SUCCESSFUL PARENTING
2026-09-14
April 12,1968 Lunch in our home.
Second Daughter was 7 months old.
I was a naive 29-year-old and thought he would like a Japanese Lunch as he toured this foreign USA country to visit and promoted his successful Suzuki Music programs.
Daughter is quoted on page 218 by the author.
He is a New York Times editor that found her on-line because of her contributions to our society with her "gotomedia" business.
A few minutes ago FedEx delivered my second daughter a copy of Eric Athas's book to our front door! I use this example, confirming the outcome of the Dr. Shinichi Suzuki's philosophy of Parent/Child/Teacher relationship in developing his method. At such a young age of 3 years, the parent has to learn first and they develop a talent of being successful human beings together.
I helped start the Suzuki School of Music in Seattle at the Holy Names Academy with Vilem Sokol/Sister Annella in 1967 because I saw the benefits of "Skill Building" with the Suzuki Philosophy of parenting and education.
The parts that particularly intrigued me was Dr. Suzuki’s sayings: “Every Child Can Be Educated; Man Is a Child of His Environment; Tone Has a Living Soul.” I liked how he developed his philosophy with his story about studying violin in Germany under Fritz Kreisler in Berlin in the 1920s. Also realizing every child, no matter their intelligence, spoke their Mother Tongue fluently.
Suzuki Philosophy with Suzuki Violin & Piano lessons became a huge part of our life for the next ten years. Our girls never progressed beyond my own musical foresight, but we did put in ten years of minimal practice and performing. It was more important to put in the years rather than the quality of their musicianship.
Malcolm Gladwell came out with his book OUTLIERS and gave me the words to more fully understand the meaning of 10,000 repetitions. Because we at least put in 20 repetitions a week they gained, confidence in being in front of an audience and feeling good about an ability.
Both of our daughters are therefore good mothers! We have five healthy grandchildren with good values.
I’ve tried to start some parenting classes and still would like to see it happen. I currently continue a writing program related to our Japanese Heritage that I helped start in 1990. We've published OMOIDE VI this year. I constantly share ideas of "Happiness" with heritage research for school children in the Washington State system and relate it to their researching their own heritage for the benefit of our community. I consider stories and heritage stories part of our parenting tools as well! And the Athas seeking advice from my daughter, because of her successful “gotomedia” business, is an example of one of our family outcomes.
For successful parenting, these are some of the tools that showed up in my life. These tools also helped my husband and I learn to lead more successful lives ourself. I consider Dr. Suzuki one of my mentors in general. It's a good life of learning!