The Advantage Average Kids Have Over High Achieving Kids
History proves that early success in life is never a predictor of long term success. On the contrary, a child who is a high achiever early in life may find it more difficult to achieve long term success than their counterparts.
The reason for this is complex. High achieving kids often develop their sense of self based on their successes and failures. As a result of this, these kids learn to avoid situations that require growth before success. If this happens, early high achievers never get a chance to develop a growth mindset and form limiting beliefs that cause them to struggle as adults.
On the other hand, average kids continually get practice growing into success. Since average kids never start off being the best, they become comfortable facing failure over and over again as a tool of learning. This mindset then forms the basis for resiliency as they grow older. Eventually, this will give them the advantage over the early high achievers.
For this reason, I offer three simple suggestions for all parents to consider.
- Every chance you get force your kids out of their comfort zone
- Avoid punishing failures
- No matter how great your kids are at something, make sure they get the opportunity to be around other kids who are better