Mom of 18-year-old with a doctorate shares her 4 non-negotiable parenting rules: ‘How can they be the best versions of themselves?’

Jimalita Tillman knew her daughter Dorothy Jean was gifted at a very young age. Home-schooled from age 7, Dorothy Jean took high school-level courses a year later and earned her first college diploma, an associate’s degree, at age 10. She added a bachelor’s degree at age 12 and an environmental science master’s degree two years later, both online.

Last year, at just 17 years old, Dorothy Jean earned a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from Arizona State University. Now 18, she’s weighing her future plans while running the Dorothy Jeanius STEAM Leadership Institute, an organization she launched in 2020 to offer educational programming for Black youths in Chicago.

Watching Dorothy Jean accomplish so much at a young age has been “humbling,” her mother tells CNBC Make It. Tillman also helped put her daughter on the path to success, especially as a single parent — employing multiple non-negotiable parenting rules that she says helped nurture her daughter’s natural gifts.

Different parenting styles can have varying effects on different children. Tillman says these four rules were constants while she raised Dorothy Jean: Build a “contract with your child of expectations,” where you and your child agree on what’s expected of them, from schoolwork to extracurricular activities, Tillman recommends. That could look like finishing their homework before watching any television, or only participating in an extra after-school club if they maintain good grades.

“You need to be very clear and concise. You can’t have one foot in, one foot out when dealing with children, especially gifted ones,” says Tillman. Talented children especially need clear-cut expectations, and accountability when they fall short of those expectations, research shows. Give them a voice in crafting those guidelines, experts say: It helps to breed confidence and self-motivation, which are both key to long-term success.