As parents, it’s
natural to worry.
What’s not natural is entering into what I call
the Anxiety Achievement Spiral.
Whether you’re in the midst of toilet training your toddler or helping your teenager apply to colleges, when you enter the Anxiety Achievement Spiral, your fear about your child’s wellbeing and success accelerates.
Our culture feeds the Spiral: peer parenting pressure, academic competition, an uncertain economy. As your anxiety rises, you’re likely to find yourself making decisions that aren’t aligned with your values.
How do you exit that Spiral?
A lot of parenting experts recommend a long list of tests, experiences, services, and products that your child needs to succeed.
Other authorities suggest a more “free-range” parenting approach.
I’m not going to suggest either.
In fact, I’m not going to tell you how to parent at all.
Instead, the Parenting Paradox work helps you understand the relationship between your anxiety and achievement, and how it impacts your parenting decisions. It guides you to identify your core values so that whatever parenting decisions you make, they will lead your child to achieve authentic success.
As a parent of a teenage daughter and preteen son growing up in a highly competitive city, I get and have lived this paradox. As a psychotherapist, speaker, and writer, I’ve developed this work because I’m committed to helping parents and the children they love achieve authentic success.
If you want to learn more about parenting achievement anxiety and my upcoming book, The Parenting Paradox, here are three ways we can stay in touch:
Bring a Parenting Paradox talk or roundtable to your school, organization, or parenting group
Become a member of the Parenting Paradox Facebook group
Contact me to schedule a consultation, or to share your Parenting Paradox story and questions