Years before actress Angela Bassett became an award-winning Hollywood fixture, her mother was dead set on raising her children to succeed.
Bassett grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida, where her mother “demanded nothing less than excellence from her daughters,” she told the graduating class at Spelman College in Atlanta on Sunday.
“My sister and I … were taught from a young age to dream bigger than what we saw around us every day,” said Bassett, 65. “One of my mother’s favorite things to say to us was, ‘I don’t have average children.'”
“Being Betty Bassett’s daughter meant that there were expectations that I would make something of my life,” she added.
High expectations can indeed help parents raise successful kids. Children are less likely to develop resilience and perseverance if they’re coddled, research shows — and those traits are key elements for building enough confidence to respond to failures and take calculated risks.
The optimism Bassett’s mother displayed could also be a positive parenting trait, experts say. Practicing optimism around your kids naturally encourages them to view challenges as obstacles to overcome, instead of reasons to give up, educational psychologist and parenting expert Michele Borba told CNBC Make It last year.
“That’s probably one of the highest correlations of success,” Borba said. “It’s a child who says, ‘I’ll just keep chunking it and keep on doing it’ … As opposed to: ‘Why should I bother and try?'”
Some parenting experts might push back against one element of Bassett’s upbringing: The actress’ family questioned her choice to pursue a career as an artist, concerned about whether she could make a living in entertainment, Bassett said.
Supporting your children’s passions, despite any misgivings around potential future earnings, is a good move for any parent to make, parenting expert Margot Machol Bisnow told Make It last year. Showing your kids how much you trust them can give them the confidence they’ll need to succeed as adults, no matter the path they end up following, said Bisnow.
In Bassett’s case, she was undeterred from focusing on “what I knew was my purpose,” she told Spelman’s graduating class. She obtained three degrees from Yale University, including an MFA in drama and an honorary doctorate.
Her accolades include an honorary Oscar, two Golden Globes and two acting Oscar nominations.
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