Family

7 REAL Life Skills To Teach Your Kids To Make Them Successful

Photo: Tristar Pictures
from Baby Geniuses

Everyone wants their kid to be successful when they grow up. That way, you can retire early and just mooch off them. The only problem is that it's so hard to be successful these days, that less and less parents are able to mooch. It's a national problem.

As a parent, you have to start guiding your kid to success as early as possible, at least according to this study. By the time kids are in kindergarten, they're already showing signs of whether or not they're going to be the boss.

Sure, it might look like they're just eating paste and boogers, but some of those kids are deciding what everyone else is eating.

But the main problem with that study is that it doesn't go far enough. It's all about noticing what trends lead to future success, and helping shape behaviors that will have positive effects down the road.

Which is fine, but if you really want your kid to be successful, you have to teach what business is really like. You've got to let them know that this is a dog eat dog world. If it's not how business works, then don't let it be how kindergarten works.

Here are 8 things you should really teach your kid if you want them to be successful:

1. How to shift blame.

Everybody screws up; that's a fact of life. The important thing to learn is how to make your mistakes look like someone else's mistakes.

Get your kid started on this as soon as possible. Did he not put his blocks away? That's only because one of the other kids was still playing with them. How can he put blocks away that are still being played with? This leads us to the next piece of advice ...

2. How to back-stab and manipulate.

Make sure your kid knows how to set somebody up. Let's say he's playing hide and seek with all his friends. If your kid doesn't want to be found, the easiest way to do that is to make sure all his teammates get found first.

3. How to take advantage of another's talent.

Steve Jobs didn't invent the iPod; he just got all the credit. He found all the talented people and let them come up with all the cool stuff. Whenever something hit, Jobs was praised for his visionary direction of the company.

If you can get your kid to do this, they'll be set for life. If one of his friends scores a home run, that's because your kid helped him practice. Your kid's vision led to that homerun.

4. How to treat people like assets.

In business, you have to be cutthroat. If there's somebody at your company who isn't pulling their weight, cut them loose. It doesn't matter how long they've been there, what personal connections they have to anybody, or if they have kids. That's their problem.

Make sure your kid knows this. If they're friends with someone who isn't cool, don't let your kid think it's OK to be dragged down as well.

5. How the law actually works.

Rules are important, but you have to break them all the time. It's more important that other people follow them. It's not important that you follow the rules; it's important that nobody can prove you didn't.

How many cookies did your kid have at snack time? They were supposed to have two, and nobody ever saw them with more than two at a time. Your kid is never to young to learn how to be slippery.

6. How to find loopholes.

Sometimes, you're going to get caught. The trick is learning how to find every single loophole that exists. Yeah, maybe he did take more than two cookies, but he never took more than two at a time.

The law is unclear when it comes to cookies, and it should've been worded better. That's how the founding fathers would've wanted it.

7. How to neglect your personal life.

Every super successful person I know has neglected any sort of social life. They were so focused on their job and the awful things it takes to get to the top, they forgot about making friends and loved ones and hobbies.

Don't let your kid get too focused on making friends and having fun, because that's the path to middle class comfort.

8. How to get good at identity theft.

In all honesty, these days it's probably just easier to steal a successful person's identity. Don't make your kid study for a test when he can just switch his name out on a smart kid's test. Remember, cheating's only wrong if you get caught.