“Parents should be judged not by the cars they drive or the possessions they accumulate, but how much positive impact they have made on those they love.”

— Jeffrey B. Oddo, husband, father, entrepreneur and author

Raising children is the most challenging and rewarding job we will ever have in our lives. As parents, we have the choice to either play an active participatory role in our children’s lives or allow them to grow up and figure out life’s biggest challenges on their own.

One of the great laws of life is that you cannot help someone else without helping yourself. If this is true, it means that parenting is truly a win-win opportunity.
The goal of this book is to provide parents an awareness of what is required to raise children to be the best grownups they can be. With limited time and resources, sometimes half the battle of being a great parent is knowing which areas we need to focus our efforts on. This book is written for those who are passionate about their children’s success and understand that it is up to us, as parents, to learn the skills to teach our children things that no one else is likely going to teach them.

Those “things” have been boiled down to TEN topics; we call them the “Ten Kidmandments.” As you can imagine, condensing great parenting into such a limited number isn’t easy; but if you strive to flawlessly execute these concepts, you will greatly increase your chances of raising children to become the adults you hoped they would be. This book is NOT meant to be all inclusive. It is designed to be a high-level overview to get you thinking.

Maybe you’ve read every book on child-rearing techniques out there; maybe this is the first one you’ve ever read. Whatever your situation, I hope the concepts presented here and thoughts that are triggered in your mind by reading this book will inspire you to seek out additional knowledge on the areas you believe will help you and your family the most.The more knowledge we have, the better chances of raising children who will carve out lives for themselves that truly have meaning for them.

Not that anyone could ever tell you how to raise a “successful” child – let alone describe it, for the purpose of this book, we have defined “successful” as the following:

“Children who are genuinely good, ethical, serving people. They are strong, resilient, caring, happy and filled with hope. They feel loved and can love. They have a deeply engrained sense of self confidence, a respect for life and have the ability to become actualized adults. They have the ability to live in the moment, as well as think and imagine the life they want to lead, while having the intelligence and the integrity to make it happen.”

“Dr. Abraham Maslow first coined the term “self actualization.” He said, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization … It refers to man’s desire for fulfillment… to become everything that one is capable of becoming …”

It is understandable if this seems like a lot to grasp; however, although achieving success isn’t easy, we don’t have to make it more difficult than it needs to be.

While we could debate the ten most important skills to teach your children all day long, one thing is certain: our time here is limited. When the curtain on our lives is drawn for the final time, our children will be left with the memories and skills we have taught them. So, the questions are, “How will you lead them?” and “What will they have learned so that your strengths will be transferred but the mistakes will be lost?”

As you will see, while you grow as a parent, you will not only improve the lives of those you love, but in return wonderful gifts will be bestowed upon you. So enjoy parenthood. It is truly an amazing journey.

-Jeffrey B. Oddo