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Josette Serres (Doctor of psychology)
In a book published last summer, American researcher Jennifer Wallace argues that encouraging your children too much in all their initiatives would ultimately be counterproductive, or even bad for the mental health of the youngest. We asked Josette Serres, doctor in developmental psychology, for her opinion.
Pushing your child to be the best at everything they do wouldn’t really help them. This is the message that Jennifer Breheny Wallace, an American researcher, supports in her book published last August Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It, (Never enough: when the pressure to succeed becomes toxic, Editor’s note). According to her, the pressure placed on our children to succeed at all costs would have negative effects on their mental health.
Pushing the child too much means transmitting your anxiety to him
The researcher’s idea is not a simple hypothesis. Jennifer Breheny Wallace collaborated with a researcher from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and surveyed 6,500 parents in the United States. In her interviews, she noted that many children increased their courses and extracurricular activities, sometimes at a high level. But parents had the impression that it was their children who insisted on registering. Maybe, but according to her, children would generally just reflect the environment around them.
“Your child may be initiating these requests to attend additional activities, but you have first placed him in an environment where he experiences social contagion from his peers”, explains the researcher.
Emotional contagion by parents also exists: those who constantly worry about their child’s performance at school, and their grades, transmit their anxiety to them. They also send their child a dangerous message: “its value depends on its success” advance Jsniff Breheny. Thus, the students who suffer the most from anxiety are “children who feel that their value as a person depends on their performance” at school or in other activities.
Support the child, rather than aiming for success
Contacted on the subject, Josette Serres, doctor in early childhood developmental psychology, discusses motivation in the broad sense for us. “This is a fairly broad question since we often seek to motivate our child, while also often seeking a result, nuance is difficult to find.”
On the neuroscience side, however, our expert validates the researcher’s theory:
“You should know that a child’s brain is always ready for discovery and always motivated thanks to the dopamine system released as soon as the child carries out a task. Their curiosity is therefore biological and works well without the need for push him. On the other hand, when the child does his experiments, it is even better when he is accompanied by an adult who shows interest in what he is doing. But showing interest does not mean push to do!”
As for the coveted success, here again it is better to take a step aside:
“Our brain needs to be encouraged, even when the results are not what we hoped for. What motivates our learning is what is positive. When the brain feels like it is being punished, when it hurts , it blocks learning. Pressing on success is therefore also putting the child in the position of failure. And that is damaging because he no longer learns.”
In her book, the American researcher offers solutions to avoid “stressing” the child. She first argues that parents of successful children are often those who set limits and emphasize a living environment:
- A healthy rhythm for the child: enough sleep, moments of relaxation and regular breaks;
- The parent’s attitude must also be supportive without forcing the result: knowing how the child undertook a work or project seems more important than the grade;
- Asking questions about all aspects of your life, not just those that involve an outcome, would also be a good thing.
“It also makes me think of the metaphor used by researcher Allyson Gopnik who presents parents who place themselves with a child as a carpenter or gardener. When you are a carpenter parent, you are preparing the mold and that the child must fit into the mold. When you are a gardening parent, you sow the seed and see what it will produce, while supporting the child.” she concludes. For a child who is undoubtedly more fulfilled as a result.
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