How to Raise a Global Kid?

This topic has been an interesting one, and many questions have come to my head in the course of reading the article.

Is it necessary to be able to speak different languages in order to succeed in the later part of your life? This answer has been proven time and time again that the ability to speak various languages gives individuals a significant advantage over others. For example, the most obvious point are that certain jobs and employees are required to be able to speak a certain number of languages in order to host certain people from all over the world (who, of course, speak different languages) and communicate with them. Sometimes when kids grow up they wish to travel around the world, and with the aid of language understanding they are able to converse fluently, and hence gain a more in-depth understanding of the cultures all over the world.

When raising a kid, what are the essential pre-requisite attributes and abilities that the the children should have? By attributes I mean leadership, compassion, hardworkingness, etc. And by abilities I mean skills such as a musical understanding, or perhaps sports. As the Tiger Mom issue has shown, children certainly do benefit a lot from certain essential skills, and however frustrating and exasperating it is for the children in their teenage youth and childhood, they always grow up to be outstanding people. All these celebrities and successful businessmen or actors, etc, have one thing in common: They always look back and thank their parents for making them do this, do that. Students nowadays should think about this: If parents 'force' you to learn the piano, sometimes it is really good for you and you should listen to them. As for the issue of pre-requisite attributes, there is not really a correct or wrong answer. As long as the child is able to stand up for himself in life, to be independent and to be able to support himself then he is fine. To what extent is he going to live his life and 'support himself' will be another issue. Certainly, to be hardworking is important. As Einstein has said, success is 99% hard work and 1% genius. Einstein himself was a genius, yet he credited to much of his success to hard work. Americans give their children almost absolute freedom. This has to be limited in a way, because freedom can only be give to those with responsibility. Only when they are able to take care of themselves and make sure things are done can they be given freedom.

Then again, when children grow up what will they need in order to succeed? As Jim Rogers, a writer in America, has said, the level of knowledge in American is decreasing. America's education have been on a decline. It will "hurt" them in one way or another, and sooner or later the economy and eventually politics will be dominated by the East. The education in the East is distinctly different from that of America, and American will have to change that if they wish to maintain their position as the richest and strongest country in the world.