The No. 1 thing successful parents who raise the strongest and most resilient kids do differently: Harvard study

Society’s achievement pressure is increasingly harming our kids. As a journalist and mom of three adolescents, I wanted to understand the pressure kids and parents were feeling, and where it came from.

So in 2020, I conducted a first-of-its-kind national parenting survey with help from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

One of the most fascinating things that followed had to do with a particular parenting style that hurts children’s confidence and self-esteem.

The most successful parents don’t follow a critical style of parenting.

When a parent is critical (“Why can’t you be more like your brother?”) or when love feels conditional (“I expect all As this semester!”), a child begins to feel defective.

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To cope with those painful feelings, they learn to hide who they truly are in order to become the person they believe their parents want or need them to be.

This can lead kids to develop what psychologists call a “false self” — an artificial persona that serves as a coping strategy to get the love and support a child needs to survive. The consequence is that they feel ashamed, unknown and unloved.

Over time, a false self can lead to them choosing the wrong friends, partners or careers, because they are essentially living someone else’s life.

Parents who raise the strongest and most resilient kids create an environment that allows them to make mistakes and not fear failure.

You can still love the person, but you don’t love the action. When we’re able to clearly separate the two, a child doesn’t link their worth to their behavior, whether “good” or “bad.”

This doesn’t mean you can’t have expectations about your child’s behavior. You just have to be…