I asked Google’s Eric Schmidt and other powerful executives for parenting advice. Their answers?

During two years of intense research for the writing The Industries of the Future, my interviews with dozens of the world’s most successful, powerful people often turned to parenting. We’ve heard people like Carlos Slim, Eric Schmidt and Larry Summers talk about business or the economy, but talking to them about what skills and attributes today’s children will need to compete and succeed in tomorrow’s economy always got them far away from talking points. 

While I dedicate an entire chapter to the topic of parenting in The Industries of the Future, I did want to briefly share some common themes that emerged from my research.

1. Make sure your kids are learning languages, foreign languages as well as a technical, programming, or scientific language. If big data, genomics, cyber, and robotics/AI are among the high-growth industries of the future, then the people who will make their livings in those industries need to be fluent in the coding languages behind them. Coding also teaches children a way to think and solve problems that is still valuable even if the computer programming language changes.

Similarly, as the economy grows more global, cultural fluency and the ability to communicate in more than just one language will grow even more important than they are today.

2. Demand more academic enrichment out of your children’s schools, but don’t rely on them. My mother was nicknamed Becky the Barbarian in part because she was a relentless advocate for her children’s education at school and at home. I did not appreciate it at the time, but that is what enabled a public school kid from West Virginia who had to work as a midnight janitor to achieve the success I have since had in business, government and academia.

The business leaders I spoke with suggested we all needed to follow the Becky the Barbarian model. Hold others to account but also hold yourself to account. Do something about it if your school isn’t offering a rigorous education that meets your child’s needs, but also do something about it if the hours after school for your children are spent unproductively. If your child’s school does not teach them a foreign language, computer programming or challenging enough math, there are enough free resources online that you don’t have an excuse as a parent to keep that from your children.

3. Ingrain your children with a commitment to lifelong learning. The idea that education ends with an undergraduate or graduate university degree is an anachronism. That MBA or masters in electrical engineering that is so difficult to earn will be near-useless 15 years after graduation if there isn’t a commitment to continuing to learn. The pace of change in business has quickened over the past 10 years and is only going to accelerate further. It’s not the strongest who survive, or the most intelligent, but those most adaptable to change. Lifelong learners are the more resilient than anybody else in times of change.

I’ll conclude by stating the obvious: these three things are not meant to be comprehensive, nor do they account for social, emotional and spiritual development. But in discussions with many of the world’s most successful people in business, these stand-out. Please share what you think are the key attributes today’s children will need to be successful in tomorrow’s economy!

Alec Ross is the author of The Industries of the Future, to be released in February by Simon & Schuster.