Before Mark Zuckerberg became Mark Zuckerberg, he was just a Jewish boy, born to pretty successful parents. His dad is a dentist while his mother is a psychiatrist. He has three sisters, who are also pretty successful in their own right – though not as wildly successful as Mark it today. So how did the Zuckerbergs raise such successful children? What are their parenting mantras and has Mark carried this into his own parenting style? Here are some parenting tips from Mark Zuckerberg.
To give you an idea, this is what the 34-year-old founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and his dad, Dr Edward Zuckerberg, have said (and written) about bringing up their children.
7 Parenting tips from Mark Zuckerberg and his father
Learn some of these parenting tips from Mark Zuckerberg. | Source: Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook
1. Go outside and play
In a letter to his youngest daughter, Mark encourages going outside and playing. “You will be busy when you’re older, so I hope you take time to smell all the flowers and put all the leaves you want in your bucket now.” Interestingly, he doesn’t mention Facebook, social media or the Internet at all. He is not the only tech billionaire to discourage his children from using the products he helped create. Another two widely successful innovators, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs also limited the amount of technology that their children can use.
2. Spend time with your kids
Mark Zuckerberg takes his daughters on “adventures”, just one of the parenting tips from Mark Zuckerberg. | Image Source: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Account
Although Mark runs one of the most valuable companies in the world, he spends time with his children. The CEO of Facebook took two months of paternity leave when August, his youngest, was born in 2017. He also took two months off after his firstborn called Maxima or Max was delivered in 2015.
3. Tell them not to worry
Mark wrote to Max in 2015: “Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today.” When August came into the world, he wrote about the magic of childhood. “Childhood is magical. You only get to be a child once, so don’t spend it worrying too much about the future. You’ve got us for that, and we’ll do everything we possibly can to make sure the world is a better place for you and all children in your generation.
Parenting tips from Mark Zuckerberg’s dad
Dr Edward Zuckerberg described the choices he and his wife made to led his son to create Facebook and as we all know, become a billionaire. Here are the biggest takeaways from his talk with a radio station in America:
4. Show them responsibility
Image: iStock
Young Mark grew up watching his parents take responsibility for their livelihoods and run a business out of their home. “We had a unique situation because my office was in the house. I highly recommend it if it works for your occupation. It did afford the ability to work and be home with the kids at the same time,” says Dr Edward.
5. Provide security
Dr Edward thinks that it is more likely that kids will grow up willing to take risks if they have a stable background behind them. Of course, he acknowledges that there are plenty of stories of entrepreneurs who grew up with nothing. In the Zuckerberg household, Dr Edward strived to provide that kind of stability to his wife and children.
6. Discover and encourage your kids’ interests
Image: iStock
“Probably the best thing I can say (about parenting) is something that my wife and I have always believed in,” says Dr Zuckerberg. “Rather than impose upon your kids or try and steer their lives in a certain direction…recognise what their strengths are and support the development of the things they’re passionate about.”
7. Balance is key
“I think that extremes in any form in parenting are not good. Children need to be well-rounded. There’s a place for work and a place for play,” says the tech billionaire’s dad.
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Source: INC