Harvard-trained toxic-parenting researcher: Here’s the No. 1 thing I never do with my kids

Teens in the U.S. are more stressed out than ever, and it’s causing their mental health to suffer. 

Parents need to avoid adding to that pressure, says award-winning journalist and parenting researcher Jennifer Breheny Wallace. As much as you might worry about how your child fared on a big test, or if they earned a spot on a varsity sports team, you risk compounding your teen’s anxiety by asking probing questions as soon as they walk in the door, Wallace tells CNBC Make It.

Wallace is the author of the book “Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About It,” for which she interviewed numerous psychologists and worked with a researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to survey 6,500 parents across the U.S. (Wallace herself holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard.)

Her research for the book inspired her to make a big change to her parenting style when it comes to her own three children, she says.

“When my kids come in the door, instead of asking them, ‘How’d you do on the Spanish quiz?’ — which I used to do before I wrote the book — I now ask them, ‘What did you have for lunch?’” says Wallace. “I lead with lunch. I talk about things that have nothing to do with their achievements.”

Wallace talked with psychologists who were adamant that parents can spread their own anxiety to their children, through a process called emotional contagion, she says.

She learned that being overly-focused on your child’s achievements can also send a potentially harmful message: Their value is contingent on their performance.

Focusing too much on how your child is performing, like congratulating them on a high grade instead of praising their effort, is an example of “achievement culture becoming toxic,” Wallace says. “What I mean by that is: When our sense of self is tangled up in our achievements, we can’t separate ourselves — our inherent worth — from our…