Muskan Week 8 - The Need for Success

Parent's expectations of their children to achieve have risen drastically since the late 1900s. Parents put the pressure to succeed on their kids either intentionally or without knowing it. In the article “Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids”, the authors, Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant encourage parents to raise their children to be better people rather than people who only succeed. They argue a valid point that even if parents don’t flat out say that they value achievements over kindness and compassion, their actions speak louder than words. 
It is a well-known fact that young children, mainly toddlers, understand how to behave and what pleases others through seeing the actions and reactions of others around them, mainly those of the people that are closest to them. How often have you seen a toddler repeat the same action over and over again if they see someone laugh because of what they did? I have seen this countless times.
When I visit my niece, who is 4, I always have to be careful about what I do and say around her. Toddlers tend to pick up both good and bad habits fairly quickly. As hard as parents and others around children try to be good influences, they do have slip-ups. There were at least a few instances this past year where I slipped up around my niece. In one certain instance, my sister had been annoying me, so I responded with “shut up Jaslyn, don’t act stupid” and within a second my niece repeated, “Yeah, shut up Jaslyn, you’re being stupid”. While I didn’t intend to teach my niece to be rude and disrespectful to my sister, she had picked up saying those things from me.
If children learn bad behaviors this quickly then parents must understand that even the most unintentional acts can lead a child to believe that being successful is more important to their parents than being caring is.
Another point brought up in the article is the fact that people view good deeds for others as “chores” rather than a way to give back to the community or the world. I agree with this statement because I have seen a decline in community service and kindness among adolescents. Teenagers, especially, see community service as a chance to put something good on their resumes instead of a good way to provide service to their community. Not all teenagers are like this, but many are. In elementary school, I saw various occasions where someone fell in the halls and multiple other students helped the fallen student get up and gather their books for them. As I get older, I see fewer students helping their peers in situations like that.
While parents don’t want it to seem that they favor achievements over compassion in their children, their actions imply exactly that, which has created a negative impact on society over time.