How to Raise Successful People

How can we raise children who are capable, happy, and compassionate in a world that seems to demand constant performance and perfection? In How to Raise Successful People, educator and journalist Esther Wojcicki (better known to her students and family as “Woj”) argues that parenting and teaching have lost their way—not because parents don’t care, but because they care too much in the wrong ways. Children today, she says, are drowning in pressure, control, and fear—whether it’s helicopter parenting, anxiety about achievement, or the pursuit of flawless resumes. Her answer to these challenges is surprisingly simple: a value system she calls TRICK: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness.

Wojcicki builds this framework not only on decades as a renowned journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School but also on her own life story: a daughter of poor immigrants who defied strict gender roles, a mother of three powerhouse daughters—Susan, CEO of YouTube; Janet, a leading medical researcher at UCSF; and Anne, founder of 23andMe—and a grandmother guiding nine grandchildren. Her message is clear: parenting and education should empower rather than control; inspire curiosity rather than compliance. The TRICK principles are universal tools—whether you’re raising kids, teaching students, managing employees, or leading others.

Why We Need TRICK Today

According to Wojcicki, both parenting and education are suffering from a crisis of trust. Parents believe danger lurks everywhere, schools prioritize test scores over creativity, and our tech-saturated culture feeds fear of failure. The result? Children who are anxious, risk-averse, and dependent on others to define their success. “We’ve become slaves to our children’s happiness,” she writes, and in doing so, we strip them of resilience and joy. TRICK is designed to free both parents and children from these traps by restoring common sense: trust your instincts, respect individuality, and collaborate instead of dictating.

The Five Pillars of TRICK

Trust is the foundation of all relationships. It means trusting yourself as a parent and allowing your children to trust themselves. It’s the antidote to anxiety-driven parenting and overprotection. Respect means acknowledging children as autonomous beings with their own ideas, passions, and timelines—recognizing that their future does not have to mirror yours. Independence follows naturally: through trust and respect, children learn self-control, accountability, and problem-solving. With Collaboration, parents move from commanding to partnering—engaging kids in decisions and making family life a cooperative enterprise. Finally, Kindness transforms these values into compassion and gratitude. Kindness connects us to others and reminds us that success is meaningless without empathy and service.

Rooted in Personal Experience

Wojcicki’s own experience reshaped her parenting philosophy. Growing up with an authoritarian father who valued obedience over love taught her the dangers of fear-based parenting. She resolved that her daughters would grow up capable of thinking for themselves. That meant giving them responsibilities early, letting them face real consequences, and supporting them unconditionally. From letting her toddlers walk to the store alone in Geneva to encouraging her teenage journalism students to investigate controversial stories, she found that when you trust children, they rise to the occasion. “Teach them to want to be with you, not need to be with you,” she writes—a lesson that flips modern parenting on its head.

Why TRICK Matters Beyond Parenting

Although written for parents, the TRICK philosophy extends far beyond families. Wojcicki argues that the same principles are essential for schools, workplaces, and even society at large. She applies them in her classroom, where students run projects collaboratively, make editorial decisions, and revise their work until mastery—not grades—proves their learning. Many of her methods, such as free writing and peer mentoring, have been adopted globally as models of hands-on, student-driven education. Business leaders from Google to Whole Foods have echoed her call for workplaces built on trust and empowerment rather than control and fear (similar to Daniel Pink’s argument in Drive that autonomy fuels motivation).

A Humanistic Revolution

At its heart, Wojcicki’s philosophy is both timeless and revolutionary. She reminds us that love without respect is suffocating, that discipline without independence breeds helplessness, and that achievement without compassion is hollow. In her classrooms and her kitchen, success is measured not by grades or status but by character—by a child’s ability to think critically, collaborate effectively, and treat others kindly. TRICK is not a formula for perfect parenting; it’s a framework for raising human beings who can live meaningful, responsible lives in a complex world. As Wojcicki insists, “Parents are the first teachers, and our influence never stops.”

We live in a culture of distrust. Parents don’t trust themselves, schools don’t trust teachers, and children aren’t trusted to be capable. Wojcicki calls this the global “crisis of trust.” The constant exposure to alarming news and overanalysis of danger has convinced parents that the world is unsafe and that only constant control can protect their children. But this mindset deprives both parent and child of joy and self-confidence. Trust, Wojcicki argues, is not just a moral value—it’s a developmental necessity.

From Fear to Faith

Wojcicki recalls how even simple acts—like letting her grandchildren shop at Target on their own—can spark panic in today’s parents. Her daughter Susan called her “crazy” for leaving two eight-year-olds unsupervised, yet the girls were fine and proud of themselves. Those moments help children feel trusted and competent. Research supports her view: fewer abductions and lower crime rates mean the world is actually safer now than decades ago (as Steven Pinker documents in Enlightenment Now). Reclaiming that perspective allows parents to release fear and make balanced decisions.

Building a Culture of Trust at Home

Trust begins with trusting yourself. Parents often outsource decision-making to experts or specialists, believing others know better. But no therapist, teacher, or blogger knows your child as you do. Wojcicki challenges parents to honor their own intuition while reflecting critically on how their childhood experiences shaped their views. In practical terms, trusting your child starts early: believe that infants can learn to soothe themselves and that toddlers can master simple tasks. When parents instill security rather than fear, children develop resilience instead of anxiety.

Earning and Repairing Trust

As bonds deepen, both parents and children must learn to repair broken trust. Wojcicki recounts stories from her classroom: when students violated rules—drinking beer in the darkroom, plagiarizing essays—she didn’t shame them. She talked through their decisions and emphasized earning back trust through accountability. Children, she notes, crave trust even after they err. By keeping the relationship intact, you teach them responsibility instead of rebellion.

Trust in Action

Perhaps her best illustration of trust comes from her “New York trips” with fifty high school students. Letting teenagers navigate subways alone could sound reckless—but no one was ever lost. Freedom produced maturity. Whether giving students editorial authority over their newspaper or letting her daughters travel abroad, Wojcicki found that trust always expanded capability. “Use trust to get trust,” she says. In workplaces and families alike, mutual trust inspires initiative and courage.

Trust, then, is the first step in the TRICK model for good reason: without it, nothing else—respect, independence, collaboration, or kindness—can flourish. Children mirror our confidence, not our commands. When you trust your child, you allow them to become the person capable of being trusted by the world.

Respect, to Wojcicki, means treating children as full human beings—not extensions of your ego or trophies for your success. It’s about letting them lead, honoring their timelines, and accepting that they are not replicas of you. This is one of the most radical ideas in parenting, she insists, because most parents subconsciously try to clone themselves. They confuse guidance with ownership.

Letting Them Lead

Her stories bring this to life. Susan’s son Jacob refused to walk until basketball motivated him to. Instead of forcing him, Wojcicki waited—and sure enough, one day he dashed across the gym to chase a ball. Developmental milestones, she says, happen on each child’s schedule. Respect means patience. Later, when her daughter Anne graduated from Yale only to become a babysitter, Wojcicki was tempted to intervene but held back. By trusting Anne’s process, she allowed her to discover her own ambitions—choices that eventually shaped her path to Wall Street and entrepreneurship.

Not Your Clone

Many parents project their dreams onto their children, as she saw with students pressured into careers they hated. One brilliant graphic designer, Greg, nearly lost his creativity because his scientist parents dismissed art as frivolous. Only when he was allowed to follow his passion did he thrive. Another, Lisa, became a doctor to please her family but never practiced medicine. Respect means freeing children from our expectations so they can define success for themselves. As psychologist Carl Rogers argued decades ago, authentic growth depends on unconditional positive regard.

Modeling Respect Through Actions

Respect is also something children learn by watching. Wojcicki confesses her own failures—reading her daughter Janet’s diary, then apologizing for violating privacy. Admitting mistakes teaches humility and repair. In her classroom, she models respect by treating teenagers as collaborators. Students choose story topics, critique each other’s writing, and manage real deadlines like professionals. By trusting them, she gives them self-respect. Results follow: higher confidence, stronger voice, deeper learning.

Ultimately, respect is the antidote to both authoritarian control and permissive neglect. It demands standards and empathy, firmness and openness. As Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Your children are not your children… They come through you but not from you.” Respect, Wojcicki reminds us, starts with remembering that simple truth.

If trust and respect are attitudes, independence is action. Wojcicki’s famous rule—also the title of one chapter—is: “Never do anything for your children that they can do for themselves.” True love, she argues, is making yourself obsolete. Independence is not abandonment; it’s training for real life.

Why Helicopter Parenting Hurts

Wojcicki confronted the extremes of control at a public debate with Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Where Chua prized obedience and perfection, Wojcicki valued curiosity and joy. Overparenting, she says, produces anxious young adults—“veal-like humans” in Julie Lythcott-Haims’s phrase—who can’t function without guidance. Children who never face failure never build grit or self-efficacy.

Teaching Independence from Birth

Independence begins early. Even babies can learn to fall asleep on their own when parents practice what French parenting culture calls “the pause.” Toddlers learning to dress themselves or throw tantrums are practicing autonomy—if parents allow it. When Wojcicki’s daughter Janet threw a fit over a toy at Macy’s, she calmly stuck to her rule: no public tantrums. Setting boundaries teaches emotional control. By age two, each of her daughters could swim; by age six, they were choosing room colors and folding laundry. Independence thrives when matched with responsibility.

Teaching Through Work and Play

Her classroom teaches the same principle. Students manage a real newspaper, making every decision from layout to advertising. When they fail—say, printing an accidental doodle of horns on a photo of a school official—they own the mistake and fix it. This “mastery system,” where students revise until they succeed, builds persistence and autonomy. At home, chores, budgeting, and open discussions about money achieve the same purpose. Independence grows through effort, not instruction.

Ultimately, Wojcicki believes independence is love in action. By stepping back, you let your child step forward. “Lay off,” she writes. “They’ll surprise you every time.”

What separates high achievers from everyone else? According to Wojcicki, it’s not IQ or luck—it’s grit, the ability to persist through failure and stay passionate about long-term goals. Drawing on Angela Duckworth’s research (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance), she shows how grit isn’t inherited; it’s taught every time we let kids fail and recover.

Learning from Loss

Her story of student Gady Epstein captures this perfectly. After losing the election for editor-in-chief, he could have quit. Instead, he doubled down—helping classmates, leading quietly, and writing outstanding articles. Harvard admitted him not for titles or grades but for character. As Wojcicki says, “Your reaction to disappointment is what matters.”

Grit Through Adversity, Not Privilege

Children of immigrants often develop “automatic grit” through hardship. But parents can cultivate it even in comfort by creating small struggles—saving for toys, mastering household tasks, or enduring boredom without screens. Wojcicki teaches students that “being bored is practice for life.” Patience, self-control, and courage—the ability to stand up for what’s right—form the backbone of grit.

Modeling Resilience

Wojcicki’s daughters saw her persistence firsthand, whether changing the oil under her car or secretly saving enough to install hardwood floors. Children who watch adults overcome frustration internalize that strength. Grit is contagious; it spreads through modeling more than lectures.

For parents, teaching grit means teaching recovery: allow mistakes, debrief them, and encourage another try. As Wojcicki notes, failure is not opposite to success—it’s the foundation of it.

Authoritarian parenting—the “my way or the highway” approach—is outdated, Wojcicki insists. The future depends on collaboration. In families, classrooms, and societies, teamwork builds confidence and empathy. Her teaching career proves it: when students collaborate, they not only learn more but also lead more.

From Dictator to Partner

Early in her career, veteran teachers told Wojcicki, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” Students were to sit silently while she lectured. It nearly destroyed her. When she broke the rules and let students work in groups, energy returned to the classroom. Collaboration transformed both her teaching and her health. She discovered what psychologists like Diana Baumrind call the “authoritative” model: firm but warm, structured but participatory. It’s far more effective than authoritarian command or laissez-faire permissiveness.

Teaching by Collaboration

Her journalism program provides a living example. Students mentor “cubbies” (newcomers), critique one another’s articles, and even teach software skills. They handle real dilemmas—like deciding how to report on a teacher’s arrest—with collective ethical reasoning. As one student said, “She trusted us enough to be partners in crime.” Collaboration, Wojcicki says, requires respect, shared goals, and trust—three earlier pillars of TRICK.

Families as Teams

At home, collaboration means shared chores and shared decision-making. Let kids plan family trips, choose dinners, and offer opinions in family debates. It teaches empathy and accountability. Studies in child psychology confirm that even toddlers experience joy from helping others. By treating kids as contributors rather than subordinates, parents raise future leaders and citizens.

Wojcicki reminds us that collaboration isn’t chaos—it’s co-creation. Letting children participate doesn’t diminish authority; it gives them ownership. “Work with your children, not against them,” she writes—a lesson society at large could use.

“Children hear what you do, not what you say.” With that simple line, Wojcicki reframes the real power of parenting: modeling. Whether it’s managing stress, using technology, or practicing kindness, kids absorb what they see far more than what they’re told. The chapter doubles as a mirror for parents—one that reflects impatience, hypocrisy, and the chance to change.

Modeling Over Management

She uses two poignant classroom stories to illustrate: Claudia, a student devastated by losing an election, reflected her mother’s perfectionism and despair; another student, crippled by test anxiety, mirrored her parents’ own fears. When parents model calm, resilience, and grace in failure, children inherit those same coping skills. As behavioral studies like the “Bobo doll experiment” confirm, kids copy adult behavior instinctively.

Daily Habits as Messages

Wojcicki’s “Closer Look” checklist covers punctuality, grooming, technology use, health habits, family relationships, honesty, and forgiveness. Every small act—showing up on time, putting down the phone during a conversation, keeping commitments—teaches respect. Modeling restraint, humor, and optimism helps children build their emotional intelligence and resilience.

Relationship Repair and TRICK’s Core

Her marriage to Stan, she admits, required the same modeling: the TRICK values—Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, Kindness—applied between adults. Lasting partnerships need what she calls “TRICK in relationships”: trust, respect and love, independence, collaboration/communication, and kindness/forgiveness. These principles sustain not just couples but families and communities. By living them daily, parents teach that relationships—and character—are built, not given.

In the end, Wojcicki reminds readers that parenting isn’t about perfection; it’s a lifelong journey of self-improvement. “One of the greatest gifts of parenting,” she writes, “is that it makes you a better person.”

If there is a heartbeat to TRICK, it’s kindness. Wojcicki describes kindness not as niceness but as an active practice of empathy, gratitude, and service. It’s the antidote to the self-absorption bred by competitive parenting. “Caring is kindness,” she says—and it’s what turns capable people into humane leaders.

Caring in Action

Her daughters learned this by watching her and later practicing it themselves. When Anne rescued her grandmother from negligent hospice care, organized medical transfers, and personally drove her 500 miles to safety, she was acting out a lifetime of modeled empathy. Similarly, Susan’s fight for paid maternity leave at Google and Janet’s campaigns for childhood health in Africa and the U.S. extend kindness into systems—a testament to learning compassion at home.

The Decline of Empathy

Research aligns with Wojcicki’s concern: empathy among American college students has dropped sharply since 2000. Too many kids are rewarded for grades, not goodness. Yet, as Stanford’s president told her, kindness is now the top trait elite universities seek—it predicts cooperation and innovation better than test scores.

Teaching Kindness Daily

Kindness is taught through everyday habits—greeting others, showing gratitude, listening attentively, thanking custodians. Writing nightly reflections or thank-you notes cultivates awareness. Encouraging kids to volunteer, care for pets, and comfort peers shifts focus from self to others. “Gratitude makes everyone happy,” Wojcicki reminds us; it’s the gateway virtue to hope and generosity.

Kindness When It’s Hard

Wojcicki doesn’t shy from hard kindness—extending compassion to bullies, disobedient students, and even herself. Her approach to discipline mirrors restorative justice: listen, understand, guide, forgive. Kindness is strength. It’s also contagious: when modeled consistently, it transforms families, schools, and culture. “Kindness,” she concludes, “isn’t soft. It’s the superpower of change.”

Parenting isn’t just about raising happy kids—it’s about raising humans who make the world better. The final chapters of Wojcicki’s book expand kindness into activism and purpose. “Teach your child to give a damn,” she writes, because meaning—not money—is the key to lifelong fulfillment.

Modeling Purpose Through Action

From fighting for library access and playgrounds to running free babysitting co-ops, Wojcicki lived service, not as charity but as community responsibility. Her activism showed her daughters that real leadership means engagement. She cites research from the Journal of the American Medical Association: volunteering reduces depression and even heart disease, proving service benefits both giver and receiver.

From Self-Absorption to Purpose

Too many kids grow up believing happiness lies in status or wealth. Wojcicki warns this leads to isolation and addiction. Purpose, as scholars like William Damon and the Dalai Lama suggest, arises from contributing to something larger than oneself. She echoes their advice: show children the emptiness of self-focus and the joy of meaning. Helping others, she insists, is what cures modern loneliness.

Service as Family Culture

Families can instill this sensibility through rituals—donating gifts during holidays, volunteering weekly, or simply including children in household acts of generosity. Programs like Camp Tawonga and global initiatives like Riverside School’s U.N.-aligned curricula prove that empathy can be taught systematically through group projects and activism. Service transforms entitlement into empowerment.

For Wojcicki, this is the culmination of TRICK. Trust teaches courage, respect cultivates dignity, independence builds capability, collaboration fosters teamwork, and kindness awakens conscience. The result isn’t just a successful person but a responsible citizen—someone who genuinely gives a damn, and through doing so, makes life better for everyone.