work; and I know that he starts work on another big project, he’ll be carrying the leadership and organizational wisdom he won along the way.

I don’t own my children or my students; their successes and their failures are theirs, not mine. Forgoing ownership strengthens them, empowers them, and supercharges their learning. And it will help them be prepared to be leaders themselves.