high achievement

Child(ish) Reads: Never Enough

| Patti Webb

This book came out three years ago. I didn’t jump to review it because at the time, our kids were only 5. That’s a bit young to start worrying about achievement culture. Now, even though high school and applying to colleges are far off, there are still big parts of this book that speak to child development; both academically and personally.

The book also gives more nuance and research to our education system, and sheds more light on that pesky Gen Z: Cautionary Tale thing. It’s a great book to start your school year.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It by Jennifer Breheny Wallace.

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Child(ish) Reads: The Family Dynamic

| Patti Webb

When I was in college, our rowing team competed at The Head of the Charles in Boston, and a group of us stayed in one of the dorms at Harvard. The girl we stayed with was a friend of some of our rowers and she had a twin brother who also attended Harvard.

So, there’s two high-achieving kids in the same family who are Harvard educated. I found out later that they had triplet younger sisters, all of which excelled in their own respective sports, including rowing and wakeboarding. Later, all five of the siblings would graduate and enter the fields of medicine and public speaking. How? Just… how??

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