Take a step back, experts advise, and there’s one big question we should be asking about our kids: What’s the ultimate goal?
“Our family mantra was always: It’s not about what you earn, it’s about what you learn,” says Denise Clark Pope, a California mom of three and author of “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students. She’s also co-founder of Challenge Success, a Stanford University-affiliated organization that seeks to broaden the cultural definition of success.
Grades and accolades, Pope would argue, aren’t the ultimate prize. “If my kid came home and said, ‘I got all A’s,’ I’d say, ‘That’s great, but what did you learn?’ We not only refused to buy into the system, we also helped them manage the pressure they put on themselves. Because if you love learning and you do it for the right reasons, you’re going to do even better.”
Paula*, an admittedly hard-driving parent whose kids attended Arlington public schools (both now have graduate degrees), laughs when she thinks back on some of the clashes that took place in their house—particularly with one child whose academic proclivities were at odds with her own. “There were times when I was so exasperated with her, when I thought, She’s going to end up working at McDonald’s!” Paula says. “My husband would have to bring me in off the ledge. He’d say, ‘Let her be who she is.’ I’m so Type A, and she’s totally the opposite. She may have met some expectations, but she never did it the way I wanted her to do it.”
Here, Paula pauses and takes a deep breath. Her daughter, having found a career she loves, is now happily teaching at a school in California. She’s recently become engaged and is getting ready to start a family of her own. In other words, she’s just fine.
“I’m at a place now,” Paula says, “where I look back and think, What was I so uptight about?”
Adrienne Wichard-Edds is a journalist and college essay coach based in Arlington. Follow her on Twitter at @WichardEdds.