As parents we all want our children to succeed and have fulfilling lives. This is a great article about fostering our their passions and interests.
On raising kids who are more than “hoop jumpers”: A teenage TED speaker’s mom on how she encourages her sons to innovate
By Alison Prato on April 23, 2015
Jane Andraka has raised two remarkable sons. Luke, age 20, is studying electrical engineering at Virginia Tech. “He was always tinkering and taking things apart — wondering how they worked, wondering how they could be made better. He had ideas coming out of his brain like a firehose,” she says. Meanwhile, Jack, age 18, is a teen innovator and scientist who gained international attention when, three years ago, he created a promising method of early cancer detection. In a talk at TED2013 that’s been viewed nearly 4 million times, Jack Andraka shared the story behind the four-cent strip of paper that appears to be 400 times more sensitive in detecting pancreatic cancer than the previous standard — and that could work for ovarian and lung cancer too.
On the heels of the release of Jack’s memoir, Breakthrough: How One Teen Innovator is Changing the World, we spoke to Jane about raising two inspiring children — and how she’s doing it with dignity and a sense of humor.
Read more at the TED-Ed Blog, “Raising Kids Who Are More Than “Hoop Jumpers.”