How High-Performing Parents Can Create a Healthy Home

Balancing a high-pressure career with our personal well-being is challenging enough—and for parents, there’s an added complication: teaching our children about good mental health, too.

High-performing parents who struggle with anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, or another mental health challenge face the crucial task of managing their own mental health while kids are watching every move.

Let’s face it: kids tend to be tiny human sponges—we want to model positive behaviors for them so they can avoid their own struggles as much as possible down the line.

In environments where success is the priority, stress and anxiety can become the norm. It can be tough for parents and children both to recognize the need for better habits. But breaking this cycle of high-achieving, high-pressure expectations is imperative if we don’t want our children to develop unhealthy ways of coping.

By acknowledging our own struggles with mental health openly, transparently, and proactively, we as high-performing parents can teach our children about true self-care, mental toughness and resilience, and the importance of asking for help when it’s needed.

 

High-Performing Parents and Child Mental Health

High-performing parents can create high-pressure households, intentional or not. And those undercurrents impact not only the adults, but the children living in them, as well, who often absorb the stress and sense of expectation around them.

When high-performing parents prize success and achievement, their children can internalize these high standards and wind up feeling immense pressure to meet or even exceed perceived expectations.

Our kids want to please us–and they might experience stress, anxiety, or perfectionist tendencies in order to do it.

What Does Poor Child Mental Health Look Like?
Our kids might mimic our high-performing behaviors—and we know some of them aren’t great! Overworking, neglecting self-care, or even denying our own emotions are just a few of the things we may see young people with high-performing parents begin to do.

Over time, our children can start to experience poor mental health outcomes, like generalized anxiety, depression, burnout, and perfectionism. It’s important for parents to recognize the signs and address them as soon as possible:

• Changes in behavior, like irritability, mood swings, or emotional outbursts;
• Withdrawing from or avoiding social interactions or participating less in things they once enjoyed;
• Complaints of physical symptoms that otherwise have no medical cause—headaches, stomachaches, or tiredness;
• Falling grades, difficulty focusing, excessive worry about performance at school, or other academic changes; and/or
• Sleep troubles like insomnia, waking frequently throughout the night, having nightmares, or sleeping much more than usual.

Early intervention is important so parents can make the environmental adjustments necessary to support their children in a way that promotes both success and mental well-being.

 

How to Prioritize Your Child’s Mental Health

Teaching your child about mental health awareness starts with open communication–including transparency about your own struggles. Discussing your own experiences in an age-appropriate way can help make mental health less of a mysterious, scary thing for your child and encourage them to share more about their feelings with you.

It’s important to normalize conversations about mental health from an early age and make it clear that mental health is just as important as physical health. Creating a safe environment for these kinds of discussions fosters trust and helps your child feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts and worries.

Of course, because our children are such sponges, modeling good habits and behavior is just as crucial as open discussion. Your children will learn by observing you, so it’s essential that you’re showing them how to use effective strategies for managing stress and anxiety. This might include being clear about correctly naming your emotions, practicing mindfulness, setting boundaries around work and rest, and engaging in regular self-care routines.

By clearly prioritizing your own mental health as a high-performer, you can set an impactful example for your young person to follow.

You can also help your child build a foundation of self-care and resilience by teaching them to develop their own coping strategies and build their toolkit for dealing with stress and anxiety. Teach them techniques like meditation, journaling, or taking part in hobbies that help them relax, unwind, and have fun. Remind them regularly that it’s okay to take breaks and make room to just be a kid instead of constantly worrying about achievement.

Adults and children alike must understand that it’s completely normal to feel stress or anxiety–and it’s also normal to need help when we do. Encourage your child to speak up if they’re struggling, and reassure them that reaching out for help is a sign of strength–not weakness!

 

Modeling Healthy Skills as a High-Performing Parent

High-performing parents raising high-performing children need strategies to create an environment that honors their penchant for success–while also setting themselves and their children up for a lifetime of mental and physical well-being.

(Because that’s the most important part!)

Here are five things to keep in mind when raising a child as high-performing parent:

Model Healthy Ambition
Show your child that success doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your mental health. Share your experiences with managing pressure and working to strike a healthy balance between fun and responsibility in your own life. You can aim high without burning out.

Normalize the Setbacks
We can’t get through life without failures, and if we’ve got the right mindset, those “failures” can be truly rich learning experiences. It’s important to understand–and to show our children–that perfection is never the goal… Progress is what we’re after!

Share Downtime
Intentionally carve out time for activities that both you and your child enjoy–and be open to spontaneity, too! Just make sure a good percentage of these shared activities aren’t related to achievement of any kind. Your child needs time to be a kid–and you’ll benefit from it, too.

Set Realistic Expectations
Be mindful of the expectations you’re setting for yourself and your child–both around things like professional or academic life and the smaller things, like completing a morning routine or being forgetful with belongings, for example. It’s fine to encourage high standards, but work to let go of perfectionism–and embrace age-appropriate expectations for your child.

Work Toward a Growth Mindset
Engaging in activities that help you learn new skills, help you understand yourselves and each other, and encourage getting out of your comfort zone. These things can reinforce the idea that effort and perseverance are more important than ability or talent, and that the very process of learning and growing can be fun and rewarding at every age and stage of life.

Highlight the Value of Asking for Help
We don’t have to do hard things alone–and as high-performing people, we should understand the value of delegating tasks and asking for help when we need it! An experienced clinical psychologist can work with you or your child to develop the healthy coping strategies critical to living a happy, balanced life.

 

Balance, Fulfillment, and Success for High-Performing Families

Navigating parenthood as a high-performer requires a mindful approach to your mental health and that of your child. It’s not about abandoning your desire for success–but redefining your idea of “success” to include holistic well-being, if it doesn’t already.

Encouraging resilience, curiosity, and self-compassion in your child can help you practice these qualities yourself, equipping both of you with the skills necessary to achieve balance, fulfillment, and yes–success!