The headlines across South Africa proclaimed success: the Class of 2025 had shattered records with an 88% national matric pass rate. The nation celebrated for a while, but this was soon replaced by a familiar anxiety.

For the wealthy, the competitive race to get acceptance to top universities was on. There were 25 hopeful applicants for every place at Wits University or the University of Cape Town. A top-class pass had become merely an entry ticket to another stressful lottery; high achievement did not guarantee opportunity. The pressure on young people is immense: for many, the path to university defines or derails their sense of worth.

Young people who couldn’t get into tertiary education joined the 62.4% unemployed (aged 15-24) group who are looking for jobs, which creates another kind of anxiety. In this situation, anxiety is driven by the feeling that you are going nowhere and your schooling was worthless.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It helps to understand how the incessant push to perform takes a toll on young people’s mental health. American author Jennifer Breheny Wallace integrates the understanding of resilience with real stories from children and parents to find ways we can help them learn that they matter beyond what they achieve. Piercing questions are raised: What is the cost of this narrow understanding of success? Is there a better way?

Working with a researcher from Baylor University, Wallace surveyed 18- to 30-year-olds to find out what they wish their parents had known about their school years.

“Much of the student data pointed to the belief that they thought their ­parents valued and appreciated them more if they were successful in school. A total of 70% of students agreed with that statement.”

Wallace provides a frightening reality check. Students in high-­achieving schools are now classified as an “at-risk” group. These students face elevated rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and self-harm. The pressure to excel academically while also doing a range of extracurricular activities has created what Wallace calls a “toxic achievement culture”.

She argues that this robs young people of their creativity, emotional development and sense of self-worth.

In investigating why parents work their child­ren so hard, she explores the evolutionary psychology behind parental behaviour. She explains how our brains remain wired for status-seeking as a survival mechanism. In ancestral times, higher status meant first access to food, shelter and mates. She argues that this translates into an obsession with prestigious college admissions and “resumé-building achievements”.

Scarcity mindset

Parents operate from a scarcity mindset and perceive limited opportunities, becoming hypercompetitive. They micromanage children’s lives and prioritise activities that look good on applications over genuine interests. They struggle to allow children to experience the failures that foster growth.

Wallace observes that parents are responding to real structural conditions that have been mounting for decades, caused by extraordinary economic changes.

“With extreme inequality, the crush of the middle class, globalisation and hypercompetition, parents fear that without their intense guidance and push, their children may end up on the wrong side of the economic divide.”

Mattering as an antidote

Wallace introduces what she calls “mattering” as an antidote to this achievement culture. ­Mattering is the feeling of being ­valued and adding value to others. When children feel they matter, they experience a sense of significance and connection that buffers against stress and anxiety and enhances resilience.

“Make home a ‘mattering haven’. Parents can provide a child’s most significant source of mattering – or be the greatest source of contingent mattering, feeling like they matter only when they’re performing. Because our kids are bombarded with messages on the importance of achievement, home needs to be a safe place to land, a place where their mattering is never in question.”

She directs a powerful message to parents and insists they prioritise their own wellbeing, maintain support networks, engage in self-care and seek help when overwhelmed. She sees this as essential modelling.

“Children learn by watching us manage stress, maintain balance and nurture relationships.” By breaking the cycle of transmitted anxiety, parents create a more positive home environment and enhance their capacity to provide genuine emotional support.

Wallace challenges society to redefine success beyond grades and prestigious university admissions. Success must encompass personal growth, emotional intelligence, genuine passions and contributions to the community. The author questions the fixation on college rankings (in the American context) and encourages parents to emphasise “fit” over selectivity, celebrating diverse paths rather than a single narrow definition of achievement.

Maybe, in the South African context, considering a hotel school or technical training becomes another option.

Competition as growth opportunity

Interestingly, Wallace doesn’t advocate eliminating competition. She offers a reframing: competition as an opportunity for personal growth and learning from others, rather than a game of achievement. This shift in perspective emphasises relationships and collaboration, teaching children to celebrate others’ successes as inspiration. Students learn to manage their own feelings of envy through redirection towards personal improvement.

Students need to discover that there are many different paths to achievement. Wallace encourages parents to expose children to diverse experiences. Young people need to know that they matter to the adults in their lives, their peers, the larger community, no matter what.

Wallace makes a crucial distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic values. Intrinsic values – personal growth, relationships, community – lead to fulfilment, whereas extrinsic values focused on wealth, status and image often leave us empty. The book urges parents to cultivate intrinsic motivation by praising effort over outcomes and encouraging reflection on personal growth.

Wallace’s thoughtful approach in her book helps parents to examine their own motivations, question societal norms and raise children who are not just successful by conventional standards.

She draws on the work of Stanford University professor William Damon, who offers tools for young people to deal with feelings of emptiness, anxiety and disengagement. He offers parents some guidance for helping young people find their purpose:

• Listen for sparks of interest and then fan those flames.
• Ask guiding questions like: What issues in the world are concerning them the most?
• Ask your children to contribute in meaningful ways to the family ­regularly.
• Talk about your own purpose with your children.
• Introduce children to potential mentors who can help them build this sense of purpose.

Wallace believes we need to build a generation that will keep society strong and healthy and protect our children’s mental health. Young people need adults to provide perspective and see the bigger world and their role in it. DM

Dr Mark Potterton is the director of the Three2Six Refugee Children’s Education Project.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.