Doing so, the study says, can work against helping kids become well-adjusted and successful later in life.
"When parents emphasize children's achievement much more than their compassion and decency during the formative years, they are sowing the seeds of stress and poorer well-being, seen as early as sixth grade," said Suniya Luthar, a Foundation professor of psychology at Arizona State University (ASU) and one of the co-authors of the study.
"In order to foster well-being and academic success during the critical years surrounding early adolescence, our findings suggest that parents should accentuate kindness and respect for others at least as much as (or more than) stellar academic performance and extracurricular accolades."
The researchers examined underlying patterns on scores based on children's perceptions of their parents' achievement emphasis (relative to children's kindness to others). These patterns on perceived achievement emphasis were compared against the children's school performance and actions as measured by grade point average and in-class behaviors.
Luthar said that the best outcomes were among children who perceived their mothers and fathers as each valuing kindness toward others as much as, or more than, achievements. Much poorer outcomes were seen among children who perceived either mothers or fathers valuing their achievements more highly than they valued being kind to others. These youth experienced more internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, externalizing or acting out behaviors and lower self-esteem, as well as more parental criticism. And paradoxically given their parents high emphases on achievements, these students also had lower GPAs, and were reported by teachers to have more learning problems and disruptive behavior at school