My daughter and her girlfriend recently taught me how to play MarioCart. As most of you probably know better than I do, it’s a car racing game where you throw mushrooms and rockets at each other, more or less. For my purposes, the point is that you can set your controller so that you don’t have to brake or accelerate; your car will just go maximum speed, all the time. You do your best to hang on.
Parenting shouldn’t have to feel that way. Being a kid or a teen especially shouldn’t have to feel that way.
Jennifer Wallace has a new(ish) book: Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic, and What We Can Do About It. Reading it has sent me down an internet rabbit-hole, tracking down data about the long-term mental health of high-achieving kids and teens. For an abbreviated version of my journey, start with Wallace’s 2019 Washington Post article, “Students in high-achieving schools are now named an ‘at-risk’ group.” The gist: children who attend high-achieving schools have significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than national averages. Rates of depression are rising dramatically among teens, with the fastest rate of increase occurring among adolescents from families in the highest income group, where pressure to excel is statistically highest. Abundant, consistent data indicate that pushing our kids too hard leads to long term mental health problems and poorer life satisfaction.
The title of Wendy Mogel’s 2011 book, The Blessings of a B Minus: Raising Resilient Teenagers says a lot. She cautions us not to clear every obstacle from our children’s paths, even if we’re just trying to help. As very well-intentioned parents, we want to give our kids every opportunity to succeed. We might need to also give them a few opportunities to fail, or to enjoy spending time somewhere in the middle of the pack, experiencing the process rather than jockeying for first place.
Erik Erikson’s developmental theory defines the main task of adolescence as identity formation. When A’s are the only acceptable grades, varsity is the only acceptable team, and first chair is the only acceptable orchestra position, teens form an identity grounded in achievement. But nobody gets straight A’s in life. And the data are showing us that we need to ease off the gas. Turn off “maximum speed mode,” and help kids choose a bit more carefully when they want to go all out, and when they can slow down, wander about, try some different things just for fun. Explore a few different identities and pick one (or a few) that they want to inhabit on their own terms.
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