By fixating on children finding success, we can make it harder for them to cope.
Conveying to children they are valued for who they are not what they achieve reduces the pressure they feel.
Children need to be encouraged to follow their own path and interests.
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One of my closest friends frequently talks about wishing she could have a “do-over” as a parent. Her grown children are highly accomplished—two lawyers, another is the CEO of a mega corporation. Despite their achievements, however, my friend is convinced that she made mistakes by monitoring and overemphasizing academic and athletic success. Raising my only child, I was similarly intent on getting parenting “right,” but as most of us know, it is exceedingly difficult to avoid our culture’s achievement trap.
We may mean well but still pressure our children to follow the path that we think best for them. In so doing, we exert more influence and pressure than we realize—all in the name of wanting to be a supportive, involved parent.
When Jennifer Breheny Wallace was conducting research for her book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It, she asked 6,500 parents to react to this statement: “I wish today’s childhood was less stressful for my kids.” Eighty-seven percent of parents agreed or strongly agreed.
A lot of parents start to form expectations for their kids before they’re born. While the child is developing in the womb, a parent might notice they’re very active and predict that the child is going to be a serious athlete. Or, feeling movement while playing a song, an expectant mother might think that the child will one day be a concert pianist. Parents hope their kids will be able to capitalize on their talents or succeed in some area. The expectation can be so high that it spikes anxiety levels in both parents and children.
“Where achievement becomes toxic is when we tangle up our entire sense of self and value with our achievements,” Wallace explains. “When you have to achieve in order to matter.” Parents can run into trouble, and raise children who struggle with their sense of self, by pushing them in directions they don’t want to go. The drive to raise “star” children can backfire.
Youngsters can feel intense pressure early—like when they start school—to be in the fastest reading group, score soccer goals or excel in myriad other ways in the classroom, the arts, and on the playing field. The well-documented high levels of anxiety and depression in teens and elevated drug and alcohol use and abuse are a few of the many negative outcomes resulting from achievement pressure gone awry.
You might think that economic security—having a roof overhead, food to eat, and a middle class or higher income—buffers a child from the ill effects of all that pressure. But studies by Suniyar Luthar, the late Columbia University professor of psychology and a resilience researcher, show otherwise.
“What we've found is that kids in high-achieving, relatively affluent communities are reporting higher levels of substance use than inner-city kids and levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms are also commensurate—if not greater," Luthar noted.
One study she led, funded by the National Institutes of Health, reports that rates of substance abuse remain high among upper-middle-class kids as they enter early adulthood.
It’s not only parents, but also teachers and peers—especially where social media makes comparisons all too easy—who push children to strive. With a few changes in thinking and approach, however, parents can help lessen the pressure children feel to achieve while learning who they are and identifying their unique interests.
Escaping the Achievement Trap
Every child can’t attend a top-rated college, be a celebrity, or invent the next wildly successful app or must-have product. By moderating lofty notions, you can provide an environment for your children that avoids putting unnecessary pressure on them to succeed.
Whatever your child’s age, now is a good time to reassess and modify your approach. Here are a few ways to do that:
Focus your energy on supporting your child's interests and desires, not on what you wanted for yourself or fantasized about for your child.
Delight in their accomplishments even when they are different from yours, and minimize and accept shortcomings as they surface.
Emphasize their positive qualities—their enthusiasm, warmth, reliability, and concern for others. In short, celebrate their very being and nature, rather than their “wins” or individual accomplishments.
Engage in family projects or fun outings where the sole focus is on having a good time.
Share your values as a parent and family, and make living by these values a priority. If achievement and the drive to succeed supersedes or undermines these values, it’s time to take a step back and change course. (Easier said than done, of course, but how you operate—not what you say—is what kids internalize.)
Spend agenda-less time getting to know your children. For example, take walks together after the day is done or catch up over family meals—dig in to learn more about what they enjoy, where they’re challenged, and how they’re doing.
Shifting Your Focus
The challenge is to see your child as an individual separate from you who has their own ideas.
Caring for children, explains psychology professor and author Alison Gopnik in her book The Gardener and the Carpenter, “shouldn’t be directed toward the goal of sculpting a child into a particular kind of adult…Children are incontrovertibly and undeniably messy,” and they are different from their parents and other children.
They also need to feel valued, that they matter for who they are, not measured by their accomplishments. This is critical for their mental health and well-being. Wallace suggests following Luthar’s advice: “Minimize criticism. Prioritize affection.”
That’s one reliable path to escape the achievement culture we live in and get parenting “right.”
Copyright @2025 Susan Newman
References
Perfas, Samantha Laine. (2024) “How achievement pressure is crushing kids and what to do about it.” Harvard Gazette
Wallace, Jennifer Breheny. (2023). Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It. New York: Portfolio
Aubrey, Allison & Greenhalgh, Jane. (2018). “The Perils Of Pushing Kids Too Hard, And How Parents Can Learn To Back Off.” NPR.org June 11.
Luthar SS, Small PJ, Ciciolla L. (2018). “Adolescents from upper middle class communities: Substance misuse and addiction across early adulthood.” Dev Psychopathol. Feb;30(1):315-335. doi: 10.1017/S0954579417000645. Epub 2017 May 31. Erratum in: Dev Psychopathol. 2018 May;30(2):715-716. doi: 10.1017/S0954579417001043. PMID: 28558858.
Gopnik, Alison. 2017. The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children New York: Picador
