Why Are Parents More Competitive Than Their Kids These Days? A Teacher’s Perspective
Last Saturday, I stood on the sidelines of a 10U rec soccer game, wind snapping the corner flags, orange and red maple leaves skittering across the muddy field. I coach this team, so I’m up near the halfway line most of the game, close enough to hear both the kids’ chatter and the parents’ shouts from the sideline. With two minutes left, we got a penalty kick. Ten-year-old Milo stepped up, hit the ball too high, and it bounced off the crossbar and out. The other team cleared it a minute later, and the game ended in a tie.
Milo brushed grass off his knees, gave his teammate a high-five when he said “good hit,” and trotted back to the huddle at the end of the game. His dad was already waiting by the gate, water bottle crumpled in one hand. “How did you miss that? We practiced that exact shot for 20 minutes after dinner Wednesday,” he said, loud enough for half the parents on the sideline to turn and look. Milo just shrugged, pulled his hoodie over his head, and mumbled “It’s just a game.”
By the time we got to the post-game snack table, Milo was already leaning against the bleacher, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Lila, who’d accidentally kicked an own goal 10 minutes earlier. The two of them were scrolling through TikTok, laughing over a cat that learned to open a fridge, talking about their plans for a Minecraft build that weekend. Neither of them mentioned the score. The parents, though? They clustered off to the side, comparing travel team invitations, MAP test scores, and who got accepted into the regional gifted summer STEM camp. One mom complained that her son had “settled” for the local team when he could have made the elite one out of state. Another said her 10-year-old was already practicing for the PSAT 8/9 “to get a leg up.”
I’m a former 4th grade teacher and a mom of two, so this scene isn’t new to me. I’ve also been that competitive parent, too. When my oldest was 8, he auditioned for the school play and didn’t get the lead I’d quietly been hyping him up for. I left the auditorium frustrated, nitpicking how he’d forgotten one line of his audition monologue, until he stopped halfway to the car and said, “Mom, I don’t care. I wanted to be on the set crew anyway, so I can paint the backdrops.” That stopped me cold. It was the first time I realized the competition I was feeling wasn’t his. It was mine.
Most of the time, our competitiveness isn’t about our kids. It’s about us, and the constant quiet pressure we feel to prove we’re doing this parenting thing right. Social media makes it easier than ever to see every trophy, every test score, every achievement other kids are racking up, and we start to compare our own journey to their highlight reel. We’ve also been told over and over that every small choice when they’re young changes what happens when they’re adults—get the wrong team spot now, and you don’t get a college scholarship, right? We project that future stress onto whatever they’re doing today, and they just don’t see it. They’re not thinking about college apps when they’re kicking a soccer ball around. They’re thinking about the snack after the game, and the joke their friend told.
Over the past few years, I’ve tested a few small things that have helped me pull back from that competitive edge, and I’ve shared them with other parents who’ve noticed the same thing in themselves. First, I changed the first question I ask my kids after any game, test, or performance. Instead of “Did you win?” or “How’d you do?” I ask “What was the most fun thing that happened today?” It’s a small shift, but it immediately redirects the conversation away from results and toward what they actually care about.
Second, when I feel that competitive twinge—like when another kid my son’s age just qualified for the state swimming championship and he still can’t do a flip turn—I pause for 10 seconds and ask myself one question: Is this something my kid cares about, or is this something I care about? Nine times out of 10, it’s me. If it’s me, I just drop it. If it’s him, we can talk about what he wants to do next, no pressure.
Third, I stopped joining in on the parent comparison conversations. If we’re standing around at drop-off and someone starts bragging about their kid’s latest achievement and implying other kids are falling behind, I just change the subject to something totally unrelated. “Did you see that they’re repaving the parking lot next week?” or “Have you tried the chocolate chip cookies at the bakery downtown?” It avoids the competition entirely, and no one’s feelings get hurt. I also made a quiet rule for myself: I never criticize my kid’s performance in front of other people, no matter how it went. If we need to talk about it, we do it in the car on the way home, just us.
I still slip up sometimes. Last month, I caught myself lecturing my oldest about how he should study harder for his algebra test, because his friend got a better grade than him, and he just looked at me and said “I don’t care what grade Jake got. I got a B, that’s good enough for me.” I apologized right then.
It’s not a perfect system. I still feel that little pull to compete some days, just like most parents do. But these small shifts have made our days a lot less tense, and my kids a lot more open about what they actually want. Right now, that’s enough for me.
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