Is using Amazon's Think Big Leadership Principle as a parenting tool a good idea or path to failure?

Thinking big as a parent can be tricky and can even be a trap.  I had huge hopes and dreams for each of my kids as they joined our family and moved through their early years.  I saw their interests and tried to cultivate and encourage them.  I experienced parents who wanted me to grow up to be a certain way, like them, so I triThinking big as a parent can be tricky and can even be a trap.  I had huge hopes and dreams for each of my kids as they joined our family and moved through their early years.  I saw their interests and tried to cultivate and encourage them.  I experienced parents who wanted me to grow up to be a certain way, like them, so I tried hard not to repeat that pattern.

But what I learned painfully was thinking big for your kids means I am not in the driver seat.  I needed to make sure thinking big for them didn’t involve my hopes, my fears, my experience, or my values.  I needed to discover what those meant to them.  And this is still a work in progress for me as they continue to grow and change.ed hard not to repeat that pattern.

But what I learned painfully was thinking big for your kids means I am not in the driver seat.  I needed to make sure thinking big for them didn’t involve my hopes, my fears, my experience, or my values.  I needed to discover what those meant to them.  And this is still a work in progress for me as they continue to grow and change.

My kids are young adults and a teenager now. I am careful to try not to share their stories while sharing mine, which is not so easy.  In my early parenting years I naively thought I would give my kids tools and insights and then at some point they would apply them as needed. The process is much less linear, and the insights and tools are coming from my kids to me too.

For thirteen years, seven leadership roles, in three countries, the Amazon leadership principles guided my professional decisions and as the year progressed, they increasingly often also provided valuable input to my personal life decisions as well as my philanthropic efforts. I shared my insights with those I mentored but as my capacity to mentor was limited, I turned to writing as my one-to-many strategy. This series of posts shares my thoughts on how to apply the Amazon Leadership principles to your career and how to apply them to your roles outside of your work, like parenting, too. This is the 17th post in that series.

Think Big: Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

This Amazon Leadership Principle definition works in the parenting space with two minor adjustments. Change Leaders to Parents and customers to kids. My kids are young adults and a teenager now.

While thinking big for my kids meant giving them the tools to create the life they want, it was not always clear to me what tools they need or what life they want to create.  I end up with a number of hard to answer questions. What if their dreams are not realistic?  Do you crush them or let them find out for themselves? I believe I needed to let my children dream big.  I didn’t share my crazy dreams with my parents, we didn’t have that type of open dialogues. But I know they were important to who I am now.  Many of mine were unrealistic or not well thought out. I learned so much from trying to achieve them and ultimately falling short.

I developed resilience which I think is critical for parents to help our kids develop, when you fall or fail, you get up and try again with the learning you have gained.  This is a tough one for me as a parent and lawyer.  If I see a risk, I want to mitigate or prevent it.  One child gave feedback (I didn’t know evaluations was part of the parenting journey) that they wished we had let them fail more, earlier in their lives.  Ouch!  I can see now all the attempts to help in fact robbed that child of invaluable learning experiences. I am trying to apply that lesson going forward when my risk mitigation and rescue tendencies kick in.

I always wanted to give my kids the chance to discover who they are in a safe place where they know you love them unconditionally no matter what they chose to do.  I told more than one child that I would love them no matter what they did.  I might not agree with a choice, or I might be disappointed, but the love and support from me would always be there.  I feel my think big parenting job is to help them see that thinking big is living life on their own terms, not in the way the world or a specific community expects of them.  It took my own kids taking paths I didn’t expect to help me understand that the biggest dreams I could have for them was the dreams they had for themselves, understanding that like me, their dreams might change and evolve. 

One dropped out of his first attempt at college, like mother, like child.  Another first decided college was not for them and then later pivoted back.  I am excited for each iteration of my kids’ selves, and I am proud that they are each learning to live life that is authentically their own defined by what they see as success not what conventional wisdom says they should be.  The additional benefit of this approach is it removes much of the pressure to have your kid “do X by Y”.  Thinking big as a parent allowed me to see there is no set timetable, no one path for success.

If you are parenting teens or young adults, I welcome your reactions and any strategies you found particularly effective.

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I write more on my personal blogs: Balancing Motherhood and Career and Ethiopian Ties as well as Adoptive Families Circle, Melting Pot Family