Picture Perfect?
Do any of these questions sound familiar to you?
My son has a late August birthday, should I delay starting Kindergarten one more year just to give him some more time to be “ready”?
All of my friends are in a bunch of clubs or sports after school, should I join some clubs so it looks good on my college applications?
My daughter has played competitive soccer for years, and she’s a really skilled player, but she never wants to go to practices or games anymore. Should I let her quit?
I’ve observed more and more over the years that there is this silent pressure we put on ourselves to “get it right”: That every decision we make about our kids’ schooling, extracurricular activities, diet, sleep, etc. is going to have a lasting and potentially irreversible impact on their development and future.
We worry about giving them the “right” opportunities to maximize their potential to be their “best” selves. As detailed in the book Pressured Parents, Stressed-Out Kids, parental anxiety only increases as children grow older and face more competition, with the race for admission to a top-tier college lingering in the background.
It’s certainly understandable to want to make good decisions on behalf of our children. I truly believe that all parents want their children to be happy and successful. However, we also need to examine our definition of success. Kids live up or down to the standards we set for them.
As psychologist Madeline Levine shares in her book Teach Them Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or ‘Fat Envelopes’, we “need to make sure that we are keeping our eye on the right bar.”
In my community, I see a lot of “My Child is An Honor Roll student at..” bumper stickers and “My son/daughter is a star player at ___ School” yard signs.
As young as Kindergarten and 1st grade, children are hired private academic tutors and performance coaches, not because they are behind, but in an effort to get them ahead.
The bar that seems to be set, then, is to value academic achievement and athletic accomplishments above all else. But, here is a hard truth that many of us parents don’t want to hear:
While each and every one of us knows that our children are special, they are not all academically or athletically gifted.
- Lisa Tyler, School Psychologist
Academics will always matter, and parents are justified to hold high expectations for their children. Yet, there are other skills that are likely to be important for success in the 21st century.
If we focus only on success as a matter of grades, trophies and school acceptances, as Madeline Levine says, we “fail to acknowledge those students whose potential contributions are not easily measurable.”
Beyond the missed opportunities for letting our children explore their own interests and talents, however, by placing such pressure on academics and athletics, we are also putting their mental health at risk. A study by the NIMH reports that among adolescents aged 13-19, an estimated 49.5% show symptoms of a mental disorder, and 22% suffer from “mental illness severe enough to result in significant functional impairment”.
And what is the biggest stressor among teens? School.
According to the American Institute of Stress, 61% of teens surveyed had felt the pressure to get good grades. In contrast, 29% feel pressured to look good, 28% need to fit in socially, and 21% feel the pressure to be involved in extracurricular activities and excel in sports.
So how can parents help? How can we shift our definition of success? To start, let’s focus on the long–term, not the short-term. Instead of thinking about their grades this semester, think about what we hope for our children 10 or 20 years from now. Think about the skills and character traits we want to instill.
Here are some suggestions for things to focus on to help our children cultivate satisfying and meaningful lives beyond those school years:
Collaboration. A survey (October 2020) conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that the most important skill that employers look for in recent college graduates is the ability to work in teams. But this is where the problem lies. While employers overwhelmingly feel that collaboration matters, only 48 percent perceive recent graduates as “very well prepared” in this regard. And when asked directly, 87 percent of the students sampled said they had received no real preparation in the skill.
Perseverance. As therapist Adam Russo shares in his Ted Talk, “success does not come instantly; success is not a feel good process. Success comes with many failures.” And to handle these challenges, he recommends we let our children fail. Yes, it’s a scary prospect, but by constantly shielding our kids from the consequences of their actions, we’re denying them the opportunity to learn perseverance, or as Adam refers to it, grit.
Creativity. According to the IBM 2010 Global CEO Study, the single most sought after trait in CEOs is creativity. One of the best ways to encourage insightful, divergent thinking, even in the workplace!, is through play. So encourage your kids to engage in multiple types of play, from doodling to song writing to acting. It also helps reduce the hormone responsible for stress!
Self-Efficacy. An unfortunate byproduct of the constant monitoring and oversight that today’s parents have over their children is a decrease in their children’s feelings of competence. Provide your children with opportunities for them to see “I can do this!”, such as establishing regular chore routines (as early as age 3) and promoting volunteerism behaviors.
While stress in parenting can be constantly multiplied, a major cause for stress in young people during the final stage of adolescence (ages 18–23) is coping with overdemand. This arises from struggling to assume independent self-management responsibility: “There’s so much to do, I’m always running behind, and when I fail to catch hold, I feel like I’ll never grow up!”
Managing increased demand is daunting and feels costly when excessive because a person’s energy (their readily available potential for thinking and action) is limited. It’s when one reaches the end of available energy to cope, but the demand continues, that overdemand occurs. This is when the opportunity for stress can arise. An emergency energy capacity people can draw on when the demands of life feel overwhelming but must be attended to, stress is a rescue response.
Rather than becoming absorbed by the cultural demands of parenting in our day, pursue a values-centered approach; you can read more here. Understand what matters most to your family and pursue meaningful goals and desires that are aligned with these values.
