What's the End Game?
Sep 14, 2026
For my family, the answer has a lot less to do with grades, college names , job title, or athletic divisions.
We are raising kids in a culture that loves milestones.
The grade.
The team.
The leadership position.
The college acceptance.
The scholarship.
The internship.
The next accomplishment.
Recently, I was talking with another mom about what my young adult children are doing now when she asked me:
“Yeah. But what’s the end game?”
I knew my answer immediately.
For our family, the end game was never a particular college, career, athletic division or accomplishment.
My hope has always been to raise happy, healthy, grounded people who know themselves well enough to build lives that feel meaningful and fulfilling to them.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating achievement.
But somewhere along the way, we can begin confusing achievement with well-being.
A report card can’t tell us who will ultimately be happy or fulfilled. A college name can’t tell us. A scholarship or athletic division can’t tell us.
A quick reflection for parents
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When Did the Outcome Become the Point?
All three of my children grew up in competitive sports.
But college athletics wasn’t why we put them in sports.
We wanted sports to give them friendship, teamwork, resilience, confidence, leadership—and yes, opportunities to fail, recover and try again.
Those were the outcomes I cared about.
But 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?
What’s next?
Suddenly, the experience we hoped would help our children grow becomes another place where they feel measured.
That brings me back to the question:
What’s the end game?
For me, it isn’t raising kids who can continually produce the next impressive accomplishment.
It is raising people who know who they are, what they value and how to build a life that fits.
The Starting Order Matters Less Than We Think
I’m now going through the end-of-high-school stage with my third child.
This time, I have something I didn’t have with my older children:
Hindsight.
I’ve watched what happened after a class of high-achieving kids left high school and headed toward carefully planned futures.
And the paths changed.
Some athletes stopped playing.
Some students changed schools, majors, careers or plans.
Some discovered that the path everyone was excited about at 17 simply wasn’t right at 19 or 20.
And some continued exactly as planned and are thriving.
That’s the point: none of it is entirely predictable.
The kid who commits in August isn’t necessarily ahead of the kid who decides in April.
The teenager who is still figuring things out isn’t behind.
They’re simply on their own 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, turn accomplishment into expectation and leave kids feeling that the next achievement is already required.
We’ve created a race without a clear finish line—and then we’re surprised when some kids become exhausted from running it.
What Is Achievement Pressure Doing to Our Teens?
I’ve spent years teaching and working with young people, and today I coach teens, young adults and their parents.
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.
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 can change.
Sleep can change.
Mood and eating can change.
Joy can disappear.
Behavior can change.
And that’s when we need to pay attention.
I’d like us to pay attention before that 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.
And sometimes perseverance absolutely is the lesson.
But sometimes we need to ask:
What pressure might this behavior be communicating?
Instead of:
“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 conversation.
Listening doesn’t mean removing expectations.
It means understanding what may be underneath the behavior before deciding how to respond.
Broaden the Definition of Success
Grades, recruiting, scholarships and college acceptances matter.
But they aren’t the only measures of how our kids are doing.
Can they recover from disappointment?
Ask for help?
Advocate for themselves?
Know when to persevere—and when something needs to change?
Do they know who they are when things don’t go according to plan?
Those are outcomes, too.
So yes, celebrate the A, the goal, the acceptance and the accomplishment.
But achievement doesn’t have to be the only evidence that they’re doing well.
Maybe this is where we get curious about the person underneath it.
Are they sleeping?
Are they enjoying anything?
Can they make a mistake without unraveling?
Can they rest without feeling guilty?
Can they come to us when they’re struggling?
Because our kids can be achieving and struggling at the same time.
And when I think again about that question—What’s the end game?—my answer hasn’t changed.
I want my kids to build lives that are not only accomplished from the outside, but meaningful and sustainable from the inside.
Achievement is not the same as well-being.
Sometimes, when everything looks good on the outside, it may be worth looking a little deeper.
Behavior is often the clue—not the problem.
→ Get the free Move FORWARD Parent Reflection Tool
No blame. No shame. Just FORWARD.
Siah
siah_fried@yahoo.com