Author, journalist and mom Jennifer Breheny Wallace criticized "toxic achievement culture," especially for students who are pressured to maintain a high GPA, high grades and extracurriculars in order to get into a competitive school.
"As a parent of three teens myself, I've been noticing how different my children’s childhood was from my own," Wallace told CNN anchor Poppy Harlow Wednesday. "I had space in my life to make mistakes, to pivot and today’s kids feel very trapped on this narrow path to success."
"So the metrics are the GPA, how many social media followers they have, how many likes they get and how much they weigh on the scale," she explained. "So there’s a constant goal-setting, strategic life that these kids are feeling like they have to live."
Wallace emphasized that her book, titled, "Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—And What We Can Do About It," is not meant to accuse parents of failing their children.
"This book does not blame parents," she said.
A description of the book describes how Wallace searches into the "deep roots of toxic achievement culture," using an "original survey of nearly 6,000 parents," among other interviews with families, teachers and students.
Wallace also told Harlow that parents are suffering from "macroeconomic forces in our environment" that cause them to push for their children's success.
"They are seeing the crush of the middle class," Wallace said. "They are absorbing these fears. There is a real fear for our kids’ future. It used to be kids could do as well as their parents or better. But we’re now seeing the first generation that isn’t."
The author and journalist also referenced a Washington Post article that she wrote in 2019, headlined, "Students in high-achieving schools are now named an ‘at-risk’ group, study says."
The article cited a study by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that added "high achieving" students as part of an "at risk" group because of their relatively high rates of depression and substance abuse, among other negative behaviors.
"[Suniya] Luthar’s studies have found that adolescents in high-achieving schools can suffer significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse and delinquent behaviors, at least two to three times the national average," Wallace wrote.
"When a child’s sense of self-worth is dependent on what they achieve, it can lead to anxiety and depression," Wallace wrote in her 2019 op-ed. "Anxiety can come from worrying about keeping up with or outshining peers, while depression can be caused by a failure to achieve."
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