Able to Bend, Not Break: Raising Resilient Kids in a Culture of Achievement

Elite travel teams, private coaching, and exceptional academic performance were once reserved for a few extraordinary students or athletes. For today’s middle- and upper-middle-class families, these pursuits have become the norm. Yet the children striving to excel amid this intensity are struggling.  The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019) identified high-achieving youth as one of the most at-risk groups for anxiety, depression, and substance use, alongside youth exposed to deep poverty, trauma, and discrimination. Children with every apparent advantage have converged on the same risk profile as those we traditionally identify as most vulnerable.

Achievement culture—a social environment that prizes goal attainment, exceptional performance, and external accomplishment—is fueled, in part, by a fear that children will fall behind if these pursuits are neglected. Today, it has become ambient and nearly impossible for young people to escape. Social media amplifies constant comparison, competition for college admission continues to intensify, and pressure from adults reaches children even in families that deliberately emphasize effort, character, and well-being. Parents do not have to embrace achievement culture for their children to absorb its messages.

Striving for excellence and developing one's potential are worthy goals. And, parents may ask, what about the exceptionally gifted child, or the child with a fierce passion for a pursuit who is driven to grow? Ambition and high expectations are not the problem. The harm emerges when children begin to believe their worth depends on what they achieve.

Research by Suniya Luthar and colleagues in high-achieving schools has consistently found elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use. A key driver is that many students come to perceive their self-worth as contingent upon performance. Distress is further amplified by parental criticism, perceived parental values that prioritize achievement over character, competitive peer relationships, and negative social comparison.

The intersection of high-achieving schools, affluence, and perfectionism may be tricky to disentangle. As a broad generalization, high-achieving schools are associated with an environment where an emphasis on outcomes may drive students to adopt perfectionist traits, and these schools may also be populated by affluent kids who have the resources to gain a competitive edge through tutors, elite athletic clubs, or coaches who drive improvement. Research on what protects young people from the excesses of achievement culture points in a surprising direction: not toward better strategies for succeeding, but toward stronger relationships.

Luthar summarizes decades of research with a simple conclusion: "Resilience rests, fundamentally, on relationships." The evidence extends well beyond high-achieving schools. In a statewide study of positive childhood experiences, Bethell and colleagues found that every protective experience associated with better adult mental health was relational: being able to talk with family about feelings, feeling supported by friends, having trusted adults outside the home, feeling safe at home, belonging at school, and participating in community traditions. Adults who reported the highest number of these positive childhood experiences had dramatically lower odds of depression and poor mental health than those who reported the fewest.

Resilience researcher Ann Masten offers a useful reframe. What protects children is often not extraordinary at all, but what she calls the "short list" of ordinary magic: a stable, caring adult, a school and community where a child is truly known, and routines and rituals that foster belonging and a positive sense of identity.

If resilience is the ability to adapt, recover, and continue growing through adversity, the evidence suggests it is built through ordinary, repeatable practices and relationships, rather than extraordinary interventions. The list below offers parents a starting point for building or augmenting a culture of resilience at home.

Separate worth from achievement. Praise effort, curiosity, persistence, character, adaptability, and growth—not just outcomes. For those gifted and accomplished scholars, athletes, and artists, take interest in their achievements, of course. And, make an effort to balance encouragement and validation while acknowledging that a child is more than their gifts or accolades. Gordon Flett’s (2025) book Mattering as a Core Need in Children and Adolescents: Theoretical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives summarizes literature on being valued and needed by others, which contributes to a youth’s sense of well-being and resilience.

Change the first question. What you ask after school, after the game, or after the test is one of the clearest signals of what you value. Lead with the child before the outcome: "How are you?" or "Who did you eat lunch with?" before "How did it go?”

Recruit other caring adults. Some of the strongest protective relationships are with adults who are not parents. Cultivate and nurture relationships a child may have with coaches, teachers, relatives, neighbors, or mentors; adults who know your child for who they are, not simply for what they accomplish.

Protect ordinary rituals. Family dinners, traditions, and unstructured time are not what remains after practices and tutoring; they are among the very experiences that foster resilience.

Expand your family's tolerance for failure. Modeling from adult behavior is one of the leading ways children learn. Talk openly about your own setbacks and how you recovered from them. Parents who treat failure as an opportunity to learn, rather than something alarming, raise children with more adaptive mindsets.

Tend to your own relationships. Parents who experience unconditional acceptance and dependable support in their own lives impact their parenting quality and perceived parenting stress. Your friendships and sources of connection are not indulgences; rather, they are part of your child's resilience infrastructure.

Resilience in children is not a genetic trait they are born with or without. Resilience is built through everyday relationships and experiences. When children know their worth is intact, no matter the outcome, they get better at bending without breaking.

As published on PsychologyToday.com, 7/15/26.