In the ever-growing competitive race to secure the best possible future, today’s students face unprecedented pressure to succeed. They jam-pack their schedules with classes, fill every waking hour with resumé-padding activities, and even sabotage relationships with friends to “get ahead.” Family incomes and schedules are stretched to the breaking point by tutoring fees and athletic schedules.

Yet this drive to optimize performance has only resulted in skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and even self-harm in the world’s highest achieving schools. Parents, educators, and community leaders are facing the same quandary: how can we teach our kids to strive towards excellence without crushing them?

Award-winning journalist and author Jennifer Wallace investigates the deep roots of toxic achievement culture, and finds out what we must do to fight back. Through deep research and interviews with today’s leading child psychologists, Wallace shows that what kids need from the adults in the room is not more pressure, but to feel like they matter. To know that they have intrinsic self-worth that's not contingent upon external achievements.

Parents and educators who adopt the language and values of "mattering" help children see themselves as valuable contributors to a larger community. And in an ironic twist, kids who receive consistent feedback that they matter no matter what are more likely to have the resilience, self-confidence, and psychological security to thrive.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Jennifer Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling book Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It. She is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and appears on national television to discuss her articles and relevant topics in the news.

After graduating from Harvard College, Wallace began her journalism career at CBS 60 Minutes, where she was part of a team that won The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She is a Journalism Fellow at The Center for Parent and Teen Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.