Literary Insights

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Ned Johnson praises the book for offering a fresh framework with practical advice to help parents raise children focused on what really matters like being happy and successful, rather than seeing those as tradeoffs.
Richard Weissbourd calls the book a “must-read wake-up call to society” that needs to reexamine values and priorities in light of the current mental health crisis.
Kelly Corrigan values every page of the “smart and urgent” book and says Jennifer Wallace offers important insights parents should carefully consider.
Robin Stern says the book thoughtfully guides readers through the stressful terrain of achievement culture and offers a more emotionally intelligent alternative.
Kenneth Ginsburg says the book highlights how toxic achievement culture harms family relationships and children’s mental health by getting in the way of unconditional love.
Lisa Heffernan believes the book has earned Jennifer Wallace’s place as an important voice for modern parents on the critical issues facing children, from new parents to empty nesters.
Aliza Pressman praises how the book emphasizes the important construct of mattering, which is something within parental control that can greatly impact children.
Lenore Skenazy commends how the book reveals the “ultimate truth” that what people really need is to know they matter for who they are, not what they achieve.
The author conducted a national parenting survey in early 2020 about achievement pressure and stress among high-performing students. Over 6,000 parents responded, striking a nerve on the widespread nature of this issue.
For three years, the author interviewed over 200 families across the U.S. from diverse backgrounds about their experiences. Common themes emerged around kids feeling their self-worth is defined by academic and extracurricular performance.
The research highlighted the importance of kids feeling a sense of “mattering” - that they are valued for who they are, not just achievements. Students who felt they mattered thrived despite pressures.
The book aims to help parents and educators address achievement culture in a way that doesn’t excuse potential but doesn’t damage kids’ well-being. It provides personal stories and identifies patterns to suggest alternative approaches centered on mattering.
While not dismissing other issues, the book primarily focuses on families with means to choose schools/activities, to help address privilege and opportunity gaps the choices of these families can propagate.
The book explores the increasing pressure and stress faced by kids to achieve academic excellence and succeed. This pressure comes from schools, parents, and society.
Amanda’s story illustrates the intense pressure she felt growing up in an affluent community to get perfect grades, participate in many extracurriculars, and attend an elite college. This took a toll on her mental health.
Researcher Suniya Luthar was surprised to find that suburban, upper-middle class teens were using more drugs/alcohol and had higher depression rates than inner-city teens. This challenged assumptions that only disadvantaged youth faced such issues.
The book aims to shed light on this “hidden” problem of achievement pressure and mental health issues impacting many kids. It provides practical solutions and perspectives from experts on changes needed in homes, schools, and communities to help kids thrive with less toxic stress.

In summary, it examines the rising achievement pressure facing many kids today, how this is impacting their well-being, and offers potential solutions to address this important issue. Amanda’s story provides an example of living under these intense pressures.

Initially, there was skepticism that wealthy children could struggle with mental health issues like anxiety and depression, but research has shown that intense pressure and competition, not wealth itself, puts kids at risk.
Environments with relentless pressure to excel and constant comparisons threaten well-being. Marginalized kids face additional stressors.
These issues often start in high-pressure, high-achieving high schools and continue into college, where mental health problems are prevalent.
Chronic stress has long-term health risks including heart disease, cancer, and addiction. Some former high-achieving students struggle with addiction into adulthood.
Parents intensify pressure, hoping success ensures a stable future, but expectations have redefined childhood. It’s unclear where “trying to help kids” turns into something harmful.
As a parent, the author has fallen prey to anxiety over finding kids’ passions and setting them up for success, showing how pervasive these issues are even for concerned, well-meaning families.
The passage discusses the excessive pressure that many modern parents feel to make their kids successful, pushing them to the front of the pack. This anxiety has taken root particularly in communities with college-educated professionals.
This pressure can be dehumanizing for students and force them to take on fake personalities and feign passions to appeal to colleges. It undermines developing a true sense of identity.
Both students and parents feel trapped by competitive societal norms. Parents are pitted against each other and feel they must provide endless opportunities to keep up.
While parents ultimately want happy, fulfilling lives for their kids, there is no “magic button” and success is understood as a high-stakes race. Juggling demands strains even solid marriages.
Pressure comes from many sources - parents, coaches, teachers, peers, and wider consumer culture. Achievement creep affects everything from elementary school honors to competitive youth sports. Busy schedules leave no downtime.
This culture teaches kids that only high achievers matter, undermining self-worth and setting students up for chronic self-doubt and burnout from unrealistic expectations. Both students and parents have sought therapy due to pressures.
The woman, Catherine, met with the author to discuss issues raised in a parenting survey she had taken.
Catherine felt immense pressure to ensure her son lived up to his academic potential, as he was identified as gifted from a young age. As he got older, she became hyper-focused on his performance and college admissions.
She micromanaged his schedule, activities, and homework to reduce her own anxiety about his future success. However, this took a toll on her son’s mental health, and he had a breakdown in his senior year of high school.
Though he eventually graduated college, their relationship was damaged. Catherine regrets letting her own anxiety control her parenting and not paying enough attention to her son’s well-being.
She warns the author not to lose sight of being a supportive parent due to worries about academic performance and college admissions. Catherine feels she failed as a parent by pushing too hard due to pressures she felt.
Many families feel intense anxiety and pressure around college admissions, starting from a very young age. Parents try to give their children every advantage by hiring tutors, enrolling them in extracurricular activities, etc.
This stress is not just for elite colleges - it also applies to state schools due to increased competition and high college costs. Some families start as early as preschool to strategize their child’s academic path.
The root cause of this pressure is humans’ innate drive for status and social hierarchy. Achieving high status through education and career success is seen as important for reproductive success and ensuring opportunities for one’s children.
Many parents organize their relationships and parenting around maximizing their child’s achievements to secure a good college and life outcomes. Achievement is seen as a “life raft” in an unpredictable future.
Mothers in particular take on the bulk of the “status safeguarding” work - the cognitive and emotional labor of strategizing each child’s unique path to success and social standing. This invisible labor starts from a very early age.
The article discusses how perceived scarcity affects parenting behavior. When resources feel scarce or uncertain, parents adopt a “scarcity mindset” focusing obsessively on what’s lacking.
It highlights studies showing declining social mobility and earnings for younger generations, fueling parental anxiety. Two-thirds of Americans no longer believe steady generational improvement is guaranteed.
Economic trends influence parenting. As returns to education increased since the 1970s, American parents doubled time spent on children, especially academics. Countries with more equality tend toward relaxed “permissive” parenting.
Professor Matthias Doepke noticed his own intense parenting differed from his relaxed upbringing. Research with Fabrizio Zilibotti linked parenting styles to a country’s inequality, mobility and returns to education. More unequal societies saw tighter “authoritarian” or intensive “authoritative” parenting focus on success.
Perceived resource scarcity and economic incentives trigger protective instincts, influencing modern intense involvement in children’s activities and academics compared to past generations.
Researchers Doepke and Zilibotti found that intensive “authoritative” parenting styles increased the most among affluent, well-educated parents. They hypothesized this was because wealthier families had more means to parent intensively through activities/tutors, and fell further socially if their child’s status declined.
In contrast to his own free childhood, Doepke now takes a more involved approach due to rising inequality. Parents must weave “individual safety nets” without guaranteed social supports like in countries with smaller wealth gaps.
Building these safety nets is exhausting and involves much work scheduling activities. Parents feel trapped between wanting happy childhoods and preparing kids for competition amid inequality. Minority families feel even more pressure due to racial wealth disparities.
The college admissions process highlights how status and scarce opportunities collide. With top schools enrolling set numbers, valedictorians alone could fill classes twice over. Scarcity serves as a proxy for desirability, so schools reject more to raise their status despite demand. Intensive parenting aims to gain kids entry to these narrow pathways to status.
College admissions have become increasingly competitive in recent years, with acceptance rates at top universities declining dramatically from 16-35% a generation ago to as low as 3% now. This has created intense pressure on students to build impressive resumes from a young age.
Some parents are obsessed with their children getting into ultra-selective colleges like Ivy League schools for status purposes. This leads them to push their kids extremely hard and prioritize achievements and credentials over developing as good, ethical people.
Excessive focus on achievements and status can take a psychological toll on children. They feel valued more for their external accomplishments than their intrinsic worth.
Nowadays, children face near-constant evaluations, rankings and sorting from a young age through standardized tests, class rankings, social media metrics, etc. The standards for what counts as “exceptional” keep rising, making many kids feel not good enough.
This tyranny of metrics and achievements can overwhelm kids’ identities and cause mental health issues like anxiety. While competition and evaluation aren’t new, the pressure feels more extreme and inescapable in today’s world.
Researchers have found a striking rise in perfectionism and unrealistic expectations among young people, driven by hypercompetitive pressures from society and parents.
When kids internalize too-high expectations from parents, they come to see their self-worth and ability to earn love as contingent on achievements and metrics like grades rather than their inherent value. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and a crisis of identity.
The concept of “mattering” - feeling valued, seen, and that you add value to others’ lives - is critical for well-being and self-esteem in kids and teens. When kids don’t feel they matter unconditionally, they may act out or develop issues to gain attention.
Researchers identify several key components to feeling like you matter, including feeling noticed, important, missed when absent, and recognized for your unique self rather than achievements.
While parents deeply love their children, kids can perceive love as conditional on achievements if parental praise and affection are tied too strongly to metrics. This undermines their sense of unconditional worth and mattering.

So in summary, the article discusses how rising perfectionism and conditional love/worth can threaten kids’ mental health by weakening their feeling that they simply and inherently matter, regardless of achievements. Developing mattering is important for well-being.

The article discusses how parental pressure on children to achieve academically or through extracurricular activities can make children feel that their worth and love from parents is conditional on their success.
A student survey found that over 70% of students felt their parents valued and appreciated them more when they were successful, and over 50% felt their parents loved them more during times of success.
The pressure and implicit messages from parents that their love is conditional can lead children to develop a “false self” where they pretend to be who they think their parents want them to be in order to feel worthy of love.
Over time, living as a “false self” can cause psychological harm, negative health outcomes, and problems forming a stable identity. The article provides an example of a woman who felt she had to become the “trophy child” her parents wanted to feel loved.
The key message is that parental pressure and implying conditional love based on achievement can undermine children’s mental health and sense of self-worth.
The passage discusses the difference between “good warmth” and “bad warmth” in parenting. Good warmth involves unconditional love, acceptance, and really getting to know a child. Bad warmth can seem controlling and conditional on a child’s behavior or accomplishments.
Bad warmth may involve overinvolvement in a child’s life, doing things for them that they can do themselves, or excessive praise to get them to conform to expectations. It can be a quick fix but not beneficial long-term.
When a child is underperforming, it’s better to listen and understand the root causes rather than get upset. Criticism and rejection are “deadly” to the parent-child relationship, while warmth and connection are important.
The story is told of a mother, Leigh, who struggled with her son’s inconsistent grades. Through therapy, she learned most of their conversations had an agenda of getting him to do something he didn’t want. The therapist advised making home a warm, recovery place for high-achieving kids.
Mattering to children still means setting standards, but doing so in a warm, supportive way that shows investment in their success and well-being. Good warmth is important for children’s development and the parent-child relationship.
Leigh was stressed about her son Jake’s grades and nagging him about his homework. His therapist suggested she focus on his work habits rather than grades.
Leigh and Jake made an agreement - if he did homework right after school without distractions, she would stop nagging. They tried this for a few weeks.
Leigh also worked on having more positive interactions with Jake daily, like going for walks together. This improved their emotional relationship.
When Leigh relaxed her focus on grades and maintained warmth, Jake took more responsibility for his schoolwork and his grades improved.
Maintaining a positive parent-child relationship is important for the child’s mental health and sense of self-worth. Close relationships provide strength and resilience.
The goal as parents should be seeing and loving children for who they are, not just focusing on achievements. Children need to know they are enough as they are.

So in summary, Leigh learned to focus less on grades and more on maintaining warmth and positivity in her relationship with Jake through agreeements, quality time together, and showing unconditional love and acceptance. This improved Jake’s school performance and their overall relationship.

The passage describes a mother, Genevieve Eason, who moved to the affluent suburban town of Wilton, Connecticut with her husband and children. She gave up her ambition of working in wildlife conservation to be a stay-at-home mom, which she poured herself into fully by cooking, keeping a clean home, and driving her kids to all their activities. However, over time the demands took a toll and she started feeling overwhelmed and lost her sense of identity beyond just being a mother.

A key moment was when one of her sons had a panic attack at school, making Genevieve realize how much pressure she was putting on her children to succeed. This was a tipping point that led her to re-evaluate her priorities and choose to reclaim some time and purpose for herself outside of just parenting. She started volunteering at a wildlife refuge and shifting to less intensive extracurricular activities for her kids to relieve some of the pressure. This helped her find a better balance between being a devoted mom and having her own identity.

This summary captures the key points:

Intensive parenting has become the norm among affluent white families, requiring immense sacrifice of parents’ time, careers, and relationships to focus primarily on children’s needs and activities.
Mothers in particular feel this pressure, even working mothers who spend more time on childcare than stay-at-home moms did in the 1970s. College-educated mothers spend the most hours on children’s activities.
Fathers are also adopting intensive parenting styles more, with the time they spend on childcare almost tripling since the 1970s. However, they are still 30 years behind women in figuring it out.
Same-sex couples also struggle with unequal division of labor and parenting responsibilities after having children, with one partner often taking on the majority (80%) of household and childcare duties.

So in summary, it outlines how intensive parenting has become the norm but takes a significant toll, especially on mothers, and how both fathers and same-sex couples are also navigating these changing parenting expectations and dynamics.

The passage discusses the challenges of modern parenting, particularly for mothers. It notes how social networks that once supported parents, like extended family, have eroded as people move more for jobs. This leaves parents isolated in “one-person villages” where they must do everything themselves, which takes a huge toll.

Several mothers interviewed share the lengths they go to for their children, with negative impacts on their physical and mental health. Intensive parenting is associated with higher stress, burnout, anxiety and depression. Mothers of middle-school aged children reported the highest levels of stress as kids pull away while pressures increase.

The story then focuses on Genevieve, whose daughter Savannah had a mental health crisis from academics pressure. Genevieve found support from another mother, Vanessa, whose daughter also struggled. They realized issues were common locally but unspoken. Genevieve worked to create support networks and end the “facade” of perfection in their community.

It concludes by noting the expectations of independence and not appearing dependent, even in small ways, leaves parents isolated in their own struggles. This isolation is even harder for parents of color. Overall it examines the toll of modern parenting with lack of support systems.

The passage describes the pressures and expectations faced by affluent and highly educated mothers to be perfect - working full-time, being very involved parents, maintaining their physical appearance, and giving their children opportunities and success.
This leads to feelings of isolation, competitiveness, and not feeling good enough compared to stay-at-home mothers or those who appear to manage it all with ease.
The drive for perfection stems from a “meritocratic mentality” where success and resources are supposed to protect against distress but instead add more pressure.
While mothers dedicate immense time, energy and resources to their children, research finds this “intensive parenting” style may actually harm children’s mental health and increase anxiety, depression and feelings of not mattering.
Kids need emotionally available parents who are present, set healthy boundaries, and consistently convey the child’s inherent worth rather than focusing so much on achievements and activities.
An environment of extreme self-sacrifice and exhaustion in parents can damage children’s well-being rather than enhance it.
Being a parent is like walking a tightrope - you need to strike a balance between supporting your child and respecting their autonomy.
To do this well, parents need emotional resources and mental calmness, which comes from feeling supported themselves.
Research shows that a child’s resilience depends greatly on the primary caregiver’s (usually the mother’s) own resilience and mental health.
Mothers are often resistant to prioritizing their own needs, but it’s important for their kids’ sake. As Luthar says, “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your kids.”
Authentic, supportive relationships buffer stress and boost mental health. Friendships in particular lower anxiety and cortisol levels.
Intentional, close friendships through programs like Authentic Connections Groups have shown significant benefits for mothers’ well-being and ability to parent.
It’s important for mothers to make time for friendships by putting them on the calendar, just like family activities, even with busy schedules. Maintaining friendships in this deliberate way provides emotional support for parents and families.
Many mothers juggle busy lives with work, commuting, and family responsibilities, leaving little time for self-care or socializing. Intentional friendships are important for buffering stress.
One mother prioritizes having dinner with friends once a month, which rejuvenates her and allows her to parent from a place of calmness and positivity.
“Riding shotgun” on a child’s emotions can be draining. It’s better to act as a “rock” by being mindful and understanding when kids are struggling, rather than internalizing their problems.
Asking for support from friends is critical, but society discourages vulnerability. Having a regular “go-to committee” of friends to share struggles and celebrate wins with provides accountability and normalization of asking for help.
Two mothers strengthened their friendship and parenting by joining a nonprofit focused on youth well-being. It validated concerns and provided community, reducing isolation and judgment.
Facing high achievement pressure, one student considered overloading on AP classes to boost college admissions. Grind culture creates anxiety by implicitly comparing extra-curricular commitments.
Andrew, a high school student from Mercer Island, Washington, wanted to take a very busy course schedule the following year including doubling up on AP science classes.
His mother Jane was hesitant, feeling it was too intense a schedule with little downtime. She wanted to protect his mental health.
Andrew argued he needed the rigorous schedule to get into top colleges, but Jane held firm in her decision not to allow doubling up on sciences.
Mercer Island is an affluent community near Seattle where residents feel pressure to succeed and maintain a high standard of living. This intensifies pressure on students.
Jane felt it was her responsibility as a parent to set healthy boundaries and pull Andrew back if he seemed at risk of being overwhelmed. Her goal was to take “the kettle off the heat” and allow him downtime outside of school pressures.
In affluent communities, success is narrowly defined which increases competition and anxiety. Parents need to actively protect their children’s well-being and teach balanced approaches to success.
The article discusses pressure faced by high-achieving students, especially in affluent communities like Mercer Island, Washington. Students feel intense pressure to get good grades, attend prestigious colleges, and maintain extracurricular activities.
This culture of high-achievement and constantly striving to do more and improve can lead to anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and a lack of balance in students’ lives. They feel their future is entirely in their own hands based on their academic performance.
The “growth mindset” approach originally developed by Carol Dweck is meant to help underachieving students, but it can backfire for overachieving students if they feel they must constantly improve or else view themselves as a failure.
The article gives the example of a student named Maggie who had a breakdown before returning to her boarding school due to the social and academic pressure. Her mother found her an “emergency exit” at a wilderness school in Maine to relieve the toxic environment.
Pursuing materialism and status through high-achievement can leave students exhausted and unmoored by taking away time from other important areas of life. Communities aim to address these issues through student surveys and bringing in researchers to assess mental health risks.
Pursuing materialistic goals like wealth, status and possessions can be a way for people to try to fill a void from lack of strong social connections and find a sense of belonging. However, this approach often backfires and undermines relationships.
Studies by psychologist Tim Kasser have found that people who prioritize materialistic goals over intrinsic goals like relationships and community tend to be less happy and more prone to mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Our core values can be divided into extrinsic goals that focus on external achievement/approval, and intrinsic goals centered on relationships and self/community growth. Pursuing intrinsic goals is linked to greater well-being.
Parents who model that wealth, status and prestige are most important can influence children to adopt more materialistic values. Regular experiences focusing on intrinsic values like nature and community can help counterbalance this.
Getting distracted by extrinsic goals like possessions can take away time and attention from nurturing intrinsic relationships and values. Finding balance is important for well-being.
Graduation and retention rates make up 22% of college ranking criteria, with private universities typically having higher rates than public universities. However, graduation rates often depend more on student backgrounds than education quality. Schools admitting wealthier students tend to have higher rates.
Some colleges manipulate data submitted to rankings reports, undermining the credibility of rankings. Columbia University exaggerated statistics and was severely downgraded as a result.
Studies found little evidence that attending a highly selective or expensive private college leads to better career outcomes or life satisfaction than large public universities. One exception is lower-income students at selective schools who tended to earn higher incomes.
A major 2014 Gallup/Purdue study of over 30,000 college grads found the prestige of their college mattered little for later well-being and work engagement. More impactful were engaging experiences like mentor relationships, internships, multi-semester projects, and extracurricular activities.
Parent and student conversations should focus less on prestige and more on intrinsic goals like growth. Future success correlates more with feeling valued on campus than college rankings. Emphasizing relationships and purposeful work is more important than the name on one’s diploma.
Tim Kasser suggests that parents have open conversations about values with their kids regularly, through brief daily discussions rather than one long talk. When kids want material goods, ask what it will really get them and if it’s truly needed.
The author found these values talks with her kids to be very important. It pushed her to define what success means to her.
She realized focusing only on grades and outcomes wasn’t healthy. Instead, she taught her kids about feeling authentic, intrinsic pride in their work rather than chasing praise or rewards. This helped her son feel proud of doing good work rather than just aiming for the best grade.
Experts say teens need 8-10 hours of sleep daily but less than 25% get enough. Insisting kids rest properly communicates their well-being matters. Rest is important for mental health and preventing unhealthy coping strategies like substance use.
The story about Elizabeth illustrates how examining personal values helped her realize a balanced life, focusing on family, friends, community over work excellence, was most important for defining success. This led her to turn down a promotion.
Students at high-performing competitive schools often feel immense pressure to compete with their classmates and distinguish themselves through top academic performance and extracurricular activities.
This unspoken competition can get in the way of friendships and make students feel isolated. It also leads them to harshly judge any performance that is less than perfect.
Research shows the “big-fish-little-pond effect”, where students have higher confidence at less competitive schools where they stand out, compared to top schools where many students are high-achieving.
The intense competition pits students against each other and makes it difficult for them to feel a sense of self-worth beyond their performance and achievements. Students feel they must break their necks to distinguish themselves within a narrow band of excellence.
While competition has always existed, parents note it seems more heightened now and success at a young age holds more weight for college admissions and career prospects. This further fuels students’ anxiety about measuring up.

The passage discusses how hyper-competitive school environments can negatively impact students’ friendships and mental health. It shares stories of students feeling they must constantly outperform others to avoid failure. This toxic competition inhibits trust between peers and can lead to sabotage or withholding help. The passage then talks about how important feeling connected to friends is for adolescent well-being and development. Close friendships provide a sense of belonging and mattering that protects against anxiety, depression and other issues. However, in highly competitive schools, friendships may become transactional rather than supportive. The passage argues that parents should emphasize the importance of interdependence over independence to their children - teaching them to rely on and support friends in a healthy way. This can help combat the zero-sum mindset that competition between peers is a necessity. Overall, it examines the social and psychological costs of extreme competition in school and promotes cultivating quality friendships instead.

Here is a summary of the key points about social comparisons from the passage:

Social comparison is a natural human tendency, but left unchecked it can make people feel lonely and diminish their self-worth. Comparing oneself to others often leads to envy.
Envy is difficult to openly acknowledge due to feelings of shame. This makes people less willing to seek help from others when experiencing envy.
Competition among students, especially in high-performing schools, can fracture friendships and relationships if not addressed appropriately.
The journalism teacher, Ms. Taylor, openly discusses the competitive dynamics and feelings like envy that students may experience in her class. She emphasizes collective purpose over individual awards.
Ms. Taylor implements routines like “share the love” where students praise each other to boost moods and foster connections. She encourages seeing value in small contributions.
This approach helped the three main students change their mindsets from competition to collaboration and support. They learned to motivate each other and ask for help without feeling inadequate.
The deliberate culture at Archer helps balance ambition with joy and connectivity. Teachers model collaboration and make the competitive aspects visible and supportive.

So in summary, the passage discusses how social comparisons can be addressed constructively in educational settings through open communication, emphasis on collaboration over competition, and building a positive, supportive community.

-Students at competitive high schools and magnet schools feel immense pressure to prove themselves through achievements and talents to feel worthy. Asking for help is seen as a weakness.

-Opening up to feedback and showing vulnerability with friends can build trust and improve relationships. It also makes students feel less anxious about their abilities.

-Competition with peers, especially close friends, can breed insecurity, anxiety and damage relationships. Parents need to help students identify and process uncomfortable emotions arising from social comparisons.

-Parental modeling of vulnerability is important. Sharing one’s own setbacks and experiences seeking help teaches kids it’s normal and builds confidence.

-Competitive parenting styles that push kids to outperform others can backfire by straining friendships. Parents should focus on broader life lessons like managing difficult feelings in a healthy way.

-Students want parents to understand the academic and social pressures they face, help navigate friend drama, and provide support if they are struggling with depression or low self-worth from constant comparisons.

This passage describes some of the negative effects of extremely competitive school environments and an overemphasis on grades and achievements. It discusses how this can be toxic particularly for marginalized students who may face discrimination or feel pressure to disprove stereotypes. Several students of color and LGBTQ students shared experiences of microaggressions, discrimination, and feelings of not truly belonging or being valued for their full selves. The competitive focus on achievements alone can fuel a scarcity mindset and dehumanizing attitudes. While students want to succeed, these types of competitive pressures took a mental and emotional toll and made the school environment feel isolating or toxic for students outside the main identity norms. Overall, it portrays how competition without care for others’ humanity can undermine students’ sense of mattering or feeling valued in their school communities.

Vaughan, Chloe and their friend were all applying for the top editor position at their school paper. Vaughan led another section of the paper while their friend supported them in applying for the top spot.
While waiting to hear who got the position, Vaughan and Chloe talked frequently and supported each other. This helped break any tension between them over the competition.
Unlike on their club volleyball team where players competing for playing time barely spoke, Vaughan and Chloe leaned on each other for support while awaiting the decision. Their friendship helped them cope with the stress and uncertainty of the competitive situation.
Reframing competition in a way that acknowledges others can help your development, rather than seeing it as “zero-sum” where someone must lose for you to win, can make competition a mutually beneficial experience rather than damaging to relationships.

So in summary, talking through the situation with her friend Chloe helped Vaughan deal with the competitive stress in a healthier way rather than allowing it to damage their friendship.

Vaughan receives an email notifying her that she has been selected as the new editor-in-chief of her school newspaper. She tells her friends Thea and Chloe, who send very supportive messages saying how deserving Vaughan is without any hint of jealousy. Though Chloe admits it was hard not to get the top position, she and Thea understand they are part of a team and community. They were each given other prominent roles on the paper. Their teacher Ms. Taylor had intentionally taught them lessons about being part of something bigger and how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This helped them manage their disappointment in a positive way by focusing on the strengths each will bring to making the paper the best it can be.

Many students focus excessively on padding their resumes for college applications through extracurricular activities and community service, but don’t genuinely engage or take real action on important issues.
Overscheduling kids’ lives and obsessively curating their resumes for college is backfiring and leaving them stressed, anxious, and without a sense of purpose.
Children need help connecting to something bigger than themselves through service and responsibility to others. Having real responsibilities like chores can ground them and take their focus off just themselves.
The author argues parents should challenge kids to care about others and their community, not just perfect their individual accomplishments and resumes. Finding purpose through service to others is important for healthy development and meaning in life.
A long-term Harvard study found that teens who had chores and a strong work ethic went on to have happier and more successful lives as adults, with warmer relationships, greater job satisfaction, etc. Doing chores helps teach responsibility and work ethic.
Chores also help children feel depended on and that they contribute value to their family/community, which bolsters their sense of self-worth. One mother emphasized family contribution rather than just chores to foster this.
Volunteering and finding ways to help others can also help teens develop purpose and importance. A teen started a student support group to help classmates with mental health issues. Mandatory volunteering helped some children realize their interests and potential careers.
However, some argue the education system over-emphasizes achievements and metrics without fostering meaning or purpose. A school is trying to address this by engaging students with real-world problems through community partnerships. The goal is to reverse-engineer education for outcomes like meaning, not just achievement.
The passage discusses ways that schools and parents can help foster a sense of purpose and compassion in children.
At Hewitt Elementary in New York, first graders investigated accessibility of local playgrounds and advocated for improvements in a letter to the park conservancy. This project gave students a sense that their work mattered.
The author’s daughter Charlotte showed interest in climate change. The family encouraged her to present ideas for reducing meat consumption at school, leading to Meatless Mondays.
A neighbor of Marjie in Maine felt lonely. She encouraged her son Barrett to spend time with the man, like mowing his lawn. This taught Barrett the value of helping others.
At Saint Ignatius High School, daily reflections discuss community needs to foster compassion. A service class teaches the importance of helping others and shifting focus from one’s own experience to others’ needs. Students do meaningful service projects in the community.
The passage emphasizes sparking children’s interests, encouraging civic action, teaching responsibility to community, and making service about meaningful connection rather than a task. The goal is to help children develop purpose and compassion for others.
Volunteering is important for building connections with others and reducing self-centeredness. At St. Ignatius school, volunteering is incorporated into the school day to make it easier for students to participate.
Helping others through volunteering and service can help adolescents find their sense of purpose. It’s important to listen to their interests, ask guiding questions, and encourage a feeling of responsibility and agency in contributing to others.
Making deep connections with people during service activities can boost mental health and well-being. One student found her “tribe” through a church volunteer trip that shifted her values away from competition.
Having a sense of purpose can motivate students to work hard and challenge themselves, even when facing setbacks. One student became focused on a career in medicine through his volunteer experiences, and was able to overcome challenges in math through hard work toward his goals.
Living a life of purpose helps build resilience and capacity to handle failure, seeing oneself as valuable beyond any one failure due to one’s contribution to something greater. It gives a long-term perspective to sustain motivation.
The passage discusses the idea that focusing on our larger purpose and adding value to others can shift our mindset from one of fear and scarcity to one of abundance. Practicing generosity requires and reinforces perceiving the world as abundant.
It then tells the story of Adam, a student with dyslexia who overcame challenges to get into UCLA pre-med. He volunteered in emergency response and aimed to improve support for mental health crises. His purpose went beyond himself.
The author’s conversations with Adam changed how she parents. She focuses on discussing community issues and guarding kids’ time for volunteering, not just academics. Her kids internalized mattering and pass it on.
At her birthday, friends gave toasts about how she mattered to them based on her qualities like being a loyal friend. Her kids spoke about how she makes them feel valued and taught them to add value to others.
Mattering shifts mindsets from scarcity to abundance by knowing our inherent worth isn’t based on performance but who we are. It boosts feelings of self-worth and connection to others.
Mattering refers to feeling valued and important to others. It provides a sense of abundance and reminds us that there is enough good in the world for everyone.
When kids feel they matter to family, friends, and other adults, they are more likely to express how others matter to them too. They will focus on how influential others have been in supporting them.
Mattering works in a virtuous cycle - feeling valued by others allows you to share that feeling by highlighting how others add value to your life.
To truly make kids feel they matter, parents should not try to do it alone but build a network of caring adults like extended family, teachers, coaches. This exposes kids to more enriching influences and reinforces their sense of self-worth.
Trusted adult networks are protective for kids and prevent risky behavior as kids don’t want to disappoint caring role models. They also take pressure off parents.
Stories provided examples of adolescents and adults feeling valued through meaningful roles and personal interest shown by others like business owners, teachers, coaches and extended family members.
Building “councils” of supportive adults both inside and outside the family intentionally expands kids’ circle of people who make them feel important.

The passage discusses a mother’s son who was feeling disconnected from school during the pandemic due to masking and distancing requirements. When the mother asked what was bothering him, he said he didn’t feel close to any of his teachers.

The boy and his mother came up with a plan for him to show his teachers how much they mattered to him. He would pay attention in class, thank the teachers as he left, and express his appreciation. This made the boy feel like he mattered to his teachers, and the teachers responded positively as well. Showing appreciation in this way kicked off a positive cycle where the boy no longer dreaded school. The plan helped strengthen the boy’s connection to his teachers and school community.

Here are the key points from the passage:

A student named Johnny was having a tough time socially in high school and didn’t feel strongly connected to his friends. He felt a low level of mattering.
When the school musical was short an important role, Johnny’s friends begged him to join and said they couldn’t do the play without him.
Johnny’s mother encouraged him to do the play even though it wouldn’t leave much time for schoolwork, knowing it would help him feel connected and valued.
Since joining the musical, Johnny has become a valued member of the group. He helps his castmates and they make him feel like his presence was important to the success of the play.
The mother of a 12-year-old boy felt he thought he mattered too much and was entitled. She experimented giving him real responsibilities like meal planning and shopping, and it helped reduce his self-focus and increased his focus on others.
One mother’s son felt left out when his two best friends got serious girlfriends. Suggesting he work at summer camp helped lift his mood as that was a place he felt he mattered.
The author is grateful to many people who helped shape her understanding of mattering and helped make her book a reality, including psychologists who contributed research, editors who helped refine the book, friends who provided feedback, and family for their support.
She specifically thanks psychologists who researched mattering and their related topics like perfectionism. Their work informed her book and changed her perspective.
The author is grateful to her agent, publisher, and publicity team for their work in bringing the book to publication.
She thanks the students, parents, teachers and others who shared their stories, as their honesty impacted her work and will likely impact others.
Friends provided invaluable feedback and support throughout the writing process.
Family, including parents, siblings, and in-laws, gave ongoing encouragement and served as role models.
The author expresses deep gratitude to her children for teaching her about motherhood and for their patience during the writing process.

So in summary, the author acknowledges the many individuals from her professional and personal life who contributed their expertise, feedback, encouragement and support in helping her craft and publish the book.

The author advocates for parents to prioritize their own well-being so they can better support their children. This includes reaching out to friends for support and making self-care a priority.
Home should be a “mattering haven” where children feel unconditionally accepted and loved, not defined by their achievements. Lead with open-ended questions rather than focusing on performance.
Normalize difficult feelings like envy by explaining they are natural but how we respond matters. Foster healthy competition, not unhealthy comparison.
Help children keep achievement in perspective by not overemphasizing a single grade or test. Model self-compassion for mistakes.
Teach skills of healthy interdependence rather than independence. Do chores together to foster community.
Broaden children’s circle of concern to care about others beyond their closest circles. Volunteering can help with this.
Nurture parent-teacher relationships and see teachers as partners in supporting children. Foster gratitude by noticing how others positively impact their lives.
The goal is to prioritize well-being, mattering, balance, perspective and healthy relationships over sheer performance and achievement from a young age.
Experts recommend employing a “mattering framework” to teach students, teachers and community members how to make everyone feel valued and able to contribute.
Prioritize the mental health of teachers, staff and students through assessments and support programs.
Get objective data on a school’s mental health and well-being through surveys of all stakeholders.
Involve all groups in examining a school’s culture from different perspectives and making changes.
Conduct an inventory of what values a school communicates implicitly and explicitly.
Ensure every student has at least one trusted adult they feel values them.
Engage in diversity and inclusion work so all students feel they matter.
Provide opportunities for students to solve real-world problems and contribute to the community.
Rethink traditions that promote unhealthy competition and showcase alternative paths to success.
Colleges could adopt lottery admissions to reduce achievement pressure and acknowledge the role of luck.

The advice aims to create a more balanced environment in schools where all students feel their well-being and unique contributions are valued, not just academic achievements. The focus is on mental health, diversity, real-world learning and alternative narratives of success.

Here is a summary of the key points from the recommended resources:

The resources are recommended for those who want to dive deeper into topics raised in the book, such as achievement culture, mattering, marginalized students, social media, and sports.
Books are recommended on topics like the pressure students face, overparenting, broadening definitions of success, fostering relationships, and ensuring all students feel they matter.
Films like “Chasing Childhood” and “Race to Nowhere” examine pressure on students.
Sample discussion questions are provided to facilitate book clubs or conversations. Questions address surprise at research findings, the impacts of scarcity mindsets and societal messages, shifting conversations on college and success, encouraging interdependence not just competition, and fostering purpose and mattering.
The resources provide a range of reading and film options to better understand issues faced by students today and ways to cultivate resilience, relationships, purpose and a sense that all students truly matter. The discussion questions can prompt reflection on these topics in one’s own community and parenting.

The passage discusses how parents can communicate to children’s friends and teachers that they matter. It suggests letting children’s friends and teachers know they are valued through small gestures like sending a note, asking about their interests, or offering support.

It then reflects on what the world would be like if each person adopted a mission to make everyone they meet feel like they matter. It implies the world would feel more caring, supportive and less lonely if we all consciously worked to make others feel important and appreciated through our words and actions. Overall, the passage promotes cultivating a sense of “mattering” in others as a way to positively impact individuals and create a more compassionate society.

Felicity Huffman detailed how her daughter Sophia reacted emotionally to Huffman’s involvement in the 2019 college admissions scandal. According to reports, Sophia said “Why didn’t you believe in me? Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?” referring to the SAT cheating.
The passage discusses how parental criticism and pressure can negatively impact children’s feelings of mattering and self-worth. Research suggests perceived parental criticism is linked to issues like perfectionism and lower life satisfaction in affluent youth. Positive parenting with a focus on acceptance is recommended to avoid setting children up for negative outcomes.
The concept of “mattering” and feeling significant to others, especially parents, is important for well-being and mental health according to social psychology research. Teenagers may be particularly impacted by whether they feel their parents are proud of them for who they are intrinsically.
Parenting styles that rely on “conditional regard,” making a child’s worth dependent on certain achievements or behaviors, can damage self-esteem and motivation over time according to studies cited. An unconditionally supportive approach is preferable for healthy development.

Here is a summary of the key points from re Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 133–40:

The authors argue that overparenting and helicopter parenting are causing kids to be disconnected from their peers and unhappy. Kids have less autonomy and are not learning important life skills from managing challenges on their own.
Parents are so focused on their children’s outcomes and success that they take over activities and responsibilities that kids could and should be doing themselves. This prevents kids from building resilience and problem-solving abilities.
Kids with very controlling parents become too dependent on their parents for approval and lack confidence in their own abilities. They are also disconnected from their peers as parents overschedule their lives and do not allow for free play.
The constant busyness and overscheduling of kids’ lives leaves no space for solitude, creative play, or self-directed activities. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and lack of life skills as kids grow up.
The authors recommend that parents back off, give kids more autonomy over their schedules and activities, and not interfere as much in their lives. Kids need unstructured time and space to develop independence and life skills.

Here is a summary of the notes referenced in the text:

Several sources are cited to support claims about the concentration of wealth and high-income communities in certain zip codes in the U.S.
One source references a study about the pressure felt by children of high-income families to live up to expectations.
Sources provide data on the mental health impacts of intense academic pressure on students, such as anxiety, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness.
References examine the concept of “study addiction” and its relationship to work addiction.
Sources discuss how a focus on materialism and extrinsic goals can negatively impact well-being.
References analyze the effects of comparing oneself to others more successful and the role of envy.
Studies look at the mental health impacts of loneliness and feeling a lack of belonging, especially for teenagers.
Sources consider the role of peer relationships and mattering to others for adolescent development and self-esteem.

In summary, the notes provide background information and research to support claims made about academic and social pressures on high-achieving youth, and the potential psychological effects. Studies examine topics like perfectionism, comparison to others, well-being, and mental health.

Here is a summary of the article “Close Friendship Strength and Broader Peer Group Desirability as Differential Predictors of Adult Mental Health,” published in Child Development in 2017:

The article examines how close friendships and peer group acceptance during adolescence relate to mental health outcomes in adulthood.
It analyzed data from a longitudinal study that followed participants from ages 13-32.
It found that having stronger close friendships during adolescence predicted better mental health and well-being in adulthood, including less depression and anxiety.
However, how desirable or acceptable the individual was to their broader peer group did not have as strong of a predictive relationship to later mental health.
Close friendships may be more impactful for socioemotional development and resilience compared to broader peer group status.
The formation of close, supportive friendships during the vulnerable period of adolescence can have protective effects that last into adulthood in terms of mental health and adjustment.

In summary, the study found that close friendship strength during adolescence was a stronger predictor of positive mental health outcomes in adulthood compared to an individual’s desirability within their broader peer group. Close friendships may buffer stress and promote resilience over the long-term.

#book-summary

Never Enough When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It - Jennifer Breheny Wallace