One hand writes a book; many hands guide it. For all the help, mentoring, and guidance that were so generously offered to me by colleagues, researchers, family, friends, parents, and kids, I am deeply grateful. This book owes its vitality to the collaboration of different stakeholders who are justifiably concerned about how our current version of success is impairing our children rather than preparing them to navigate the increasingly complex world they will inherit.
My colleagues at Stanford University deserve special thanks. In 2008, when Denise Pope, Jim Lobdell, and I started Challenge Success, a project of the Stanford School of Education, we had no idea that within a few years we would be speaking to thousands of parents at hundreds of venues around the country. Working intensely with more than a hundred schools we have seen firsthand both the toll that our narrow definition of success takes on children, and the changes that are possible when parents, educators, communities, and kids commit to healthier and broader notions of success. Jim and Denise’s contributions to this book, particularly to chapter 7, are immeasurable. Maureen Brown, our indefatigable executive director, somehow managed to take this small group of “do-gooders” from a well intentioned but scrambling “start-up” to an effective and efficient project capable of effecting robust change. Amy Alamar, our schools program manager, and Gina Morris, our parent education manager, both added breadth, depth, and vigor to the project.
Dozens of people added information, research, experience, and wisdom to this book. Notably, I depended heavily on the work of Laurence Steinberg, Robert Sternberg, Wendy Grolnick, Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer, Ken Ginsburg, Carol Dweck, Howard Gardner, Roy Baumeister, Albert Bandura, and the ever generous David Elkind.
To my best friends, Bonnie Caruso and Ann Buscho, your love and support are with me always. No one could ask for more loving or constant friends. And to my good friends Merla Zellerbach, Phyllis Kempner, David Stein, Michelle Wachs, and Susan Friedland, thank you all for tolerating my distractibility, unavailability, and disappearances. To my good friend Dagmar Dolby, thank you for facilitating those disappearances and being a willing, thoughtful sounding board. And to my dear friend Lisa Stone Pritzker, thank you for coming into my life and being the most truly generous person I have ever known. It’s been a privilege.
Great appreciation and respect go to Gail Winston, my editor at HarperCollins. It is neither exaggeration nor false modesty to say that this book would not have seen the light of day without her conviction that it needed to be written, and her patience with its endless iterations. There is no more supportive or more talented editor out there. To Eric Simonoff, my “star” agent, whom I was lucky enough to snag when he was a newbie. There are many days when I still can’t believe how fortunate I am to have you not just as an agent, but as a friend as well.
To the rest of my support team at HarperCollins, from production to design, thank you all. To Caitlin McCaskey, my speaking agent, for always getting me where I belong in good spirits and on time. To Maya Ziv for her patience and diligence in attending to the mandatory details. And to my astonishing copyeditor, Tom Pitoniak, who kept me laughing at all hours with his far-ranging knowledge of everything from grammar to Prokofiev to whether Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron deserves the title of home run “king.”
Several people in my life deserve special recognition. First to Margarita Sanchez, who takes care of me, my husband, my mother, my boys, or anyone else who needs a hand. Your kindness and endless optimism are a daily tonic to my genetically installed pessimism. To Tom Hutchman, who does his best to keep my sedentary, computer-glued body in something resembling reasonable shape. To Cheryl Belitsky, who kept me hidden and happy with an endless supply of blackberries, Greek yogurt, and chocolate. To Jeff Snipes, who reminds me that men can struggle just as mightily as women. And a million, billion thanks (no exaggeration!) to Scott Wood, the world’s most savvy computer guy, who humored me out of my panics and fixed my recalcitrant computer often in the wee hours of the night.
Finally, and especially, to the center of my life: my husband, Lee Schwartz, and our three sons, Loren, Michael, and Jeremy. Lee, my lifelong editor, does his best to keep me clear and concise. This is not always an easy job. You have met my sons often in these pages. I am grateful for their generosity and good humor in letting me use their stories and in correcting me on those occasions when the writer in me got ahead of the facts. Thank you for your remarkable openness and grace, for tolerating my total devotion to this project, and for allowing me open access to your friends for ideas, anecdotes, and endless discussions. You’ve made it so easy to love you all exactly as you are.