Well, here we go again.

Senior year.

My third child is a senior, and we’re barely into the school year. Already, social media is filling with college acceptances, athletic commitments, scholarship announcements, and posts about what comes next.

Many of those accomplishments deserve to be celebrated. These kids have worked incredibly hard.

But having gone through this stage three times over roughly a decade, I’m noticing something else: the pressure feels more intense now, not less, more public, more immediate, and more competitive. And even less healthy than before.

And somehow, before senior year has even really begun, kids, and their parents, can already feel as though they’re behind.

Senior Year Has Barely Begun and We Already Feel Behind

I can feel it among the parents, too. Everyone seems to be scurrying, worried that they’ve already missed something.

A woman recently told my mom she hoped her daughter, that would be me, had hired someone to help my son with his college applications because apparently we should have started long before now. It's August, by the way.

Well, I guess I get an F.

This is my third time through senior year. My older two somehow survived my lack of professional application management, graduated from college, built careers, and are doing just fine.

So maybe I’m not panicking quite enough.

But I am paying attention.

This week, I could see some of that pressure weighing on my own senior. I’m not going to share what he’s navigating. That’s his story, not mine. But I can share what happened for me as his mom.

I wanted him to remember what I value, so I texted him.

I told him how incredibly proud I am that he has become a leader. And I reminded him that, to me, being someone his teammates and coaches see as a leader means far more than the name of the college he attends or what division he may, or may not, play in.

I’m not sure I can convince him of that right now. When you’re 17 and surrounded by conversations about colleges, commitments, recruiting, scholarships, and divisions, being told that leadership and character matter more may sound like something a parent is supposed to say.

But I mean it with all my heart.

One of those things may matter for the next few years. The other will matter for the rest of his life.

When Did the Outcome Become the Point?

All three of my children grew up in competitive sports, and at different points, all three considered what continuing their sport in college might look like.

But college athletics wasn’t why we put them in sports. 

We wanted sports to give them something bigger: friendship, teamwork, resilience, commitment, confidence, and leadership.  And dare I say it? Failure.  Yep, sports help kids learn how to fail with resilience. I wanted them to learn how to win and how to lose, how to show up for other people, how to work toward something that matters, and how to discover that they can do hard things.

And yes, I wanted them to have fun.

Those were the outcomes I cared about.

But somewhere along the way, particularly as kids get older, the definition of success can quietly change. 

Are you starting? What team are you on? Are you getting recruited? What division? What school? Did you get a scholarship? What’s next?

Suddenly, the experience we hoped would help our children grow becomes another place where they feel measured.

And I think we have to ask ourselves:

When did the outcome become the point? 

One mom actually asked me once, “Well, what’s the end game?”

The end game for my family? To raise happy, healthy, balanced people who know themselves well enough to define success according to their own values, strengths and what makes for a meaningful life for them.

She didn’t quite know what to do with that answer.

Why Does Senior Year Feel More Pressured Than Ever?

I went through this stage with my older children eight and ten years ago. There was pressure then. There was comparison. There was plenty of anxiety about college and what came next.

But I hoped we would have gotten better about some of this.

So far, I am not seeing any improvement.

From where I sit as a parent going through it again, it feels more intense. Our kids can watch everyone else’s next step unfold in real time: someone committed, someone got accepted, someone received a scholarship, someone seems to have their entire future figured out.

And here’s what I wish I could tell every teenager, and probably a few of us parents:

All of this early pomp and circumstance doesn’t actually put one 17-year-old ahead of another. 

I have something now that I didn’t have when I went through this the first time: almost a decade of hindsight.

My oldest is nearly ten years beyond high school graduation. I’ve had the opportunity to watch what happened after that class of high-achieving kids left high school and headed toward all those carefully planned futures.

And you know what?

The paths changed.

Some of the athletes who worked so hard to reach the “next level” eventually stopped playing. Some students graduated early. Others changed schools, majors, careers, or plans. Some discovered that the path everyone had been so excited about at 17 simply wasn’t right for them at 19 or 20.

Some paid a price, physically, emotionally, or both, for years spent chasing achievement. And some continued on exactly as planned and are thriving.

That’s the point: none of it is entirely predictable.

A report card can’t tell us. A college name can’t tell us. A scholarship or the division an athlete plays in can’t tell us who will ultimately be happy, successful, fulfilled, or even where they’ll end up.

So much happens along the way.

Kids grow. Priorities change. Opportunities appear. Plans fall apart. New ones take their place. Life happens.

The kid who commits in August isn’t necessarily ahead of the kid who decides in April, or the one who ultimately decides that playing at the next level isn’t the right path at all. The prestigious opportunity doesn’t guarantee the better college experience. Getting there first doesn’t mean staying there longest. 

And the teenager who is still figuring things out isn’t behind.

They’re just on a different timeline. Not society's. 

Ten years later, the starting order matters remarkably little.

But the pressure of believing you’re behind can matter a great deal.

It can steal joy from an experience kids worked years to reach. It can turn accomplishment into expectation and make the next achievement feel necessary before they’ve even had time to enjoy the last one.

And for some young people, the relentless pursuit of the next thing can leave them depleted before adult life has really begun. I see this with my young adult clients time and time again.

That’s the part that concerns me.

We’ve created a race in which there really isn’t a finish line, and then we’re surprised when some kids become exhausted from running it.

What Is Achievement Pressure Doing to Our Teens?

This matters to me not only as a parent. I’ve spent years teaching and working with young people, and today I coach teens, young adults, and their parents.

Long before I was raising my third senior, my students and clients were talking to me about this.

Year after year, I heard and saw what academic pressure was doing to them and their peers. Add competitive athletics to that academic pressure, and for some kids the load became enormous, whether they, or the adults around them, were ready to acknowledge it or not.

I watched students do exactly what we told them successful young people were supposed to do: achieve academically, excel athletically, get recruited, head off to a four-year college—and then sometimes discover that the path they had worked so hard to reach wasn’t making them happy.

Those experiences eventually became part of the reason I began studying pressure in student athletes. I’ll share much more about that research separately, because what those young people told me deserves its own conversation.

But I’m still hearing versions of the same concerns today.

I’m hearing about burnout earlier. Recently, I worked with a high school student who was already trying to figure out how not to burn out in 10th grade.

Tenth grade.

I think back to my own experience, and my later high school years were some of the highlights. That doesn’t mean everything was easy, but I don’t remember feeling as though every class, activity, accomplishment, and decision was somehow building a résumé for the rest of my life.

Many kids today are carrying academics, advanced classes, competitive sports, extracurriculars, leadership, volunteering, college preparation, social pressure, and the constant awareness of what everyone else appears to be accomplishing. This is exhausting and very unhealthy.

Achievement isn’t bad. Ambition isn’t bad. Competitive sports aren’t bad.

But when pressure becomes greater than our capacity to cope, something changes.

Motivation, sleep, mood, joy, eating, and behavior can all change. And that’s when we need to pay attention. I'd like us to pay attention before this point.

Behavior Is Often the Clue, Not the Problem

A child who once loved their sport suddenly doesn’t want to go. A high achiever starts procrastinating. A motivated student stops trying. A teenager becomes irritable, withdrawn, or overwhelmed.

Our instinct may be to push harder: You committed. Don’t quit. Try harder. Stick with it.

And sometimes perseverance absolutely is the lesson.

But sometimes we need to pause long enough to ask a different question:

What pressure is this behavior trying to survive?

What changed? What are they carrying? What might be difficult for them right now? Do they need encouragement to persevere, or do they need support, different tools, greater capacity, or simply some room to breathe?

Instead of asking:

“Why is my child giving me such a hard time?”

Try:

“Why is my child having such a hard time?”

That one shift can change the entire conversation.

Listening doesn’t mean eliminating expectations or allowing kids to walk away whenever something becomes difficult. It means understanding what’s underneath the behavior before deciding how to respond.

How Can Parents Help Teens Manage Senior Year Pressure?

We can start by widening the definition of success.

College acceptances, scholarships, recruiting, and athletic divisions are outcomes. They matter, and they may matter enormously to our kids. We don’t need to pretend otherwise.

But they aren’t the only outcomes.

Leadership, character, resilience, relationships, learning how to recover from disappointment, learning to advocate for yourself, knowing when to persevere, knowing when you need help, and knowing who you are when things don’t go according to plan, those are outcomes, too.

And our kids will carry them long after senior year ends.

We can also be careful not to add our anxiety to theirs. Sometimes our teenagers don’t need another person asking, What are you going to do? Have you heard anything? What about this school? What’s your plan?  I decided I am not going to ask anyone these questions this year, not because I don't care. Because I do care.

Sometimes they need a place where they don’t have to have the answer yet.

Maybe one of the most important messages we can give a teenager during this season is remarkably simple:

You are not behind.

Maybe Parents Need to Redefine Success, Too

I talk to parents about values all the time. I also talk to them about mental health and well-being. What matters most to your family? What kind of person do you hope your child becomes? Are the choices you’re making aligned with those values?

I have to ask myself those same questions because as parents, we can all get swept up in the noise.

And apparently, we can even get graded on whether we hired the college application consultant early enough.

I’m kidding. Mostly.

But that’s exactly how easily the pressure spreads.

I can say leadership matters more than a college name and then see another commitment announcement. I can say character matters more than a division and still worry about what comes next. I can know intellectually that every child has their own path and still find myself comparing.

Sometimes parents need the new lens, too.

Maybe that’s why I felt so strongly about texting my son this week. I wanted him to know what I see.

Not a résumé. Not a recruit. Not a future college athlete.

I see a leader.

I see someone other people trust. I see qualities he will carry long after the last game is over. And I don’t want those accomplishments to somehow become smaller because they don’t come with a college logo attached. I told him that from the time my kids were born, one of my greatest hopes was to raise three people who would become leaders. My husband and I parented intentionally to help this quality become a reality in all of our kids.  

What Will Matter Long After Senior Year?

I may not convince my senior of this right now.

That’s okay.

Maybe my job isn’t to convince him. Maybe my job is to keep reminding him what I see until he can see it for himself.

Where you go matters less than who you become. The name of the school does not tell me whether you succeeded, and the division does not determine the value of all those years you spent competing.

Leadership matters. Friendship matters. Character matters. Learning how to struggle and recover matters. Knowing when to persevere matters.

And knowing yourself well enough to recognize when your definition of success needs to change matters, too.

I have the benefit now of watching some of those kids from that first senior-year experience become adults. The paths we thought were so important at 17 weren’t nearly as predictive as they seemed at the time.

Life happened.

And it will happen to this group, too.

So maybe during senior year, instead of constantly asking our kids:

“What’s next?”

we should also be asking:

“Who are you becoming along the way?”

Because the goal isn’t to win senior year.

The goal is to help our kids leave it with enough of themselves intact, and enough confidence in who they are, to build the life that comes after it.

Sometimes moving FORWARD means continuing to pursue the goal. And sometimes moving FORWARD means having the courage to redefine it.

Siah

When nothing is working, try a new lens.

No blame. No shame. Just FORWARD.

Join my monthly free parenting class, When Nothing Else Is Working: Try A New Lens. It is on the last Tuesday of each month.  There are still a few spots open in the August 25th one. You can sign up here. You can use this link to sign up for the September one as well. 

siah_fried@yahoo.com

www.siahfriedcoach.com