Consumer Critique: The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children

THE 10 GREATEST GIFTS I GIVE MY CHILDREN by Steven W. Vannoy has helped countless parents take the struggle out of parenting and put the joy back into raising their kids. Vannoy’s unique parenting style emphasizes specific tools and concepts to promote self-esteem, compassion, balance, humor, communication, integrity, responsibility, conscious choice, and emotional honesty for the whole family. The twentieth anniversary edition of his classic book, with updated principles and a new preface by the author, equips parents to create a more inspiring atmosphere at home—and in the workplace. 

Parents are not the only ones who have benefitted from Vannoy’s wisdom. In the years since it was first published, Vannoy has also used the principles in this book to create healthier and more fulfilling workplaces in businesses around the world, such as P&G, Kellogg and Ford. 

I enjoyed the book. It was a great way to look at how values shape parenting, and how we as parents can pass down a legacy to our children. It wasn't so much a nitty-gritty strategies book, but rather gave overall guidelines for helping to shape the way we parent as a whole.

I had the chance to interview Steven to learn more.

What inspired you to write the original book?

I had a so called “big career” and a beautiful wife and two young daughters. I also had a very big case of “Mixed-up Priorities Syndrome.” My focus was on my myopic career, high-status friends, fancy cars and exclusive vacations. When I finally got home after my glamorous day, my family was a bother and an intrusion on my “important life.” I thought my job was to be King Dad, fixing all of their problems and having all of the answers. Instead of advancing my life, with my mixed-up priorities, I lost my family and then my career. I lost everything. I became pathetic and depressed – and ended up on the streets. At one point in my darkness, I realized that maybe I could still do one thing right; maybe I could still learn to be a decent dad. As I started the learning process, I was surprised at what I learned. I discovered that most of us parents were parenting “backwards,” causing problems and perpetuating most of our children’s bad behaviors. My book presents proven parenting tools that build vital qualities and values to bring out the best in our children.

Why re-release it with an anniversary edition?

The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children is a radically different, completely upstream, parenting approach. Once parents discover these powerful parenting tools for nurturing qualities and values in our children, it makes a profound difference in our families and lives. It’s a book readers often share with their friends, family, teachers and community. This book has uplifted millions of families by helping our children grow up with the priceless gifts of qualities and values including self-esteem, responsibility, honesty, communication skills, and compassion. In my work, I’ve heard countless stories of how this approach and these qualities and values have created happier and successful lives for children. Imagine the difference it will make in our world when a few million more families discover these tools? That’s the reason for this anniversary edition.

There are a lot of parenting books out there - what sets this one apart?

All of the research and stories for The 10 Greatest Gifts approach have come from families who use this approach in their real work of parenting. In refining these concepts and tools, we conducted hundreds of focus groups with parents and grandparents. An interesting pattern started to develop: most of the focus group participants were having major problems with siblings bickering, hassles with chores, battles over homework, disrespectful behavior, etc. But about 10% of the families that we spoke to and observed had very few problems. In fact, this 10% recognized that the typical parenting approach of trying to fix our children’s problems actually perpetuated the issues and gave children harmful messages. Instead, these enlightened parents learned to go upstream and nurture important qualities and values in their children. Of course, as their children developed their own qualities and values (self-esteem, responsibility and honesty), most of the typical family problems went away. For example, children with self-esteem and responsibility tend to get a long much better, think for themselves, and are usually eager to do their homework and to pitch in on chores. These parents discovered that giving these priceless gifts of qualities and values is the best way to give our children a happy, healthy and successful future. 

What do your own kids think of the book?

My daughters, Emmy and Ali, are very proud of the book and delighted to be part of the 10 Greatest Gifts Movement. Just like me, they try to deeply live the tools, concepts, and qualities and values described in The 10 Greatest Gifts approach. They’re aware of how important the gifts of qualities and values are to their lives and to all of our futures. Emmy recently announced her engagement and their desire to start a family soon. She and I have been having a lot of fun learning together and sharing parenting stories and ideas. 

How can we use the book in our other relationships as well?

Our family of 10 Greatest Gifts readers quickly taught us how these principles can be applied universally at home and at work. Shortly after the book came out 20 years ago, a father called me to share his request: “This book has saved my family. Do you have anything that can save my company?” I asked him if he’d explain what’s going on.

“Just like we were in my family, my company is putting all of its energy into putting out fires and fixing problems. Of course, there’s no time to go forward, and it’s burning our people out.”
We spent a couple of weeks adapting The 10 Greatest Gifts concepts to adults in the workplace and trained almost 100% of the people in his company. The results were stunning. Because of the typical reactive, downstream approach, commonly found in companies (Gallup says that 72% of American workers are disengaged) some employees are actively engaged in sabotage and harmful activities that set companies back. Imagine the difference it makes when those same disengaged people become engaged – or even fulfilled—once again.

That was the birth of the Pathways to Leadership® Process and my company, Verus Global. We now team up with organizations on six continents, from Procter and Gamble to Nestlé to Kellogg, supporting leaders in achieve their business objectives, getting them results and building healthy workplaces.

The same 10 Greatest Gifts upstream approach not only works beautifully in organizations, but it works even better in relationships and marriages. Why? When you focus on someone’s flaws or weaknesses, it almost always kills the respect and love, ripping the marriage and family apart. When your spouse is focusing on your sacredness and strengths, you fall deeper in love and deeper in commitment. Research backs this up. The number one cause of divorce worldwide is the “fatal flaw syndrome.” Conversely, healthy families celebrate each other’s strengths and goodness.

Author Bio:

Steven W. Vannoy, author, speaker, and facilitator, founded Verus Global in 1990 with a vision to create resilient work cultures, more productive teams, and higher quality of life for all. Now, with more than forty years of business leadership experience, Vannoy is a recognized expert in building strength in corporations internationally, as well as creating sustainable, healthy cultures in workplaces, communities, and families. Learn more about Verus Global at VerusGlobal.com. With more than half a million copies in print worldwide, the updated 20^th Anniversary edition of THE 10 GREATEST GIFTS I GIVE MY CHILDREN (Touchstone Paperback; $15.99; ISBN: 978-1-4767-6297-5) by Steven W. Vannoy is available on May 6.