Jenna Ashkenazi
It is a parent’s job to set up their children for a successful future. Often, this endeavor can lead to those children feeling intense pressure. They internalize the need to get the highest grades, to excel at sports, and to have the most and best-looking extracurriculars well before they can even understand what competition actually is, or why their parents feel it is necessary.
It is easy to see why parents might feel they must push their children considering the current reality of rising costs for tuition (let’s make this worth it!) and limited job opportunities, making hopes for even finding a job in the future uncertain. So, the parents inadvertently create unreasonably high levels of competition between children and their classmates. But children should not be focused only on the future, and only on being the best. There is room for excelling and also room for simply being a kid. And it is up to the parents to make sure that their children understand that.
A Healthy Balance
This is not to say that a little competition is bad, or unhealthy. According to With You Allied Help (an allied health practice – meaning it is a clinical office or business where trained health professionals provide diagnostic, rehab, and preventative care – in Australia), there are many benefits to competition. These include, but are not limited to, motivating improvement in kids, building resilience, promoting goal setting, and encouraging teamwork and cooperation. When done right, competition can have tremendous positive effects on children’s development. The issue regarding competition arises when it becomes more pressure than fun.
Problems arise when competition is over-emphasized, is constant, or is linked too closely to a child’s self-worth. In cases like this, competition can lead to anxiety, low self-esteem, and a reduction in motivation. Unfortunately, we are seeing more of the latter than the former. Kids get compared to their siblings or classmates, creating a breeding ground for resentment and toxic behavior. Environments where these things happen can harm children’s mental health, diminish motivation, and lead to behaviors like cheating, lying, or quitting entirely. Children may also carry the experiences they suffered in highly competitive environments into adulthood, developing beliefs that self-worth is only earned through achievement
The Challenge of Competition
Actually, we are hardwired to compete. Christina Lee, MD, is a psychiatrist and Regional Medical Director for Mental Health at Kaiser Permanente in Baltimore, Maryland. According to Dr. Lee, “Competition can be a very positive drive to motivate you to do better and to learn to improve your performance. But the problem is in children who have underdeveloped brains and the inability to necessarily temper [emotions], impulsive competitiveness can spiral into the negative aspects like self-criticism.”
Excessive competition can lead children (and adults!) to burn out and potentially to lie about accomplishments in order to seem accomplished. “Excessive pressure [and unhealthy competitiveness] raises the risk for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and sleep issues,” says Dr. Lee. “It can sometimes even lead to substance misuse in adolescence.” And let’s look at the impact social media has on competitiveness in children. Dr. Judy Krause EdD serves as Provost and Vice President of Academica Affairs at CIAM, the California Institute of Advanced Management, at the University of La Verne. According to Dr. Krause, “These platforms often foster a sense of competition. While online, teens compare themselves with others, wanting to be popular. Peer pressure leads them to participate in virtual trends, which can be harmful.”
What’s a Parent to Do?
So, how can parents help foster healthy competition, while still reminding their children that it is okay to fail, and to not always be the best? The first step is to understand your children. Remember that each child is different, with different needs and skills. It is okay to push your kids outside of their comfort zone, but still keep in mind that there are some areas where your child simply has little to no skill or, more importantly, has no interest. Even if your child is skilled in a certain area, say, sports, if they have no interest in pursuing a different skill, forcing them to do so will only foster more animosity and burn out. It is also important to take a step back and ask, “Are we encouraging or pushing our kids because it’s in their best interest, or is it something we’re doing for ourselves?”
The second step is to manage expectations. Sometimes our expectations can become outsized, too. Parents who are very motivated to get their children into college might already be thinking of signing up for the right extracurriculars and getting the right GPA when their children are still years away from filling out an application. Being pushed towards a goal so far in the future can lead kids to feel resentful of that prospective future. Being told the only option is to go to college, and that the only way to get to college is to have near-perfect grades and a full list of extracurriculars can lead to a desire to do anything else, especially if the child feels that they are not meeting their parents’ expectations.
Focus on Your Child in the Present
Children who are feeling overwhelmed or burned out might benefit from an approach that focuses more on the present. Praise your children’s successes and new skills for their own sake. Keeping children’s mindset in the present rather than the future is a good way to help prevent burnout, and remind children that they are allowed to have a childhood to enjoy without having to look to future success. Lastly, remind yourself that the experiences you had in your childhood, whether good or bad, do not need to be repeated in your child’s adolescence. Alternatively, if parents have great memories of something from their youth, they may try to push their kids to do the same thing, whether it’s joining the track team or writing for the school newspaper.
Dr. Janine Domingues is a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York City, where she serves as a Senior Psychologist in the Anxiety Disorders Center. She warns, “I always tell parents the things that motivate us might not necessarily motivate them.” Think back on your own life, and ask yourself, if my parents had pushed me in the way that I feel I need to push my kids, would I be better off?”
The truth is there is no correct way to go about this. There will always be competition in our lives. It is nearly impossible to not compete with others to a certain degree. The question is how much does competition need to be encouraged in the lives of adolescents? Consider – how much competition is too much? And, of course, remember to ask Hashem to guide you in all childrearing areas.